Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States, may fall below 1 million members by the end of the year, as reported in a recent study.
The PC(USA) Interim Unified Agency published its annual report on church statistics, revealing that the denomination lost nearly 49,000 members in 2024, decreasing from approximately 1.094 million members in 2023 to about 1.045 million last year.
The number of active members in 2024 is also approximately 150,000 fewer than reported in 2021, with church elders dropping from about 56,900 in 2021 to 51,400 last year. Furthermore, member congregations decreased by 140, from 8,572 churches in 2023 to 8,432 churches in 2024.
Despite these declines, there were increases in financial giving, with regular contributions to the denomination increasing from about $1.802 billion in 2023 to roughly $2.26 billion last year. Additionally, there was a rise in baptisms over the past few years. Baptisms "presented by others" increased from 7,511 in 2021 to 7,826 in 2024, while baptisms at confirmation grew from 972 in 2021 to 1,351 last year.
The denomination reported a slight increase in members identifying as "Non-Binary/Genderqueer," rising from 1,547 in 2023 to 1,728 in 2024.
Over recent decades, PC(USA) has experienced significant declines in membership and the number of active congregations. While the denomination had more than 2.5 million members in 2000, the total has now decreased to just over 1 million.
Last November, PC(USA) announced it would reduce several national staff positions and streamline its agencies and ministries largely due to the denominational decline. A contributing factor to this decline is the denomination's theologically progressive direction, prompting hundreds of congregations to disaffiliate from PC(USA) in protest.
In 2010, when the PC(USA) General Assembly voted to allow regional bodies to ordain non-celibate homosexuals, the decision led around 300 congregations to leave the denomination and form the theologically conservative ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. Following this, PC(USA) dropped below the 2-million-member mark in 2011, according to data released in 2012.
