Here is the Church, and, oh no! Where are the People?
A look at some Church Stats and Attendance Trends Post Covid
The Episcopal Church released its annual data about membership and attendance this week and, goodness, what a grim picture.
In 2019, they had an Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) of 518,411. In 2021, they reported an ASA of 292,851. For an already declining church, Covid seems to have been disastrous. In a similar vein, here is a disheartening thread on Twitter that you can also read as a blog post. Substack isn’t letting me embed Tweets so I’ll cut them in so you don’t have to switch back and forth:
Regular church attendance isn't what it used to be. 30 years ago a committed church member attended 3 times a week. 20 years ago 3/month. 10 years ago 2/month. Now 1/month is the “fastest-growing segment of church life.” Here are 8 realities from that for the average pastor.
I must say, my jaw dropped a little to consider the implications of these stats.
People only going to church once a month is the “fastest-growing segment?” I guess, in my own naivety, I wouldn’t have counted once-a-month attendance as “growth.” On the other hand, as we’ve had people come to us from farther afield (we have almost an hour's radius around our church of people who commute when they can) it is true that not everyone can make it as often as they desire. What alarms me is the idea that someone might make a conscious and “informed” decision to only attend once a month. That’s not what he’s saying, but it does seem to be vaguely implied. Anyway, based on that astonishing data, here as the 8 new “realities” he lays out for pastors:
1. You May Be Pastoring More People Than You Think Typical attendance used to be, "we have 75 on a normal Sunday, but if everyone showed it could be 100.” Now, if a church averages 75 in attendance, you’re probably pastoring 130-150 people, not 100.
Again, my eyes are popping open. That sounds exhausting. Our church has grown in the era of covid, but we have strict membership policies so that we can definitely know who we are keeping track of. We’ve always had, since we first came here, about 20 people miss on any given Sunday, and that is the same now, even though we’ve grown from 40 to 120+ over the course of 20 years. Believe me, every ASA point gained was a hard slog. Worrying about 120 is a lot more work than 40, whether they come to church or not. We carry on:
2. What Seems Like Decline May Not Be Decline With less frequency, if an overall attendance dip is under 20%, you probably haven’t declined in total number of congregants. Meanwhile, steady numbers may mean an uptick in total congregants.
3. “Committed” Looks Different Now We need to adjust our expectations about our volunteers. More absences requires more workers on rotation, but if you adapt and allow for more absences you may get more volunteers to fill in those extra spots.
This is where I start to feel itchy and stressed out. We’ve always had a five-week rotation of volunteers, forever and forever amen. What that allows us to do is let people rotate on and off of various positions. You’re not locked into a ministry for life. You can do two years in the nursery, and then two years—or three, three is Moar Spiritual of course—in the soup kitchen and then be a Reader and then an Usher and so the long ecclesiastical years roll by. But “allowing for more absences” sounds demoralizing. I say this as someone always wandering around with a list of spots I’m needing to fill written in the palm of my hand, trying to catch people’s eye when they are running out the other door because they definitely Do Not Want To Be Signed Up For The Nursery Again.
4. Plan For A Wider High/Low Attendance Range A range of 55-95 used to be typical for a church of 75. Now it may be 45-105. We need to plan for that. If you have portable seats put fewer out, but be ready to add if needed. Serve food? Prepare less, with back-up food ready to go.
Ok, the food thing makes sense. We have had new, near-wild swings for our potlucks. Sometimes almost no one stays, other times the entire congregation troops downstairs and we’re caught off guard. And the thing that’s been so hard is that any illness knocks half the people out who before would have come sick. And you know what, this is a part of our post covid world I don’t hate. I haven’t gotten a cold in like three years because people who are sick are quicker to stay home. So yes, sometimes our usual 20 absent grows to 40 or 50 but not because anyone wanted it to be that way, but because the flu swept through town. We can’t plan for that. I think even trying to plan for it would make the people who work in the church (both paid and volunteer) even more crazy than they already are.
5. Emphasize Short/Heavy Commitments Over Long/Steady Weekly church is a scriptural mandate, but showing up the same night every week is over. Instead, design most groups and studies with clear start/end dates that people can plan for. They'll show up. And they'll thank you.
Ugh, I mean, I hear what he’s saying. But I actually think giving in on this point is madness. One thing we discovered during covid was that our strong small group network worked to keep people connected in, how shall I say it? Meaningful Ways. I don’t think people are so different than they were before. They need consistency and the space to gradually open up to each other. We’re talking about the Body of Christ here, not knit night at Barnes and Noble—which meets rain or shine, trouble or no trouble. How come something like that can be inviolable but not your weekly Bible Study? But also, go ahead and try to change my mind. Maybe I’m deluding myself.
6. The Infrequent Attender Needs Deliberate Follow-up When people attended 3/week, a 2-week illness was 6 services, so we noticed. With attendance at 1 or 2 a month, they can be sick for months without anyone knowing. This requires better attention to follow-up.
It’s tragic to say it, but yes. One thing I do now is dance around in the back of the sanctuary writing down the names of everyone there in a little book I procured for the purpose, and then, in another column, recopying all the people who are missing. This is not because Church is becoming a totalitarian surveillance state, but so that the staff can see plain as plain, this person missed three or four weeks. Often whoever it is is ill or has had some kind of crisis and didn’t want to “bother anyone” by calling the office. So yes, deliberate follow-up is the new normal.
7. Guilt Will Backfire Making people feel guilty for not showing up will more likely keep them away than bring them in. Our churches need to help people adjust to their new lives and schedules, not guilt them for something they’re trying to come to grips with.
Or—hear me out—reminding people to come to church is an essential part of the task. You don’t have to shame anyone, but if someone has decided not to bother to come, it might be a good thing to offer a gentle and loving reminder, something it’s hard to even consider doing because it will almost certainly make them feel guilty.
8. Going Still Matters – Being Matters More Regular absences are not good, but the solution isn’t to increase attendance, it’s to increase discipleship. People who are discipled attend more, and when they’re not at church, they know how to be the church. That’s what matters.
Ok, so, here is where I have much to say. Increased Attendance is not over here on one side and Increased Discipleship on the other, as if the two are separate from each other. That’s a false dichotomy made of bits of straw and disappointment.
The Sunday morning gathering is the first and most essential place of discipleship. Discipleship is not a super special spiritual phenomenon that happens in an extra sphere, during the week, one-on-one. Discipleship outside of worship only happens in a meaningful way when it is already and primarily occurring on Sunday morning during the actual worship of God.
That’s because the time when everyone comes together in one place to hear the Word read aloud and then exposited, to confess their sins and recite the creed, to share the Peace, and then to come together to the Table to receive the body and blood of Jesus is the way that each member is more fully incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ. That’s when the Holy Spirit binds the church together irrevocably. Everything else is an outflow—the beautiful fruit of substantial and nourishing friendship growing off the True Vine. You can’t have strong home groups, or deep Bible study, or any of the other kinds of important relationships without that central piece. Well, you can have them, but they don’t have the kind of life they should when they’re on their own and not an organic outflow of worship.
The thing about Sunday morning Worship is that it is God who is doing his inexorable work. It’s not our control, or our own agenda, or any of our plans that make it what it is. It is that a group of people come and submit themselves to the Word and partake of the Sacraments together. What happens to them is beyond their understanding and power. It is God’s divine work that brings about his will in their lives—together.
So when you chronically miss, you are always going to feel disconnected, and, worse, famished. Your personal relating to people during the week doesn’t have the power to feed you and transform you into the image of Christ. You can’t “be discipled” properly if you aren’t being knit together with other believers into Christ’s own body.
It is so tragic to me to think that so many Christians are walking around, week after week, starving, essentially, or subsisting on so little, because no one will invite them into the rich feast of weekly worship.
And on that note, I have a bunch of stuff to do. Have a nice day!
For once, this blog actually WAS demotivating to me. From 2007 to 2013, and again for two years starting with the Covid shutdowns, we attended a parish that was an hour's drive each way. We never missed a Sunday, save one time when snow made the roads impassable. Our son still makes that commute every Sunday.
I come away feeling that the Twitter author is FAR too accepting of people's stubbornness and wimpescence about church attendance. I think (and it's probably one reason I'm not a pastor) that we should call people out (not individually) on how WEAK this is. Every once-a-month attendee has other areas in his/her life to which they devote more time and effort. Why are Christ and His bride worth less than "knit night at Barnes and Noble"? Or the gym? Or the self-care appointment?
It's super depressing to me that instead of fighting this trend, we are now being advised how to "deal with it."
I weep when I cannot receive Word and Sacrament with God's people on Sunday. Our commute is about an hour, but we rejoice to make that journey once or twice per week.
Apparently, one of the symptoms of starvation must be the death of hunger for the Bread of Life and the burial of thirst for the Blood of Christ. Spiritual malaise underlays this pattern of retreat from holy things.
One thing have I asked of the Lord and that I shall seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.
As the deer longs for the water brooks so my soul longs for You O Lord. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come to see the face of God?
Hungering and thirsting Hank