The numbers are in for 2006 and nearly half of all American adults report they are attending church. Some 49 percent told The Barna Group researchers that they attended church in a typical week. That is up from 45 percent last year and shows evidence of an increasing trend, according to Barna. However, church attendance has remained relatively stable since 1991, with an average 43 percent of Americans saying they typically attend weekly worship services.

Other religious behaviors that are showing small signs of growth this year include personal Bible reading, attending small groups and Sunday schools, and volunteering at church. While different habits have risen and fallen over the past 15 years, researcher George Barna writes that the increase in all of these behaviors in one year is significant.

"It is typical for us to see one or maybe two measures surge forward in a given year, only to stabilize or perhaps retreat to prior levels in subsequent years," Barna writes. "The intriguing possibility is that with most of our key behavioral measures showing increases at the same time, there is the possibility that this may herald a holistic, lasting commitment to engagement with God and the Christian faith."

Barna says the next few years will indicate whether or not this is in fact the case. Meanwhile, he says, "we certainly have a reason to hope that Americans are taking God more seriously, and a motivation for believers to pray more fervently that such a commitment will take root in our culture."

Canadian sociologist Reginald Bibby, has also found a surge in church attendance in mainline churches in Canada that he says may indicate new life after decades of decline. According to the Edmonton Journal, Bibby says parishioners are now returning to churches faith intact.

"Relatively few people were actually abandoning their religion," he says. "They just weren't showing up as much."

In the last five years, Bibby found the number of consistent churchgoers has increased, especially in Catholic parishes, from 21 percent of Canadians who said they were attending church weekly in 2000, to 26 percent in 2003.

Despite growing numbers of Canadians who identify themselves with no religion, Bibby is as optimistic as Barna about the increase in church attendance he has found leading to an upsurge of religion.

"Religious groups, led by the Roman Catholics, are doing a better job of actually contributing something to peoples' lives," says Bibby.

Is the glass of church attendance half full or half empty? Blog here.