By Raymund Flandez

During the first full year of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, church giving in 2008 as a percentage of congregation members’ take-home pay sank to its lowest point in the past decade, according to a report released Monday. It declined to 2.43 percent, equal to the second-lowest drop since 1968, when the data were first tracked; 1992 had the lowest, with 2.41 percent.

In addition, the average inflation-adjusted dollar amount that churchgoers gave dipped in 2008—the latest year for which data are available—by 2.46 percent, to $793 from $813 in 2007.

The analysis, published by Empty Tomb, a Champaign, Ill., organization that conducts research on religious giving, is based on data from two dozen denominations of about 100,000 congregations, or about a third of all congregations in the United States.

Even with the decline, the news was not entirely bad, says Sylvia Ronsvalle, Empty Tomb’s executive vice president. “The giving patterns suggest that people will continue to give to the church even in difficult economic times,” she says.

But Empty Tomb’s analysis of past recessions and how they affect church giving was inconclusive; no pattern emerged. From 1968 to 2008, seven recessions occurred; during four of them, giving declined, but in three, it did not.

Social Services

While church giving as a share of income has seesawed for years, a more troubling trend has been the continuous drop in support for activities outside the church’s doors, Ms. Ronsvalle says. More donors gave to church upkeep than to programs that provide education, social services, and other aid to the needy. Congregation members gave an average of 0.35 percent of their income—the lowest ever—to “benevolences,” or gifts to support church-related missions, education, and social services. Meanwhile, giving to “congregational finances,” such as church maintenance or staff salaries, has declined to 2.08 percent of churchgoers’ income in 2008 from 2.15 percent in 2007. While low, it’s not as bad as it was in the early 1990s, when the proportion almost dipped below 2 percent.

A separate analysis by Empty Tomb shows a bright spot in religious giving. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey in 2008 show that giving by all Americans—not just churchgoers—to congregations and other religious organizations increased from the year before, the only charitable cause that achieved an increase. Cash contributions rose 6.5 percent, to $686.28 in 2008 from $644.69 in 2007. Cash contributions to other charities, educational groups, and institutions all declined.

Ms. Ronsvalle says this shows that many people are probably giving to organizations with a religious affiliation, such as disaster-preparedness or relief groups, but not necessarily church-led.