News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Immanuel Lutheran Church Pastor Jim Erickson browses through the Bible, looking for scripture to include in his weekly sermon. The congregation at Immanuel hasn’t decreased as severely as many around the country, and enrollment at its school has actually increased over the last several years.

ALPENA — Churches and other religious groups around the U.S. are starting to feel the pinch from low membership.

In Alpena, however, it seems at least some churches’ attendance and membership is flat or congregation losses haven’t been as bad as the national average

Pew Research Center surveys in 2018 and 2019 showed 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians, down 12 percentage points in the last 10 years. The share of Americans who describe themselves as atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular” is at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.

About half of Americans are church members, down from 70% in 1999, Pew says. Researchers attribute most of that decline to an increase in the percentage of people with no religion.

In Michigan, just 33% say they attend church at least once a week, according to Pew.

The drop in attendance not only limits how many people are receiving the word of God, but also impacts church finances, which in turn limits the resources the church has to fulfill its missions.

While precise local figures weren’t available, it appears Alpena is bucking the national trend, area church leaders say.

Though a high percentage of church members are older, enough young families have joined area churches to take their place when the older members die.

Immanuel Lutheran Church Pastor Jim Erickson, for example, said about 400 people attend his Sunday church service, down from about 450 in the 1980s and 1990s.

“We have seen a slight decrease, but we are holding our own,” Erickson said. “Our congregation is maintaining its numbers better than some others who have lost members at a higher rate.”

Pastor Paul Lance, of First United Congregational Church of Christ of Alpena, said the church had 150 members when he became pastor in 2013. Today, that number is the same, and he expects membership to stay level for some time.

Lance said congregations are getting smaller for two main reasons: Most churches have members who are older and whose children have moved away to start families. So some of those older church members also move out of Alpena to be closer to their family. Secondly, he said, people die and there isn’t always the same number of new, younger members to make up for their loss.

“We are kind of on a plateau right, now,” Lance said. “We had some members die, and we have added just enough to stay the same, at least for now. Another reason numbers are going down in some churches is because people want to be closer to their grandchildren, but know their children aren’t able to move back to Alpena, so they move to be near them.”

Alpena has a large Catholic population and four Catholic churches: St. John’s, St. Bernard’s, St. Mary’s and St. Anne’s.

In May 2015, Bishop Steven Raica, of the Diocese of Gaylord, combined the four parishes into one parish that is now known as All Saints Catholic Parish.

St. Anne’s is the hub of operations and hosts a majority of the parish’s masses.

The other churches are used for special events such as weddings and funerals. The 5 p.m. Sunday mass rotates among the churches quarterly.

The Diocese in Gaylord said that a declining population, financial concerns, and the difficulty of finding and retaining priests were the primary reasons for the sweeping changes and that such consolidation is happening elsewhere.

Another area that could be impacted from falling church membership is the number of students attending parochial schools.

Again, however, Alpena seems to be bucking the trend.

Erickson said Immanuel Lutheran School is not only maintaining enrollment, but has actually seen a significant increase. He said there were 96 students in 2018 and 118 this year.

“Once again, we are holding our own, when others may be struggling some,” he said.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.com.