A Better Way to Track Attendance in the New Year
by Lovett H. Weems, Jr.

Knowing how we are doing as quickly and accurately as possible is always a key leadership task. All agree that worship attendance is one primary indicator of congregational vitality. Many other good things tend to follow from strong worship participation. Therefore, keeping attuned to fluctuations in attendance can give leaders important clues.

Most churches collect weekly attendance data and report it to the congregation. The most common practice is to report attendance for the previous week. Sometimes there will be a comparison with the same Sunday a year ago. Neither of these practices provides helpful information about trends and patterns.

The most critical number following worship each weekend is the Year to Date Average Worship Attendance (YTD AWA). There are too many variables affecting attendance on any one Sunday for that week’s figure to mean much standing alone. Yet, if you are calculating the YTD AWA after every weekend and comparing that figure with the comparable figure through that weekend the year before, you get a clear reading of attendance trends. As the year progresses, the trends become even more accurate, but also more difficult to change by the end of the year. Variations in weather and holidays that cause some attendance figures to be especially high or low are evened out using the year to date system. This method also prevents an undue level of concern in the traditionally low attendance periods or undue optimism during the high times.

The first step toward more meaningful attendance tracking is to record your attendance for the full previous year by Sundays or weekends (if you have Saturday services) and determine the YTD AWA through each week of the past year. These figures become the baseline for comparison as the new year progresses. (Examples, illustrations, and an Excel file with a pre-programmed template are provided with this issue of Leading Ideas.)

No system, no matter how revealing, matters unless you are giving attention to the results. Under the old system, one could say, “Attendance is always down in the summer,” without being able to put the summer attendance in a larger perspective. Now, throughout the year, regardless of season, you have an accurate picture of how you are doing relative to the past year. Since changes in attendance patterns do not change quickly, the sooner you identify such changes, the better able your leadership will be to respond appropriately.

Download the Attendance Tracking Template

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