Words Americans use to describe attending church today
Percent of U.S. adults choosing each description, 2025 (in percent)
Key finding
Highest: Acceptable (38%). Lowest: Useless (5%).
- Acceptable: 38%
- Admirable: 31%
- Common: 28%
Source: Lifeway Research, Americans Have Higher Church Attendance Standards Than Pastors · Lifeway Research online survey of 1,200 Americans; sampling error plus or minus 3.3%. Article published 2025-04-22.
See all 8 categories, the full chart and more
Free account: full chart, CSV and PNG downloads, ready-to-paste citation, branded share image, and a discussion question for your team.
Questions about this statistic
What does this statistic show?
Highest: Acceptable (38%). Lowest: Useless (5%). Acceptable: 38%. Admirable: 31%. Common: 28%.
Who published this data?
Lifeway Research, 2025. Source: Lifeway Research, Americans Have Higher Church Attendance Standards Than Pastors (https://research.lifeway.com/2025/04/22/americans-have-higher-church-attendance-standards-than-pastors/).
Where can I get the full data and a citation?
Create a free Leader Insights account to open the full chart, download CSV or PNG, copy a citation and save the statistic to your own library.
More Attendance statistics
- Change in congregations' worship attendance over two years Lifeway Research, 2026
- Churchgoers' views on the amount of liturgical style in their church Lifeway Research, 2026
- Regular religious service attendance by age group Lifeway Research, 2026
- Share of all Protestant churchgoers who attend megachurches Lifeway Research, 2026
- Americans who attend church weekly Public Religion Research Institute, 2025
- Americans who belong to a church, synagogue or mosque Gallup, 2025
About this data
Leader Insights collects statistics about U.S. churches from published research by organizations such as Lifeway Research, Barna Group, Springtide, the American Bible Society and PRRI. Every number is checked against the wording of the original source before it is published, and each statistic links back to the study it came from. Figures are reproduced from the publishers named above; see the source for full methodology.