A church in the heart of the city, with a heart for the city

Wisconsin priest’s survey of thousands of churches aims to pinpoint what fuels growth

May 13, 2026

[Episcopal News Service] When the Rev. Chris Corbin looks at The Episcopal Church’s membership and attendance numbers, he sees bright spots. Corbin, a priest in the Diocese of Wisconsin, has launched a project with backing from Forward Movement called the Growing Episcopal Churches Study. In it, he already has obtained survey responses from hundreds of Episcopal churches, and hopes to potentially hear from thousands more, to help pinpoint what factors makes some “bright spots” churches thrive compared to others. “We need to be clearheaded,” Corbin told Episcopal News Service in a recent phone interview. The churchwide numbers may be alarming, but he wants to counter the narrative of denominational decline. “In the midst of this decline, there are significant bright spots of churches that either are consistently able to grow or are able to come back [after the pandemic], not just to pre-COVID levels but better. … What are they doing differently that other churches are not doing?” Corbin is rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Oshkosh, and as a statistically minded priest, he is on the hunt for data that supports narratives of growth. One way Corbin hopes to differentiate his research from past studies is by going beyond anecdotal examples to mine robust quantitative data on growth factors. To obtain that data, he is asking more than 5,600 of the denomination’s congregations to complete his three-part survey by May 27. Corbin obtained parochial report data from all 6,000 or so U.S.-based Episcopal congregations to compare attendance figures since 2011. He chose to exclude those with average Sunday attendance of 15 or less, not because those churches don’t matter, but statistically “you can’t really discern meaningful signals about growth and decline” in numbers that small. He then collected contact information for the congregations through The Episcopal Church Asset Map, direct inquiries to dioceses, and online searches. Working with Forward Movement, he sent a first round of surveys to congregations in the fall, asking them a range of questions about parish life and congregational culture: How do you welcome new attendees? Do priests preach about evangelism? What fellowship events does the congregation organize, and how often? The three-part survey includes a total of 144 such questions, and so far more than 600 congregations have completed at least one section of the survey. Corbin launched a new phase of outreach to congregations this spring to further boost survey response rates. “Forward Movement is funding this research, because at a time of rapid change in the church it’s important for us all to understand what’s working and what’s not working,” the Rev. Scott Gunn, Forward Movement’s executive director, said in a written statement to ENS. “We have a mandate from the gospel to make disciples of all nations, so we need to see how we’re doing.” The church has attempted to make similar assessments in the past, and some of the conclusions have helped inform the church’s efforts at revitalization. Forward Movement, for example, backed a project called RenewalWorks that in 2018 released a report on church vitality that found many Episcopalians hunger for spiritual enrichment but don’t always find it at their churches. That study identified four key catalysts for spiritual growth in congregations: engagement with Scripture, the transforming power of the Eucharist, a deeper prayer life and a strong congregational leader. “Not surprisingly, congregations that prioritize intentional discipleship are more likely to be thriving,” Gunn told ENS. “But the reason to make disciples is not to have a larger church, but to transform lives through encounters with the living and true God. When lives are transformed, a visible fruit of that work is church growth.” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, since taking office in November 2024, has emphasized that some of the most important gospel work takes place at the level of the church’s dioceses and local congregations. Some of the churchwide support for those efforts is now being led by the Rev. Jason Shank, hired in June 2025 as the church’s interim church planting network specialist. Shank, in a written statement to ENS, said the data being collected and analyzed by Corbin could be invaluable in helping the church develop plans for revitalization. “Chris’s systematic approach to understanding what is working well — and identifying church revitalization practices that can be replicated in other locations — is essential to advancing the gospel message,” Shank said. “The more clearly we understand effective ministry models and methods, the better equipped we are to support dioceses and communities throughout The Episcopal Church.” At the same time, the recent downward trends at the churchwide level are undeniable. In 2023, the most recent year with available membership data, The Episcopal Church reported 1.5 million total members, down by about 500,000 members over the previous decade. Average Sunday attendance, which also had been declining gradually, dropped more sharply when the pandemic hit in 2020. It has since stabilized at about 410,000 Sunday worshipers, still down nearly a third from the 600,000 recorded in 2014. Corbin’s own congregation in Oshkosh has “a pretty sophisticated tracking system” for people who attend on Sundays. Trinity, he says, counts its worshippers based on several categories, including active members, regular attendees who are not yet members, and visitors who may become regular attendees. Average Sunday attendance at Trinity is about 60, slightly above the congregation’s pre-pandemic average and well above the churchwide median of 39 in 2023. Through his preliminary analysis of parochial report data and U.S. census figures, Corbin already has divided those congregations into four groups: a “growth” group (159 congregations) with sustained attendance growth, a “bounce back” group (311) that previously declined but have shown new signs of life, a “decline” group (1,293), and the rest (3,916) grouped together as “representative” for comparison. The response rate so far is about 12%. Corbin said his ideal response result would be 40%, but to reach even a rate of at least 20% would provide “extremely solid data.” Forward Movement then likely […]