Religious resources and church growth

This article models the growth of religious organizations as a ''product'' derived from inputs of time and money. Using measures of church attendance and contributions as proxies for time and money resources, we predict membership growth at the levels of both individual congregations and entire denominations. Our data also highlight the tremendous variation in rates of resource mobilization across different denominations. In each of the past two decades, the decline of liberal/mainline denominations and the growth of their move strict/conservative counterparts can be modeled largely in terms of the radically different amounts of time and money that they demand and receive from members.