CHURCHES FACE COVID HARDSHIPS
Biltmore United Methodist Church of Asheville, N.C., is for sale.
Already financially strapped because of shrinking membership and a struggling preschool, the congregation was dealt a crushing blow by the coronavirus. Attendance plummeted, with many staying home or switching to other churches that stayed open the whole time. Gone, too, is the revenue the church formerly got from renting its space for events and meetings.
Biltmore is just one of an untold number of congregations across the country that have struggled to stay afloat financially and minister to their flocks during the pandemic, though others have managed to weather the storm, often with help from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, and sustained levels of member donations.
The coronavirus hit at a time when already fewer Americans were going to worship services — with at least half of the nearly 15,300 congregations surveyed in a 2020 report by Faith Communities Today reporting weekly attendance of 65 or less — and exacerbated the problems at smaller churches.
“The pandemic didn’t change those patterns, it only made them a little bit worse,” said Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and co-chair of Faith Communities Today.
Attendance has been a persistent challenge. As faith leaders moved to return to in-person worship, first the highly transmissible Delta variant and now the even faster-spreading Omicron have thrown a wrench into such efforts.
Unlike Biltmore, Franklin Community Church, about 20 miles outside of Nashville, Tenn., doesn’t have its own sanctuary, holding services instead at a public school. That turned out to be a blessing during the pandemic, with no need to worry about a mortgage, upkeep, insurance or utilities.
“We wouldn’t have survived if we’d had all that,” said the Rev. Kevin Riggs, the church’s pastor.
Still, it has been a battle. During the 15 months that services at Franklin went online-only, some members left for other congregations or got out of the habit of giving, according to Riggs.
More broadly, various other surveys and reports show a mixed picture on congregational giving nationwide.
Gifts to religious organizations grew by 1 percent to just over $131 billion in 2020, a year when Americans also donated a record $471 billion overall to charity, according to an annual report by GivingUSA. Separately, a September survey of 1,000 protestant pastors by the evangelical firm Lifeway Research found about half of congregations received roughly what they budgeted for last year, with 27 percent getting less than anticipated and 22 percent getting more.