One of the biggest holy days of the church calendar year is days away, but 1 in 5 Americans still may not know whether or not they’ll attend Easter services on Sunday, according to a new LifeWay Research survey.
And while 20 percent of survey respondents said they remain undecided, nearly 40 percent say they won’t be attending church at all Easter weekend–including about half of those who say they rarely go to church.
“Easter is the greatest celebration of the Christian faith,” said LifeWay Research director Scott McConnell. “The extra excitement and higher attendance intrigues many who do not attend regularly.”
A previous LifeWay survey found that Easter is among the top three highest-attended Sundays of the year for most churches. But don’t count on 100-percent Easter-Sunday attendance among all Christians.
This year, LifeWay found that “just over half of self-identified Christians say they will attend Easter services. Protestants (58 percent) and Catholics (57 percent) are most likely to say they plan on attending Easter services, followed by 45 percent of nondenominational Christians.”
CT routinely covers the topic of Easter. Later this week, look for Philip Yancey’s piece, “National Tragedy and the Empty Tomb,” a reflection on Easter in light of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School last December.
CT’s sister publication Leadership Journal previously has written about ‘reaching the Christmas and Easter crowd,” and Christian History also published “the most celebrated Easter sermon.”
