Church attendance has edged down in recent years. Gallup’s latest yearly update from its daily tracking survey shows that in 2017, 38% of adults said they attended religious services weekly or almost every week. When Gallup began asking this question in 2008, that figure was 42%.

Gallup has asked a different question in its polls going back to the 1950s: “Did you, yourself, happen to attend church, synagogue or mosque in the last seven days, or not?” That number, too, has been edging down over the years. It was as high as 49% in the mid-1950s, but has been in the mid-30% range in recent years.

A lot of attention has been paid to reasons for the decline in participation in formal religious services. One potential explanation that doesn’t receive as much attention as others is the impact of the quality of religious leaders at the church level. Much of our Gallup research for business and industry focuses on the importance of managers for employee engagement — summed up by the statement, “Workers don’t quit companies; they quit managers.” It’s […]