By Jeffrey Walton, Juicy Ecumenism.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) is gradually shifting into a new role as a shrunken denomination of mostly tiny churches, according to statistics released this week by the mainline Protestant denomination.
In 2024 the PC(USA) shrank by 48,885 members, down to 1,045,848 (4.5%). The steady decline of about 4.5 percent per year is mostly consistent across the past decade after accelerating earlier. Presbyterians also saw 140 local churches either dissolved or dismissed to other denominations, still counting 8,432 total. Across the entire denomination, only four churches were planted in 2024, the lowest number in memory (the average had been nearly 30 new churches planted each year between 1995-2005).
On track to drop below one million members sometime this year, the PC(USA) will have less than one-third of the 3.1 million members that it counted when formed in reunion of two predecessor bodies in 1983. Peak membership was in 1965, with 4.25 million members in the two denominations that later merged.
Large churches have declined in number precipitously. In 2021, 919 PC(USA) local churches had more than 800 members, in 2024 that was only 367. Two-thirds of congregations have fewer than 100 members, while 22.7% have 25 or less.
While more than a third of Presbyterians are age 71 or older, and nearly 60 percent are age 56 or higher (significantly older than the U.S. population), deaths don’t explain the majority of membership loss: only 20,420 deaths were recorded in 2024, far less than the total membership drop of 48,885. The total number of deaths recorded in the denomination has actually decreased each year.