Long-term declines in church giving and membership can be addressed Helping dying children in Jesus’ name will also help the church Recent survey data from Gallup points to a decline in church membership in the U.S. For the first time in over eight decades of surveys, Gallup found church members were less than half of the U.S. population. Similar trends show up in numbers reported by a broad set of church denominations and collected by empty tomb, inc.’s The State of Church Giving series. For example, giving as a percent of income was down 31% on a per-member basis, from 3.02% in 1968 to 2.05% in 2018, the latest year collected.