According to the data, the two most “churched” areas in the United States are Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Salt Lake City, Utah, which are both 59 percent churched. The areas of Augusta-Aiken, Georgia, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ranked as the third and fourth most churched cities, being 57 percent churched.

As trends show that church attendance is decreasing in the United States, the evangelical polling organization Barna Group recently released data revealing which of America’s cities are the most “churched,” “unchurched,” “dechurched” and “post-Christian.”

Using data compiled through telephone and online interviews with 76,505 randomly sampled adults over a seven-year period that ended in April 2016, Barna claims that it was able to break down American cities, metropolitan areas and its respondents into three different metrics related to church attendance.

Those who have attended a regular church service (excluding events like wedding or funeral) in the past seven days were categorized as “churched,” while those who said that they have not attended a regular church service in the past six months were classified as “unchurched.”

Thirdly, those who said they used to be somewhat or very active churchgoers but have not attended a church service in the past six months were identified as “dechurched.”

Based on the data, about 38 percent of respondents reported to be active churchgoers. Forty-three percent of respondents were classified as “unchurched” and 34 percent were classified as “dechurched.”

Barna analyzed the data based on the Designated Market Area of the respondents. The research has a maximum margin of sampling error of ±0.4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.

According to the data, the two most “churched” areas in the United States are Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Salt Lake City, Utah, which are both 59 percent churched. The areas of Augusta-Aiken, Georgia, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ranked as the third and fourth most churched cities, being 57 percent churched. The area of Birmingham-Anniston-Tuscaloosa, Alabama, ranked as the fifth most churched area at 56 percent churched.

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