Froehlich Churches Family
After being expelled from the Swiss Reformed Church in the early 1830s, Minister Samuel Heinrich Froehlich traveled around Switzerland, preaching. He emphasized New Birth conversion, consisting of true repentance leading to sanctification and inner peace, obedience to Jesus’s teachings through practical sin-free living, adult-age baptismal regeneration, and rejection of church-state alliances. The movement, which leaned toward a “true church” view of society, spread to France, Germany, and North America as many Anabaptists joined, and Eastern Europe, including Hungary and Serbia, through missionaries. Froehlich church monikers have included Apostolic Christian, Nazarene, Evangelical Baptists, Evangelischer Täufergemeinden, and New Amish. Today’s denominations range from distinctively dressed sectarians who keep part or all of their collective religious life private to those mimicking contemporary-style community churches in North America.
Maps: Froehlich Churches Family1
Adherence Rate per 1,000 (2020)
Congregations (2020)
Top 5 Froehlich Churches Family States (2020)1 [View all states]
Top 5 Froehlich Churches Family Counties (2020)1 [View all counties]
| Rank | County | Adherents | Adherence Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stevens County, Minnesota | 733 | 75.80 |
| 2 | Lyon County, Iowa | 840 | 70.40 |
| 3 | Stark County, Illinois | 362 | 67.00 |
| 4 | Woodford County, Illinois | 2,566 | 66.70 |
| 5 | Nemaha County, Kansas | 629 | 61.20 |
Top 5 Froehlich Churches Family Metro Areas (2020)1 [View all Metro Areas]
| Rank | Metro Area | Adherents | Adherence Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bluffton, IN Micro Area | 1,485 | 52.70 |
| 2 | Pontiac, IL Micro Area | 1,611 | 45.00 |
| 3 | Peoria, IL Metro Area | 5,764 | 14.30 |
| 4 | Wooster, OH Micro Area | 1,585 | 13.60 |
| 5 | Burlington, IA-IL Micro Area | 496 | 10.90 |
Froehlich Churches Family: Adherence Rates (1980 - 2020)1
| Group | Tradition | Adh. Rate 2020 | Adh. Rate 2010 | Adh. Rate 2000 | Adh. Rate 1990 | Adh. Rate 1980 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apostolic Christian Church (Nazarene) - East Conference | Evangelical Protestant | 0.01 | ||||
| Apostolic Christian Church (Nazarene) - West Conference | Evangelical Protestant | 0.00 | ||||
| Apostolic Christian Church of America | Evangelical Protestant | 0.06 | 0.08 | 0.09 | 0.08 | 0.00 |
| Apostolic Christian Faith | Evangelical Protestant | 0.01 | ||||
| Christian Apostolic Church | Evangelical Protestant | 0.00 | ||||
| German Apostolic / Christian Apostolic Churches | Evangelical Protestant | 0.00 | ||||
| Nazarene Christian Congregation (Side A or B) | Evangelical Protestant | 0.00 | ||||
Sources
1 The 2020 data were collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and include data for 372 religious bodies or groups. Of these, the ASARB was able to gather data on congregations and adherents for 217 and on congregations only for 155. [More information on the data sources]
