A plurality of U.S. Protestant churchgoers said their church doesn’t actively support fostering or adoption, according to a LifeWay Research report published May 11.

Respondents were asked, “Which, if any, of the following have you seen at your church in the last year?”

They were then presented with several expressions of support: raising funds for families who were adopting, encouraging families to provide foster care or adoption, members providing foster care or adopting a child, and providing training for foster parents.

A plurality (45%) said they did not observe any of these support efforts being carried out in their church during the past 12 months.

Less than 20% of respondents said they had seen each of the expressions of support, ranging from a high of 18% who said funds had been raised in their church to help with adoption to a low of 10% who said their church has provided training for foster parents.

“Denominationally, Presbyterian/Reformed (60%), Lutheran (55%) and Baptist (50%) churchgoers are more likely than Restorationist movement (26%) and Methodist churchgoers (20%) to say that their churches haven’t helped in these ways,” LifeWay Research noted in a press release announcing the report’s publication.

The full report is available here. The overall margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

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