Having spent more of my life in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) than in any other denomination, I’ve paid close attention to its membership trends. The story of decline has been with the denomination since its creation in 1983.
Decline Slows
This week, the PC(USA) released its 2025 statistical report. Two numbers captured my attention:
- Total Membership: The denomination still has more than one million members (1,019,003).
- Membership Decline: Membership declined by 2.6% from 2024 to 2025, the smallest annual percentage decline in a decade (annual decline over that time period averaged 4.6%.)
Wider Perspective
In 2020, I examined the denomination’s first 35 years and found that membership had fallen 56.8%, from 3,131,228 in 1983 to 1,352,678 in 2018. I also noted that the pace of decline had accelerated with each passing decade:
- 1988-1998 – 11.9%
- 1998-2008 – 17.3%
- 2008-2018 – 36.8%
Since then, the decline has continued. Membership has fallen from 1,352,678 in 2018 to 1,019,003 in 2025, resulting in a loss of 333,675 members, or 24.7%, in just seven years.
So What?
The encouraging development is that the rate of decline slowed in 2025. The challenge is that even if the denomination continues to decline at this improved annual rate of 2.6%, it will fall below one million members next year as a 2.6% decline from the current membership of 1,019,003 would result in approximately 992,509 members.
When the PC(USA) was formed in June 1983, it reported 3,131,228 members. The denomination first fell below 3 million in 1987 and below 2 million in 2011. Based on current trends, it is poised to fall below 1 million in the next year.
The timeline is striking. It took 24 years for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to decline from 3 million to 2 million members. It will likely take only 14 years to decline from 2 million to 1 million.
More About the Decline
To learn more about this topic, check out these posts
- Another Church Closes: Saying Goodbye to Covenant Presbyterian After 70 Years (2026)
- Aging Presbyterians: 3 in 5 PCUSA Members Now Over Age 55 (2024)
- The PC(USA) is Missing 2.6 Million People! (2023)
- End of Presbyterianism: Farewell PC(USA)? (2023)
- The Median Presbyterian (PCUSA) Congregation (2023)
- PC(USA) Membership – 30 Years of Decline (2023)
- PC(USA) Membership Declines by 62% (2022)
- PC(USA) Membership Declines by “Only 50K” (2020)
- Presbyterian Decline: PCUSA -The First 35 Years (2020)
Or to understand the impact of decline beyond this one denomination, see My Religion is Dying: A Deep Dive into Mainline Decline, (2024). It brings together links to more than 50 blog posts I’ve written on the subject, covering both the membership trends of individual mainline denominations and the larger story of mainline Protestant decline.