The Counties with the Most Churches—and Millions Still Unreached

Drive through almost any American city, and you will see church buildings everywhere. Some occupy prominent downtown corners. Others meet in storefronts, schools, warehouses, and theaters. Their visible presence can create the impression that their communities have already been thoroughly reached.

The data tell a different story.

The 2020 U.S. Religion Census counted more than 350,000 congregations and over 160 million adherents nationwide. It is the most comprehensive census of American religious congregations and the only nationwide source providing religious-adherence information at the county level.

For this analysis, we examined five counties with exceptionally large numbers of congregations. We then ranked them from the lowest to the highest percentage of residents identified as religious adherents.

Before looking at the implications, we need to understand the term “adherent.” It is a generous measure of connection to a faith community. Adherents include members, their children, and other people whom a congregation considers participants. An adherent is not necessarily someone who attends worship regularly—or even occasionally.

We used adherence because reliable worship-attendance data are not available for every county in America. If anything, the generous definition makes the findings more striking. Millions of people in these five counties do not have even this broadly defined connection to a religious congregation.

Here are five observations from the data.

A large number of churches does not mean a community has been reached.

Los Angeles County has 5,645 congregations, more than any other county in this group. Yet nearly half of its population is not counted as an adherent. That represents approximately 4.9 million people.

Church buildings are not the same as gospel penetration. A county can have thousands of congregations and still contain one of the largest mission fields in the nation.

The number of unreached people is staggering.

These five counties have more than 16,500 congregations combined. Even so, approximately 12.3 million residents are not counted as adherents of any participating religious body.

The numbers are difficult to comprehend. The population without a faith connection in these five counties alone is larger than the total population of most states. We are not describing a small group on the fringes. We are describing millions of people living within driving distance of thousands of congregations.

Many churches may be reaching the same people.

A community can have a large number of churches without those churches reaching a broad segment of its population. Congregations may be transferring members among themselves, serving increasingly narrow constituencies, or concentrating primarily on people who already have church backgrounds.

Church growth is not always community penetration. Sometimes it is simply the redistribution of existing churchgoers.

The mission field is not limited to traditionally secular regions.

Los Angeles and Chicago may not surprise many readers. Dallas and Houston probably will. Both Texas cities are located in a state widely associated with evangelical Christianity, yet about four out of ten residents in their counties are not identified even as religious adherents.

Church leaders should not assume that a Southern location means their communities have been reached. Cultural familiarity with Christianity can disguise a significant absence of meaningful connection to a local church.

Churches must measure more than their own attendance.

A church can grow while its community becomes less connected to congregations. Leaders naturally monitor worship attendance, giving, groups, and other internal measures. Those numbers matter, but they tell us only what is happening inside one congregation.

Churches must also ask what percentage of their community has no meaningful faith connection. The most important number may not be how many people attend our church, but how many people around us remain disconnected from any church.

One distinction is essential. These are five church-rich counties selected for comparison. They are not necessarily the five counties with the lowest religious participation in America. Also, the census includes religious congregations beyond Christian churches, making the measure of faith connection broader still.

The larger lesson remains clear. The presence of many churches should never lead us to assume that a community has been reached. In some of America’s most church-filled counties, millions of people remain disconnected from any congregation. The mission field is not somewhere else. It surrounds our churches.

Note: You can discover the number of unchurched people in your community and their receptivity to the gospel and an invitation to church with this tool.

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