Fewer than a third of churchgoers read the Bible daily: Lifeway
Fewer than one in three Protestants who attend church services at least once a month read the Bible on a daily basis, according to a recent report from Lifeway Research.
A report published Tuesday, based on The Lifeway Research State of Discipleship study, found that 31% of Protestant churchgoers read the Bible every day, while 30% do so a few times a week.
Additionally, 14% of respondents said they read the Bible once a week, 11% said they engage in it a few times a month, 5% said they only read it once a month, while 9% said they “rarely or never” do so.
According to Lifeway, the Bible reading rates have gone up compared to past years. For example, in 2007, only 16% of respondents said they read the Bible daily, while in 2012, it was 19% of respondents.
Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, was quoted in the report as noting that the number of daily Bible readers has remained fairly steady since 2019.
“The portion of churchgoers reading the Bible a few times a week or more on their own has leveled off recently after rising dramatically since 2007, but the churchgoer population was also changing during this period,” stated McConnell.
“A lower percentage of Americans attend a Protestant church once a month today than when this series of studies began. Clearly, the remnant of Americans attending church each month are more willing to regularly read the Bible on their own than when churches were more populated.”
Data for the report came from an online survey of 2,130 Protestant churchgoers conducted March 19-26, 2025, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.21% at the 95% confidence level.
The report also found that 74% of Protestant churchgoers said “the Bible has authority over every area of their lives,” while 15% of respondents were unsure and 11% disagreed.
Additionally, 72% of respondents found themselves “thinking about biblical truths throughout the day,” while 19% were not sure, and 10% of respondents disagreed.
In a 2019 report, Lifeway Research found that 32% of regular churchgoers read their Bible on a daily basis, while 27% said that they read Scripture a few times a week, and 12% said they rarely to never read the Bible.
Regarding the 2019 study, Dirk Smith, vice president of the Bible distribution ministry Eastern European Mission, said in an op-ed published by The Christian Post last year that he believed the numbers were because of “the culture we’ve built around distraction, quick fixes and shallow spirituality.”
“We take the Bible for granted and allow ourselves to ‘unwind’ by doom scrolling — only to increase anxiety and depression levels,” he added. “The consequences are undeniable. Weak churches, weary Christians and a restless society searching for peace in all the wrong places.”
“The growing churches in America right now aren’t the ones with the flashiest worship teams or trendiest branding. They’re the ones that open the Bible and teach it line by line, verse by verse, book by book.”
