The American Church Story
Four hundred years of the church in America — the awakenings and the arguments, the splits and the homecomings — told honestly as one story. Each family below links to its own page: where its churches gather, the moments that formed it, and the traditions it shares history with. This page describes the families as they describe themselves; it ranks nothing. Congregation counts come from the U.S. Religion Census 2020 where published.
Catholic
The Latin Church and the 23 Eastern Catholic churches, all in full communion with the Bishop of Rome.
18,990 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Eastern Orthodox
The Chalcedonian Orthodox communion of autocephalous churches, organised in the US mostly along ethnic jurisdictions.
2,323 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Oriental Orthodox
The non-Chalcedonian churches — Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Armenian, Syriac, Malankara.
244 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Assyrian Church of the East
The historic East Syriac church of Mesopotamia, neither Chalcedonian nor Oriental Orthodox.
7 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Independent and Old Catholic
Bodies claiming apostolic succession and catholic sacramental life but not in communion with Rome.
22 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Anglican and Episcopal
Churches of the English Reformation settlement: episcopal order, the Book of Common Prayer, a deliberately broad theological range.
6,388 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Lutheran
Churches confessing the Augsburg Confession, from the German and Scandinavian Reformation.
15,909 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Reformed (Continental)
The Dutch, German, Swiss and Hungarian Reformed churches — Heidelberg Catechism, Three Forms of Unity.
1,008 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Presbyterian
Calvinist churches of the Scottish and English tradition, governed by elders in graded courts.
11,754 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Congregational
The heirs of English separatism and New England Puritanism, each congregation self-governing.
2,935 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Anabaptist
The radical Reformation — believers' baptism, a disciplined community, and historic non-resistance.
1,103 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Friends (Quaker)
The Religious Society of Friends: the inward light, unprogrammed or programmed worship, historic peace witness.
559 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Pietist and Free Church
Continental Pietism and the Scandinavian free-church awakenings: warm-hearted, low-church, confessionally light.
759 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Methodist
The Wesleyan revival within Anglicanism, become a connexional church with bishops or conferences.
26,168 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Wesleyan-Holiness
The nineteenth-century holiness revival: entire sanctification as a distinct work of grace.
4,741 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Baptist
Believers' baptism by immersion, a regenerate membership, and local-church autonomy held fiercely.
73,014 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Restorationist (Stone-Campbell)
The nineteenth-century American plea to restore the New Testament church and abandon party names.
10,493 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Catholic Apostolic / New Apostolic
The Irvingite revival of apostolic offices, surviving chiefly as the New Apostolic Church.
20 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Brethren (Plymouth)
Assemblies without clergy, weekly breaking of bread, dispensational reading of Scripture.
4 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Adventist and Sabbatarian
Bodies formed from the Millerite expectation of the Second Advent, most keeping the seventh-day Sabbath.
4,228 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Pentecostal (Trinitarian)
Baptism in the Holy Spirit with spiritual gifts, from the Azusa Street revival of 1906 onward.
17,389 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Apostolic / Oneness Pentecostal
Pentecostals who baptise in the name of Jesus alone and reject a trinitarian formulation of God.
390 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Charismatic and neo-charismatic networks
Post-1960s renewal movements that function as church-planting networks rather than denominations.
1,481 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Non-denominational and independent
Congregations that belong to no organized body, by conviction rather than by accident.
6,226 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Ecumenical, union and community churches
Federated, union and intentionally interdenominational congregations, plus ecumenical fellowships.
397 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
African-initiated churches
Churches founded in Africa and now planted across the US diaspora.
7 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Latin American and Filipino-initiated churches
Bodies founded in Latin America or the Philippines with substantial US congregations.
33 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Messianic Jewish
Congregations of Jewish believers in Jesus keeping Jewish practice and calendar.
23 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Latter Day Saint movement
The bodies descending from Joseph Smith's 1830 restoration, chiefly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
4,546 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Jehovah's Witnesses and Bible Student movement
The Watch Tower movement and related Bible Student groups.
1,963 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Unitarian Universalist
The 1961 consolidation of American Unitarianism and Universalism, now explicitly post-Christian and pluralist.
80 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.
Metaphysical, New Thought and Swedenborgian
Christian Science, Unity, Religious Science, Swedenborgian and Spiritualist bodies.
989 congregations of this family appear on The Church Map.