I live in Thailand, and the woman that cleans our house comes from a small village in the hills of Thailand. There is no cell phone reception. There is only solar electricity. You need 4-wheel drive to make it on the dirt road into town. That village has a Catholic Church. It does not have a Buddhist temple or Protestant church.
It's really the model that's hurting the PCA's growth. While you can just grab and go at Panda Express, you have to order ahead of time at PCA (Panda Call Ahead).
Oddly, the country with the largest percentage of the population that's Lutheran isn't the U.S., Germany, or any of the Scandanavian countries. It's Namibia!
I have a feeling that the reason why so many Lutheran churches are located in the upper Midwest and Pennsylvania, is because those where the areas with the highest concentration of German immigrants during the 19th and 20th centuries. For the most part, the majority of German immigrants into America, at the time, were Lutheran.
German and Irish ancestry and live in Pennsylvania. Tons of Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches here, but we’ve got just about every denomination, even Eastern Orthodox.
That’s true. My grandfather was Lutheran when he and his parents immigrated to the United States. He met a Catholic woman in Philadelphia. And needless to say, everyone in my family has been Catholic ever since! Lol
I used to work for a company that sold products to churches all over the USA. I legitimately started thinking of the United Methodists as “the McDonalds of churches” because they were so ubiquitous and all had identical branding. At least with the Roman Catholic congregations you had different names-Saint So-and-so, Our Lady of Such-and-such, etc.
One thing I respect about the UMC is that no town is too small. I live in a town of 105 people with a UMC church. A couple miles away in one direction is a town of about 2,000 with one. A few miles away in another direction is a town of about 50 people with a UMC church. As far as I know, every single tiny little town in my county has at least one UMC church with no less than 2 services per week.
here in Indonesia the naming of churches for some major Protestant denominations also work like that. For instance, the Protestant Christian Batak Church (HKBP) would have churches named like "HKBP Jalan Uskup Agung Sugiopranoto" - Archbishop Sugiopranoto Street Protestant Christian Batak Church (it's a real church name, interestingly enough the street is named after a Roman Catholic archbishop who's a national hero) The Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) also uses this practice, leading to some interesting church names such as "GKI Maulana Yusuf" - Maulana Yusuf Street Indonesian Christian Church (the street is named after a Bantenese sultan who's also a national hero) and "GKI Wahid Hasyim" - Wahid Hasyim Street Indonesian Christian Church (the street is named after an Islamic clergy and a renowned national hero)
@@jdcsiahaanInteresting. I, myself an Indonesian have seen churches mostly named by their existing places, respectively. Such as GBI Pasar Baru. Or, some kind of hope that the new soon-to-be church will had impact on the community, like GBI Harapan Indah , or GBI Miracle. I couldn't really show much of an example since i'm mostly drawn to GBI and didn't really exploring much places. For the catholics parishes here also uses similar format like anywhere else, Like Santo/Santa ____, our lady of ______. Sadly there's not much of protestant church named after some saint or close to be potrayed as one, the reason to that mostly because the VAST majority (i would argue over 95%) of Indonesian protestant churches are Charismatic or hold charismatic and evangelical value, even Lutheran churches like HKBP is pretty split on this topic, when they're literally "LUTHERAN" as the name suggest, some congregation of the church is very charismatic. Hence, we don't get many protestant churches named after some holy person.
I have a theory as to why the LCMS is more common in these cities than the ELCA. As a Minnesotan, I notice that in the cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul), the ELCA seems to dominate, but in more rural areas the LCMS is more common. I think that this is because of the urban/rural political divide, and the fact that the LCMS is not a conservative breakaway from the ELCA, like the PCA and ACNA, but a well established denomination. I think Lutherans have the biggeset divide between conservative and liberal churches.
Dude, your work is EXCELLENT. I really appreciate your approach: No invective, no snark, no grandstanding. No attempt to sacrifice accuracy to amp-up the entertainment value. Just an arms-length, calm, objective, charitable, and easily-understood presentation of the data. Kudos! P.S. Have you considered teaching journalism lessons to that cavalcade of defectives who operate (and present on) cable news television? I'd happily replace the whole lot of them, the writers, producers, editors, on-air personalities, pretend-fact-checkers, tendentious spinners, weasely talking-head guests, and all, with an identical number of clones of YOU.
Alright, which one of you is the russian spy and when did you show up here!? WAS IT DURING THE COLD WAR YOU GODLESS HEATHEN?!? sorry I lost my composure but real talk that still a cool name even in america lmao.
Another great video. Always on point. 👍🏻. The main thing I appreciate is that you don’t criticize or draw attention to yourself in your videos. You just state the facts and let the audience think for themselves. Other RU-vidrs need to learn from this.
As someone who grew up in Illinois, I was *shocked* at the map of Lutherans! I had no idea they weren't as common everywhere else as they are in IL/WI! I knew there's a lot of German immigration history in thr upper widwest, but I thought they were everywhere else, *too*
I've been doing an overview of theology and denominational doctrines, so I've been bouncing around your channel. Pop this video up, and, well what do you know, it's talking about my town! Super cool to see the dispersion of the different denominations but also see our city's church influence brought to light. Perhaps it'd interest you to know that I learned about a few new ones I had no idea about from your video. Crazy how that works... Thanks for your videos - your style is engaging, extremely informative, and has certainly been making for some good conversations.
Thank you so much for your videos they're extremely informative and they seem trustworthy in their lack of bias content I look forward to watching as many as I can consume
Very nice study, with good parameters, and I liked your use of the fast-food comparisons. Well done! Again as in the past, informative and instructive.
I enjoy your insights. There are so many things going on in the church today. Covid has not destroyed our churches, but it may have revealed the fact that the church has been teetering on its heels and some have fallen and will not or cannot get up. I will continue to look for additional postings.
Let go!!! Arkansas made the list!!!! Searcy happens to be pretty heavy Church Of Christ since they have a local COC University there. The main SBC Church there is pretty big though for that size of city.
I was about to comment the same thing! My grandparents are COC and live there. And my dad went to Harding! I was so excited to see this city used as an example😍
@@Mulerider4Life you must have been after the "Songs of the Church" era. The hymnal that dominated in the 70s and 80s was called "Songs of the Church;" 728-B was the ubiquitous "Our God, He is Alive." You could count on singing it several times a month.
@@footofjuniper8212 oh gotcha. Nah I never went to Harding. You can probably guess my alumni place though. My twin sister did graduate there and my stepdad with for a semester. Very pretty campus for sure. Cool Basketball Gym as well. Obviously not in agreement exactly with their theology, but have many friends in that denomination.
As someone who lives near Moscow, I was confused to hear that there wasn’t a Reformed church, but turns out the one I was thinking of just had “reformed” in the name and is in fact not a part of that denomination.
If it has "reformed" in the name, it probably it really is part of the Calvinist tradition, and R to H simply missed it. To a large extent, Calvinist churches are not very hierarchical. Each congregation can decide about affiliation with a larger group. If it decides to switch affiliation, it doesn't lose its building, as will typically happen with episcopal churches (including Methodist).
This was very interesting and informative. I live in Little Rock, not far from Searcy. I'm originally from California, but the Los Angeles area, quite a ways northwest from Brawley (but I've been to Brawley, and everyone was super friendly). My parents live in Idaho. My husband and I used to live in South Dakota. I have not been to Hazleton, PA or Key West, FL, but my husband and I are planning to visit Key West soon.
It would be interesting to see this kind of video on an international level. For instance seeing the top few denominations in each country by attendance. Maybe do a few videos broken into regions as that would get kind of long. Or maybe just show a graph with the stats, mention trends and point out anything surprising.
absolutely had this conversation exact conversation before. Before this was made and after it! I am getting frisson because we have this similar interest and you are making videos about it. I watch lots of videos about construction and trains. but i always wanted there to be a video channel like yours and there is one! i'm coming from a weird tradition. but I like it. I think you are way more concise than me. I'm seeing this video and channel for the first time today really. but I love how I have talked about this informally, even the mcdonalds subway comparison. even since this video was published i've had conversations like this. but i love how you actually do the work. I'm just so excited man this rocks.
Well done per usual. I noted that you had total congregations for a few of those that were in all 6 of your sample cities (and matching that with the fast food franchises - which is quite clever and relatable) but not all. I would have liked to have seen that for all that were in each of the 6 locations.
I appreciate this. Speaking of my own denomination, the AME Church (and likely all Black denominations). The tendency of seeing a Black Church in any town/city is based on Black population. And this population is usually based on two factors: slavery and the Great Migration.
Years ago, I attended a predominantly black and Hispanic Pentecostal church. Every now and then there would a white couple or a single white person that attended. For a short while there was a white gentleman with a beard but he had short hair. During the Holiday season, the leadership decided to do a Christmas play, and guess who they approached to play the roll of Jesus. I remember watching the rehearsals and feeling something is awkwardly not right about this.
What do the AME believe? All these denominations really confuse me. I just recently looked into Pentecostals and “Christian” Mormons, but they seem extremely creepy to me
Within my consolidated city/county in Georgia (pop. around 200K) there are: 4 Catholic Churches (the one I attend has a few thousand congregants) I'd say around 4 or 5 Lutheran churches, probably mostly ELCA but certainly one LCMS At least one Mormon, JW, and Seventh-Day Adventist church A few Pentacostal churches, including a big one with some cool cross tower on the lawn near the street Maybe one Orthodox church, one synagogue, and a mosque; not sure about Hindu or Buddhist places of worship Quite a few Presbyterian churches (mostly PCUSA) Probably around that many AME churches A Unitarian Universalist congregation A few non-denominational churches, plus some that primarily worship in Spanish All the rest are a number (probably hundreds) of Baptist and Methodist churches, though the former certainly outnumbers the latter and probably comprises the majority of Christians overall in the county (we're one of 159 in the state; we just happen to be probably one of the largest by pop outside of the Atlanta area)
Hey, Josh, if you ever remake this, could you please include the Orthodox? Particularly Eastern + Western Rite parishes? Western Rite seems to be up and coming. It'd be interesting to keep track of their growth. Eastern is of course heavily dependent on region, but there are often some in smaller towns like those you focus on here.
This video is really well done and this was a fun comparison! I live rather close to Moscow, and it's interesting to note that it's pretty diverse with its religious congregations because it's also the home of the University of Idaho. Having the college students come in every fall almost doubles the population, resulting in more congregants. I'm curious if there is any other context like that for the other five towns, it would be interesting to think how it could affect their church population.
@@EvelynElaineSmith Probably closer to 70%. Pocatello, as a railroad hub, has traditionally had a higher non-LDS proportion of its population than any other part of eastern Idaho. Idaho Falls is also far from 95% due to employment at the Idaho National Laboratory. My cousin pastors a Baptist Church there.
I was researching my family tree and found most my family had been Methodist since it’s inception and was what played a huge part in them all coming over to America (to escape the Church of England) this all is so fascinating!!!!
Sir, I really appreciate your content. I watched your _EO vs. OO_ video the other day and I was wondering whether you could make a video series about the theological differences of the Oriental-Orthodox churches and what theology and practice is unique to each of them. I know that you touched on this a little bit, but I think a deep dive video series would be really cool! Armenian-Apostolic greetings!
EO here with a shout out to my Armenian Apostolic Brother! I saw that video sometime ago also and was very very impressed with the deep dive he did on that. I would like to see another video going a little deeper into the doctrinal differences. But those things do not preclude any cooperation between the EO and the OO. At my EO Church we have a Coptic Parish that uses our Fellowship Hall once a month since they are too small to have own their own building.
@@philmattox8500 Thanks, shout out to you, too :) I still really hope he does make another OO video :D Yeah this happens when a community is too small. Would be better if they had their own building.
Excellent video! I'm from a small town (less than a thousand people) in central West Virginia with two tiny churches, Baptist and Methodist. The next bigger town (around three thousand people) has two or three of each, and nothing else. As a kid I thought there were only two species of humans, Methodist and Baptist! (My family were Cornish miners who were all Methodists.) For any other denomination you have to drive to the Capitol city, Charleston.
I've heard it said that Billy Graham once said that "you go anywhere in the world and you'll find two things: Coca-cola and the Assemblies of God!" I've been across the US and in some small, small places in the world, and it's true! Middle of nowhere, and there's a coke machine and an A/G church. Fun video man.
I am not UPCI, but it is always nice to know that I I am traveling there might be one or similar. When traveling and away from home for a weekend, they are always an easy check.
You were talking about the difficulty in establishing the presence of a UMC church in Hazelton and then at the last moment used the name Searcy when explaining why it was important to determine whether Hazelton had a UMC church or not. :) Just a note in case you want to drop a text bug over the video at that moment. Good content, well delivered. I hope my QA habits are not offensive. I certainly don’t mean them to be.
I noticed that, too. Hazleton is far and away the most "ethnic" place on the list. It also used to vote heavily Democrat, but is now one of the most Republican parts of Pennsylvania. Back in the day, union members from eastern Europe were told to vote Democrat, and did so willingly, but recently the Democrat Party has gone too far left to retain its appeal to their children and grandchildren. Also Hazleton has had a huge influx of Hispanic immigrants over the past 20 years. That would swell the Catholic numbers there, but also the Evangelical numbers as these people do not necessarily stay Catholic.
All I'm looking for is which denomination is the Chick-fil-A of our Christian faith. High quality, genuine love, good faithful practice, and blessed lol
Interesting comparison! It was also interesting to watch your video (decline of Christianity) or what it was called - maybe an update could be in place? I am from Europe, and we have similar decline within Christianity here.
There are churches EVERYWHERE where I live. There's a catholic church in my neighborhood. Down the street is a Lutheran one, and down the street from that is a Baptist one.
@Ready to Harvest , Thank you very much for your wonderful work .I have a question, could you please make a Video about the churches representation worldwide?
I'm from Pennsylvania and although Hazleton didn't seem to have a UM they are all over Pa, in some very small towns too. Many more than Southern Baptists.
Racine WI is drowning in Lutheran Churches mostly from how we used to be a huge center of Danish culture, so much so the Queen herself had visited back in the 70s. But I was raised Catholic and for a reasons know we had at least 6 but I only attended 2. What's interesting is I remember reading Cracked article about outdated Catholic stereotypes media saying that in the US most Catholic churches don't still like cathedrals built in the middle ages. When I must be lucky then because both I grew up in looked pretty old fashioned. I also know we had exactly two Independent Baptist Churches, I'd attended both of them a long time ago, and some other varying types of Baptist Churches, I think we have a Greek Orthodox Church and a Methodist Church. And one Charismatic group who had their meetings in a random room at the local hospital.
Where I live (Sanpete County, UT, population 30,000) there are three Baptist Churches (none SBC), one non-denominational evangelical, two Presbyterian churches, two small Catholic missions, one Calvary Chapel mission (ours) and 24 Mormon congregations. Probably the last figure isn't surprising.
@@ReadyToHarvest The Baptist Church in Mt. Pleasant (Heritage Baptist Church) is Independent Baptist. What once was First Southern is now a non-denominational plant by Ephraim Church of the Bible, the non-denominational evangelical church I mentioned in my first comment. The church plant's pastor is Adam Swapp, who I know. In fact, since there are so few pastors of non-Mormon churches here, we all pretty well know each other.
@@davemitchell116 Interesting! I find it strange that they kept the website with the southern Baptist name in it. And they are still listed on the SBC website too. churches.sbc.net/church/first-southern-baptist-3/
