This year will go down as having the lowest level of construction of religious buildings in the United States since private records started in 1967. More specifically, Ben Leubsdorf notes the following statistics in his recent piece in the Wall Street Journal:
- space: 10.3 million square feet of religious construction is projected this year, down 6% from 2013 and 80% since construction peaked in 2002 ( Dodge Data & Analytics)
- dollars: spending on construction totaled $3.15 billion last year, down by half from a decade earlier (Commerce Department)
So What?
From 1990 to 2013 American charitable contributions have nearly doubled (in inflation adjusted dollars), but charitable giving to religious groups has remained stable (Giving USA Foundation). During this same time period the country has become less religious as more people are opting to self-identify as not affiliated with any religion and as fewer people attend a service of worship during any given week.
If the economy remains strong it is reasonable to expect a small increase in religious construction in 2015. I do not, however, believe we will ever again during my lifetime return to the 2002 level of construction.
- In what year did your local congregation last complete work for a construction project? Are any projects planned for 2015 or 2016?
- Share one way your congregation has become more intentional about using its limited space well, especially in purposing varying spaces for a wide variety of use cases.