When their reality show began airing ages ago, the Duggar family talked about how they studied the Bible at home together. Rumors also hinted that the family might be treating their home as a religious facility, earning some tax breaks by considering their home a church (and their many children their congregation).
However, the Duggars were also well-known in their neighborhood and were said to have had many connections in their religious community. The family is said to be much more powerful than anyone realized, but does that mean they still run their own church?
Do The Duggars Still Go To Church?
While they might not hold formal church services at their home any longer, the Duggar family used to invite people—even strangers—into their home for worship and Bible study.
Years ago, when the Duggars were actively inviting people to see their home and, ostensibly, discuss religion, many outsiders were allowed into the house. People were able to see the family's dorm-style rooms, and in one case, a visitor stole Jinger Duggar's diary, later trying to sell it on eBay.
After that, it's said that the Duggars stopped allowing strangers to spend time in their home. But do the Duggars treat their home as a church? They might, informally, but it would appear that tax laws wouldn't permit them to designate their home as a place of worship, contrary to what many critics seem to believe.
The Duggars don't need their own personal church to engage with their religious community, even if they do study the Bible at home.
Although they may have burned some bridges within their social network, the Duggars still have plenty of supporters in their community and beyond. For one thing, it seems as if they were never shut out of their local church, even if it was religious supporters who eventually ratted out Josh Duggar.
Of course, that doesn't mean they still attend the same church they always have, or even that they're on good terms with their former pastor.
Where Do The Duggars Go To Church?
The Duggar family is famous for following the Institute in Basic Life Principles religious model, but they don't necessarily attend church services under that umbrella.
Rather, the Duggars claim they are Baptists, a label that is much less criticized than the IBLP designation made famous by the Shiny Happy People documentary featuring the Duggars.
So what church do the Duggars attend? According to multiple sources, the Duggars regularly attend their local Lighthouse Baptist Church—or at least they did.
The church is located near the family's home in Tontitown; they reportedly went to Fayetteville, AR for services for many years. For the Duggars, this might be a 20-minute trip from their compound in Tontitown.
Further evidence that suggests the Duggars still attended very public church services in recent years, rather than hunkering down at home, is the fact that when Grandma Mary Duggar passed away in 2019, Jana Duggar's tribute mentioned her driving Grandma to church shortly before her death.
Lighthouse Baptist Church is said to be run by Pastor Paul Caldwell, a family friend of the Duggars and Joseph Duggar's father-in-law. Kendra Caldwell is Paul's oldest daughter, and though she and Joseph didn't get married at her dad's church, they reportedly met at Lighthouse Baptist.
Paul Caldwell also officiated his daughter's wedding, after a years-long friendship with the Duggar family. Joseph said, around the time that the two began courting in 2017, that he had known Kendra for about five years.
Kendra's dad had served as pastor at the church since 2008, according to a biography of Paul Caldwell. That seems to suggest that either the Duggards didn't begin attending services in Fayetteville until around 2012, or that Joe and Kendra simply didn't meet before then.
The Duggars And Caldwells Reportedly Had A Falling Out
While it's said that the Duggars attended Paul Caldwell's church for years, they may have had a falling out that led to a break in the family's church habit.
Despite Kendra and Joe's happy marriage (and three or four kids), there's said to be a rift between their respective families. In 2021, various sources suggest that Jim Bob Duggar didn't like the way Paul Caldwell was handling services during pandemic restrictions.
It's thought that Jim Bob wanted to avoid airing the family's dirty laundry, not necessarily that he was worried about contracting COVID. As it was, the Caldwells said they were following social distancing and masking rules, but Jim Bob reportedly decided to leave the church anyway.
The falling out culminated in not just Jim Bob, Michelle, and a handful of their kids leaving the church, but also various other members of the congregation who still stand behind the Duggars.
Yet because those events were before Josh Duggar's ultimate conviction and imprisonment, it's unclear whether any of those congregation members might have switched sides in the Duggar-Caldwell feud since then.
