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).
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.
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.
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 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.
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 TH-camrs need to learn from this.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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*
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.
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).
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
It’s interesting to point out that Searcy has the largest church of Christ university in the country (Harding University). This may slightly skew the results.
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/
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 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!!!!
@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 don't think he is going to consider doing that for a long time since they are rare in America and also because it's a hard subject to cover, but who knows...
Years ago I did a lot of research on a different but related topic: which Christian Hymn-tunes are the most widespread in the USA? I had to determine which denominations used which Hymnals, then see what Hymn-tunes were in each. (Not the texts, the tunes. The same Hymn-tune might be found with dozens of different texts.) The easy denominations to study were ones with a single officially approved Hymnal like the LDS, United Methodist, Episcopal, etc. Extremely messy was the Catholic church; there are dozens of different Catholic Hymnals published by a number of competing publishing firms, who are free to sell their books to as many parishes as they can. And completely unmeasurable are the modern nondenominational "media Churches" who put the words up on giant TV screens and have made the concept of Hymnal meaningless.
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.
What about international dominance? Surely, the Seventh-day Adventist Church would rank near the top. They are far more numerous abroad than within the US.
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 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
I enjoyed you choose Seary, AK, the Mecca of churches of Christ.😂 Did you limit a presçence to 50. Çhurches of Çhrist list congegation at 2 or 3, because if you find none you are expected to begin on if you must drive more than 10 miles.
Searcy has so many church of christ congregations because of Harding University. There's actually more than 8, several of the churches aren't listed online anywhere.
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.
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.
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.
It’s really amazing to see all of this in print. From a Biblical view, I want to know the truth. I don’t just want to pick out something that suits me. It would be like making my own God. I want to find what all Jesus taught. What church goes back that far. These other churches all came about after the 1500s . I do remember He chose 12 apostles and said He would be with them until the end of time and the gates of hell would not knock down His church. So which church was His? Huh
If anyone watching this was wondering, from my quick research, only two of these cities have an orthodox church (both eastern orthodox) Key West has a Russian Orthodox Church and Hazleton has a Romanian Orthodox Church
Yeah, I had done the research as well There appears to be: 0 in Moscow, ID - Though there's 1 nearby 0 in Brawley, CA 0 in Brookings, SD 0 in Searcy, AK 1 Key West, FL 1 in Hazleton, PA
North dakota has many orthodox churches. Lots of russians and Ukrainians there. They stay north. My sister lives across the street from Ukrainian orthodox in minot.
I realize that this is a cursory overview, but the picture would be a bit different if you looked at 20 or so towns across the country with populations under 1,000. As someone raised in rural America, that's something I'd like to see. Maybe I'll do it myself.
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.
I lived in Searcy, AR for a while. I wonder if the speaker knew it's a hub for a religious college "Harding University", which is likely why it has so many of these churches.
(Church of Christ kid entires chat) Searcy has a major Church of Christ university 🙃 that’s why there are 8 there. Honestly, I would have guessed more.
I'm guessing one of them is where most of the Harding students go. There are also bound to be several more congregations nearby in the surrounding smaller towns.
Actually in Arkansas, membership for the COC is significant in areas north of Interstates 30/40, and most towns/cities have congregations, some are relatively large.
“After all, the PCA with their 1927 churches hasn’t reached Panda Express levels.” 😂 honestly, funniest quote in a while!
I thought, "Man I love Panda Express".
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).
Panda Express at a PCA church? Not gonna happen, but it would be delicious.
"and this is my flesh, which we make our new covenant"
"That's a fortune cookie Pastor"
Sanctified orange chicken... blessed cream cheese wontons
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.
Awesome comment
I mean having clones is immoral but other than that you're right.
While I agree, that wouldn't ever happen because the "news" is entertainment tv, really just a step down from reality tv.
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’m a life long Catholic and was recently surprised that our church is the majority church in Bangladesh when we were visited by a bishop from there
Theres actually a lot of Catholics in the subcontinent due to trade with the Portuguese empire
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!
@@RobertEWaters I would assume that’s because of German colonisation.
What are you talking about Bangladesh is predominately Sunni Muslim.
@@ComradeHellas no I just mean of the different Christian sects. That’s all.
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.
Not just German but Scandinavian as well, Minnesota has more Norwegians anywhere in the world outside of Norway
A lot of German heritage in Nebraska = Lutheran churches.
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
@@m4641 Nebraska is a very catholic state/ contrast it with Kansas for example. Omaha has an archbishop
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.
ELCA isn’t real Lutheran is why.
Hazleton resident here and can confirm there is a majorly strong Catholic presence in Eastern Pennsylvania. Love the video and keep up the great work!
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 TH-camrs need to learn from this.
Thanks Mark!
Me, a Catholic: oh yeah we're everywhere
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.
The goal was to make it so everyone has a home parish nearby, and needless to say I think we succeeded
Catholicism is the largest single church in Canada, US, Australia and NZ. Technically Catholic countries.
The one and only Apostolic Church baby! God bless the other protestant churches though, I admire their love for the Bible.
@Raymond Anderson haven’t heard that one before
This was super interesting. Comparing it to fast food locations was clever
The fact that MacDonalds, Pizza Hut and Subway combined can't even compete with Southern Baptists is quite hilarious.
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 Tom! So glad to hear that it's been helpful.
Your channel is remarkable. The term "church shopping" is a real thing.
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😍
728-B in the house!
@@footofjuniper8212 what's that?
@@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.
These videos are so good! Very scholarly stuff I love it!
The ELCA is plummeting in members and congregations are folding or merging.
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.
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.
They were included, per se, but they just were not big enough to be counted. Only denomination families that were in 5 or 6 cities were mentioned.
A big reason for the large CoC presence in Searcy AR. is Harding University. A CoC based university 😊
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*
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.
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).
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.
I know an Eritrean Orthodox man who used to serve as an altar boy in a Greek Orthodox church for years until his own community had a priest.
@@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.
Me: oh that would be cool if my hometown was on the list.
RtH: Moscow, Idaho
Me:... alrighty then
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.
Hears Moscow Idaho......Douglas Wilson must have pulled strings
Hello neighbor! It’s good to see some Palouse representation, even if it’s not Pullman.
I am a member of a CREC church. If the CREC had a 'Vatican' it would be in Moscow, ID for us.
My husband and I were in Moscow this weekend at the Anglican Church! From Post Falls. 😊
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
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.
I’m actually shocked that you went with a small place like Hazelton instead of the more recognizable Scranton. Impressive work
Doesn't Scranton have more than 25,000 people in it? That was his cut-off point.
Fantastic video, I really enjoyed watching and thank you for making it.
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.
That's great! I made the channel that I wished existed, because this stuff is interesting... and important! So glad it's something that you enjoy.
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)
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.
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.
Then again, Pocatello, the home of Idaho State, is 95 percent Latter-Day Saint (Mormon).
Searcy, Arkansas is home to Harding University, closely connected with churches of Christ.
@@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 m eastern catholic and I love your channel! Thank you for your work
Would like to see something similar to this but including data from outside of the US 😃 I really appreciate how well this video was made and presented
this is seriously helpful to me and I can imagine lots of other people
thank you
Really intriguing video brother. Grace and Peace.
This makes me curious about education and hospitals. How about a similar video on these?
What a video! You’re a stud! Thanks so much brother, God bless ya!!
for me as an Adventist, were everywhere around the globe... God bless!
Young man, this is a very impressive presentation. Thanks
I can tell you Searcy AR is a bit skewed for Church of Christ since there is also a CoC affiliated university in the town, Harding University.
In Utah, Mormon churches outnumber Starbucks.
And for good reason.
Mormons probably don't patronize Starbucks
@@letitiajeavons6333Heck yeah
one would think
It’s interesting to point out that Searcy has the largest church of Christ university in the country (Harding University). This may slightly skew the results.
Great video, awsome job on picking up the different types of catholics churchs in the towns. most people do not know about them. You videos are great.
Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints here. I can concur with my Catholic friend - oh yeah we’re everywhere :)
Could you do a video about Which churches get the most Converts or have lost attendance?
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.
Thanks for sharing. Utah has some massively different demographics than most of the US. There is a SBC church in Mt Pleasant www.firstsouthernbc.com/
@@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/
Amazed to see Searcy on here - great video
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.
There’s something so interesting about comparing churches to fast food locations
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!!!!
Very minor error? When you said Searcy at 7:28 I think you had Hazleton in mind. All your videos are very high quality. Thanks for what you do.
As always love the video. Keep up the great work man.
@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?
Would you consider doing another Eastern Orthodox comparison?
If you’re considering Eastern Orthodoxy, read the Paraklesis.
@@zarnoffa I’m already Eastern Orthodox
I don't think he is going to consider doing that for a long time since they are rare in America and also because it's a hard subject to cover, but who knows...
It would be best to include the Oriental Orthodox too.
@@Ggdivhjkjl indubitably
Years ago I did a lot of research on a different but related topic: which Christian Hymn-tunes are the most widespread in the USA? I had to determine which denominations used which Hymnals, then see what Hymn-tunes were in each. (Not the texts, the tunes. The same Hymn-tune might be found with dozens of different texts.) The easy denominations to study were ones with a single officially approved Hymnal like the LDS, United Methodist, Episcopal, etc. Extremely messy was the Catholic church; there are dozens of different Catholic Hymnals published by a number of competing publishing firms, who are free to sell their books to as many parishes as they can. And completely unmeasurable are the modern nondenominational "media Churches" who put the words up on giant TV screens and have made the concept of Hymnal meaningless.
Searcy is Churches of Christ Town USA, despite the variety of other options.
This is true. Isn't there also a coC university there, too?
@@actionsub Yes. It's called Harding. I've been inside it, and it's very, very direct about its leanings.
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.
Everything to the point.Thanks so much. As always.
This may be the greatest analogy on TH-cam.
I wish you got more likes. You do good work. Keep it up.
its really interesting to look at churches this way and see which churches are the most widespread
What about international dominance? Surely, the Seventh-day Adventist Church would rank near the top. They are far more numerous abroad than within the US.
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 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.
I’m from Charlotte, NC, and my wife’s family is from South Dakota. Every time we visit, I think, “It’s just white people as far as the eye can see.”
@@wanbaclone the Holy Land of America.
@@lloydtucker5647 jesus was white cope and seethe
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
I appreciate your work. I am curious about historic African American denominations.
I misread the title as "McDonald's-level Deliverance" and was *very* curious about what kind of theological slam that was.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
McCommunion Deluxe
There is no town in Southwestern PA, too small not to have a Presbyterian church. I don't know if they're flourishing, but they're there.
I enjoyed you choose Seary, AK, the Mecca of churches of Christ.😂 Did you limit a presçence to 50. Çhurches of Çhrist list congegation at 2 or 3, because if you find none you are expected to begin on if you must drive more than 10 miles.
WOW! That was fascinating!!! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much for your work!
love your videos on the different denominations. any chance you could do a video similar to this one but with stats in Canada?
Yeah, but do any of those churches have take out?
Searcy has so many church of christ congregations because of Harding University. There's actually more than 8, several of the churches aren't listed online anywhere.
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.
There's also a Mormon, Episcopal, and Methodist church around. Funnily enough, the Methodist Church is right next to a Mason lodge.
Im suprised you didn't mention Louisiana's Catholic mega base
Be interesting to see this video redone in the aftermath of the UMC split, and how any of the others have changed over the years.
I thought the cross on the French Fries was a speaker’s volume buttons for a sec.
Evangelical Lutherans and Episcopal USA are in full communion so if you're EL or EUSA and you don't have one in your city, you can go to the other.
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.
My home town (Kokomo IN)has 4 AG churches 3 English speaking and one Korean
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.
It’s really amazing to see all of this in print. From a Biblical view, I want to know the truth. I don’t just want to pick out something that suits me. It would be like making my own God. I want to find what all Jesus taught. What church goes back that far. These other churches all came about after the 1500s . I do remember He chose 12 apostles and said He would be with them until the end of time and the gates of hell would not knock down His church. So which church was His? Huh
Would it be possible for you to study Messianic Jews (culturally and usually ethnically Jewish Christians)? I'd love to know more about them :)
Good news. It is my next video.
@@ReadyToHarvest WOOOO!!!!
If anyone watching this was wondering, from my quick research, only two of these cities have an orthodox church (both eastern orthodox) Key West has a Russian Orthodox Church and Hazleton has a Romanian Orthodox Church
Yeah, I had done the research as well
There appears to be:
0 in Moscow, ID - Though there's 1 nearby
0 in Brawley, CA
0 in Brookings, SD
0 in Searcy, AK
1 Key West, FL
1 in Hazleton, PA
North dakota has many orthodox churches. Lots of russians and Ukrainians there. They stay north. My sister lives across the street from Ukrainian orthodox in minot.
Love your videos! Keep it up!
Any SDAs watching this video?
Right here!
@@Bunfire123 that's great 🙌
Yep!
Yo!
I realize that this is a cursory overview, but the picture would be a bit different if you looked at 20 or so towns across the country with populations under 1,000. As someone raised in rural America, that's something I'd like to see. Maybe I'll do it myself.
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.
This presentation is amazingly useful.
I love your videos! Could you make one about sedevacantist Catholics?
I'd love to see a run down of New England. It's a spiritual desert.
I lived in Searcy, AR for a while. I wonder if the speaker knew it's a hub for a religious college "Harding University", which is likely why it has so many of these churches.
3:00, can someone explain to me why he said "But one of them looks like this." What does the look have to do with it?
Because it's not just about the number of churches, but also about the size of the churches. That's all.
OMG! I live in DFW and I had no idea we had that many SBC churches even though I was raised SB. Crazy town. We need to calm down. 😆
Searcy Arkansas may make the COC look a little more prevalent. Harding University is in that town. It’s like the biggest COC college
In my rural southeastern NC area, Baptist and Presbyterian churches are everywhere. I grew up Missionary Baptist.
(Church of Christ kid entires chat)
Searcy has a major Church of Christ university 🙃 that’s why there are 8 there. Honestly, I would have guessed more.
I'm guessing one of them is where most of the Harding students go. There are also bound to be several more congregations nearby in the surrounding smaller towns.
Actually in Arkansas, membership for the COC is significant in areas north of Interstates 30/40, and most towns/cities have congregations, some are relatively large.
I appreciate your videos very much ❤❤❤👍💥💥💥
Catholicism is the McDonalds of Christianity, not just US, far and away the broadest reach globally.