New figures (in Swedish) from the Free Churches of Sweden reveal a bleak picture. There are a few signs of hope but on the whole the summary is as follows: There are fewer churches with fewer members who are all getting older and not starting enough new churches. It’s a familiar story.

It’s not new that Sweden is a post-Christian country, and possibly post-religion (although you can argue that Sweden has never really been a Christian country). Churches, of every kind, have been struggling for a long time. But just because it’s a long-running crisis that doesn’t mean it’s not a crisis.

The report by Øyvind Tholvsen covers a 20 year period and is based on surveys done in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 so it gives a very accurate and helpful multi-year dataset. There is much more detail in the report but I’ve tried to capture the key points here.

The Church of Sweden

Personally I don’t think there’s any hope for the Church of Sweden (Svenska Kyrkan).

In 1970 80% of Swedes were christened, confirmed, married and 96% buried by the Lutherans.
By 2019 those figures were 40% christened, 22% confirmed, 30% married & 70% buried.

In 1990 173,000 Swedes could be found at church on Sunday mornings. By 2019 that number was 65,000. Which is nothing short of a catastrophe.

As the report says, “In other words it is no longer true to say that the majority of Swedes come to church to mark life’s big events.” In fact you could say, the Church of Sweden is not a church of the living but of the dead.

The Free Churches of Sweden

The situation is not much better in the Free Churches. The denominations covered are: Adventists, Evangelical Free Church, Pentecostals, Salvation Army, Vineyard, Swedish Alliance Mission, Word of Faith Movement, and United Church (Equmenia). Then there are groups of Lutheran churches that have essentially broken with the Church of Sweden.

In the first 20 years of the 21st century the number of free churches has shrunk by 24.8% and the number of members by 9.8%. In 2000, 2.7% of the Swedish population was a member of a free church, in 2020 that number is 2.1%.

In 2000, they had around 243,000 members and by 2020 that number was 219,000. So in other words they’re shrinking by a little over 1,000 people per year.

A majority of free churches are either not growing or are in decline

A full 50.3% of free churches have no growth and 34.8% are in decline. That leaves just 14.9% who are doing any growing. 55% of all churches have less than 50 members and 74% have less than 100. Smaller churches are struggling the most.

More churches are closing than opening

Since 2000, at least 1127 free churches have closed in Sweden. That’s slightly more than one per week for the last 20 years! Of all the free churches that existed in 2000, 38.5% of them have now closed their doors. In addition at least 85 churches have merged reducing the number of churches still further. By comparison at least 471 churches have started in that same period.

An increase in immigrant churches

In the report ethnic or immigrant churches (migrantförsamlingar) are one of the few to show growth. In 2000 there were 29 known churches with 2730 members. By 2020 there were 240 known churches with around 11,800 members. This growth is, as you might expect, largely concentrated in the larger towns and cities.

The majority of growth is happening in non-denominational churches

In 2000 there were only around 80 churches with 3438 members not connected with one of the Swedish denominations. In 2020 that number had grown to 319 and 14,583 members (and for the record, Grace Church is among that number). As the report says, “the growth outside of the established free churches is the reason why the overall decline has been reduced.”

The established free churches saw membership decline by 14.2% over 20 years while the non-connected churches have grown 324% in the same period.

The importance of new churches

“Church planting has saved the free church movement from a more extensive reduction of its presence in Sweden. But much of this has happened outside of the established denominations.”

Of the 471 churches started since 2000, 406 are still going of which 148 were connected to an established denomination.

“There is a clear connection between starting new churches and the overall growth in numbers.”

The need

The report then shows the great need for more churches.

1232 churches over 20 years would have been needed to simply keep replace the closures and mergers. Only 471 were started. That’s a shortfall of 761 churches.

However in the last 20 years the Swedish population has increased by 1.5 million. To just hold ground at their 2000 levels a further 500 new churches would have been needed.

So to be clear Swedish free churches started 471 churches. They needed to start 1250.

We do indeed live in the redzone.