Andrew Johnson said he’s usually at Hixson Presbyterian Church a couple of times a week, if not three.
“It’s definitely pivotal to my faith,” he said by phone this week.
With this habit, Johnson, 24, of Soddy-Daisy, stands out. A recent poll found rates of worship attendance in Hamilton County have been dwindling.
Pockets of organized devotion remain, and area religious leaders said some institutions showed notable vibrancy after the pandemic. Researchers have found the vast majority of Americans reported similar levels of religious service attendance before and after the COVID-19 crisis. Meanwhile, Hamilton County residents are more likely than the average American to regularly attend a religious service – and a Christian one in particular.
But a Chattanooga Times Free Press voter poll found the area is not exempt from a nationwide trend: Far fewer people around here are regularly attending religious services than they were 12 years ago, and far more report rarely or never going at all.