Computer-generated prayer? How AI is changing faith.
Earlier this summer, activists protested the proposed demolition of West-Park Presbyterian, a historic church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. One reason the church was struggling to keep its doors open: It had a congregation of just 12 people.
West-Park Presbyterian’s challenges are somewhat common. In-person engagement in religious services has declined since 2019, according to a November 2022 Pew Research Center survey that also found that the “share of all U.S. adults who say they typically attend religious services at least once a month is down modestly but measurably,” from 33% in 2019 to 30% in 2022.
Most congregations in the United States are small, and getting smaller. Median attendance size in weekly worship services fell from 137 to 65 attendees between 2000 and 2020, according to a recent report by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
“Many of these very small congregations are, if not on the verge of collapse, in a very close state to it,” says Scott
