The first Sunday after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, something striking could be seen taking place in Lawrence churches.

In houses of worship across the city, pews were filled near capacity.

Kansas University students huddled together last September holding candles in remembrance of victims of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. An estimated 1,000 people attended the vigil near the Campanile.

“If we’re just to look at raw numbers in terms of attendance, it went way up on Sept. 16 last year. It was like an Easter Sunday for us. The place was packed,” recalled the Rev. Peter Luckey, senior pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt.

“There were between 500 and 600 people there for the 9:30 a.m. service. There was a huge spike in attendance the Sunday after 9-11.”

Looking back at the numbers that track attendance at worship, the Rev. Jonathon Jensen, the new rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, 1011 Vt., is able to see evidence of the same thing.

“The Sunday after the terrorist attacks was like Easter or Christmas. It was just phenomenal numbers, almost double,” said Jensen, who became Trinity Episcopal’s rector this month.

And so it was in much of the nation in the early days after the attacks, a time when Americans flooded places of worship and public spaces in search of solace, fellowship and reassurance that something maybe faith still made sense in a world turned upside-down.

But did it last? Did the crowds of people suddenly flocking to be a part of faith communities mark an enduring spiritual revival in this country?

Or did it fade, as memories of that terrible day receded?

Members of the clergy in Lawrence say that, indeed, the initial fervor to join with others in communal prayer immediately after 9-11 did subside as the days and months passed.

Attendance at services settled to about where it had been before the attacks.

Membership at some houses of worship went up a bit in the year since 9-11, but certainly nothing spectacular, and it was impossible to know how much any increase was due to what happened on that day.

And yet, something is different, something definitely lingers. Pastors, rabbis and imams can sense a change, a shift that’s difficult to quantify.

“I do not think worship attendance is an accurate indicator of people’s faith, or a good measure of what’s going on in people’s hearts after 9-11,” Luckey said.

“There’s a whole constellation of things going on in the world today that is driving people’s spiritual hunger in a way that we have not seen in 20 years.”

Lasting impact

While 9-11 may not have permanently boosted the number of church members in the pews on Sunday, the Rev. Marcus McFaul has seen a change in the spiritual lives of many people.

“As far as you can be able to say 9-11 brought with it a renewed interest in faith, for some that may be very true. It may have gotten people back in church, praying again, reading about other faiths,” said McFaul, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, 1330 Kasold Drive.

“Has it been sustained? That’s a really hard question to answer, because you can’t measure that by worship attendance alone. Whether the effects of 9-11 are sustained or not, that’s probably going to be more answerable years down the road rather than just one year later.”

Patterns of participation, and signs of a deepening spirituality, have followed a different path at the Islamic Center of Lawrence, 1917 Naismith Drive.

“Immediately following 9-11, there was some apprehension in people’s minds. They didn’t know how the rest of the community was going to react to Muslims and Muslim worship places. You might have seen some decline in the number of people coming to the Islamic Center because of that,” said center member Dr. Moussa Elbayoumy, a Lawrence physician.

That sense of uneasiness soon wore off, as the city’s Muslim residents received an outpouring of reassurance and support from the community.

Muslims quickly returned to observing Friday prayer time at the center, a trend that has continued.

“There has been an increase in the number of people attending different prayers during the week. But I’m not sure if that’s a result of 9-11 or the growth of the (Muslim) community,” Elbayoumy said.

He has no doubt, though, about the lasting impact of 9-11 in the lives of Muslims in this area.

“A lot of people went back to examine their faith, to see if it’s true what people are saying about it,” he said. “And a lot of us were asked to speak about Islam. As a result, some people had to gain a deeper knowledge of the faith in order to speak correctly. That helped to reaffirm their convictions.”

Religious revival

The Rev. Sherry Schultz has detected a profound change in the way people approach life since 9-11.

“People are rethinking not just their worship experience but their whole lives. They’re asking questions about how they spend their money, how they spend their time, who they spend their time with,” said Schultz, pastor of Unity Church of Lawrence, Ninth and Madeline streets.

“I think we’ve sobered up. Sept. 11 really called us to sobriety, to look at the world with bigger eyes and more expansive vision and to ask questions about our relatedness to the rest of the planet.”

Have more people been coming to worship at the interfaith congregation since then?

“In the weeks right after 9-11, we had a big increase (in attendance). Then things sort of leveled off. Again, though, I think 9-11 has had an impact that’s bigger than where you go on Sunday morning.”

There is a major shift in people’s spiritual lives underway these days, Jensen of Trinity Church believes.

“I do believe we are experiencing a religious revival, but not just because of 9-11. People are searching for meaning in post-modern life and not finding answers by secular means,” Jensen said. “I think 9-11 was simply a major high point in that search.”