Get Ready for the New Normal
…worship attendance is up compared to pre-crisis times. (See Faith Communities Today: Research & Resources: U.S. Religion During COVID-19.) To continue to reach new online constituencies, churches see a need…
Search Results: attendance (217)
How Has COVID-19 Impacted Religious Participation?
…attending services in person. This is because, in their surveys of religiosity and worship attendance in the United States prior to the pandemic, Pew Research Center did not ask respondents…
Reaching People Here and There, Now and Later through Hybrid Worship: An In-Depth Interview with Jason Moore
…their Sunday morning live numbers. We don’t want to take attendance anymore just on Sunday. We want to take it all throughout the week. Forever, really. Those numbers accumulate. Ann…
Covid Taught Us How to Shift and Pivot to Sustain Our Mission
…face of a constantly changing context. While many churches struggled, declined, or even closed during the two years of Covid, the Little Church and Lakewoodgrace grew significantly in average attendance,…
The Problem with Being Spiritual but Not Religious
…for declining participation and attendance. The issues are deeper than this. It’s helpful to step back and see how personal religion is part of a larger trend to personalize the…
Online Worship Makes Evangelism Less Intimidating for Many
…proving easier, less intimidating, and more spontaneous than face-to-face evangelism. This article is also available in Korean. 한국어 버전 Anecdotal evidence suggests that worship attendance has increased rather significantly for…
5 Ways to Know if Your Church Needs A Strategic Plan
…to discern and invest in a long-term vision of the church fosters confidence and unity as the church moves forward. 3. Has your attendance or participation plateaued or is it…
Travelers’ Christmas Eve Service
…have two services — a Family Service and a Candlelight Service. Travelers’ Christmas Eve is a great success (our highest attendance for our evening worship service), and people look forward…
From Assimilation to Acculturation
…workshops about assimilating new members became the rage in church circles. People were asking, “Why are attendance and membership numbers showing such rapid decline?” Leaders were convinced that better systems…
Reaching More People during Advent
…and shared supper. The usual worship attendance of 150 swelled to over 500 persons as the sanctuary filled with joyful music. This material is from Tom’s and Lovett’s book Overflow:…
Connect Community Events to Worship
…Hundreds of people attended, but almost none of them came back for Easter service. Then we decided to have the Easter egg hunt following our services. Attendance doubled! Our worship…
16 Signs Your Church May Need a Renewed Focus on Disciple Making
…driven by structure and programs, not by making disciples. We believe this has moved us away from our true mission and created our current culture of declining attendance and disconnection…
Predictors of Youth Returning to Church as Adults
…most long-lasting effects on the personal adult religious involvement of middle-class youth? To the surprise of the researchers, it was not parents’ church attendance, the amount that parents talked to…
Do You Need a New Worship Service?
Our church had hit a plateau. We continued to welcome new members, but worship attendance stubbornly remained flat. We were bumping up against what consultants call the 80 Percent Rule….
50 Ways to Take Church to the Community
…church attendance is no longer a cultural expectation. Don’t sit in your church building waiting for people to come. Be prepared to meet people where they are. Prepare spiritually Acknowledge…
10 Ways to Reach Unchurched People at Christmas
…for both overall attendance and attendance by unchurched people. Although, theologically, Christmas will never be bigger than Easter, practically, our Christmas outreach is always bigger than Easter simply because the…
Young Adults and the Future of the Church
…it fell from 84 percent to 55 percent. “Being married or unmarried,” says Wuthnow “has a stronger effect on church attendance than anything else.” Almost all the decline in religious…
5 Reasons Why the Church of the Future Will be Online
…and rising — not bad attendance for a weekly Bible study in a church of 800 average worship attendees! Later they changed the format to include interviews, and the views…
How Do Conferences Pay 100 Percent of General Church Apportionments?
…half the churches choose to pay. How Likely Is It that Conferences Can Sustain 100 Percent? Based on conference attendance and financial trends, the Lewis Center projected that there was…
Prayer is the Spiritual Electricity of Congregational Revitalization
…in the importance and value of prayer. Prayer might open and close meetings in your setting, for example, including naming prayer concerns by those in attendance or asking God to…
9 Ways Leaders Can Respond to Conflict Constructively
…is always in attendance. Ask questions. Weigh whether information is reliable and congruent. But also remember that clarity won’t always be comfortable for everyone. Some people will wear emotional blinders….
Is Nostalgia Sabotaging Your Church’s Future?
…some investigating, churches often find that their memory of past glory is not really accurate. (I have often looked back over church statistics to find that the attendance was never…
We Can’t Compete with Sunday Sports if Worship is Boring
…into the presence of the living God is anything but boring! Church leaders will often blame our culture for a lack of Sunday attendance, claiming that the other activities —…
Ways Your Building Can Generate Income and Bless Your Community
…Sunday. The increased costs to maintain these spaces, coupled with shrinking attendance and a subsequent decline in giving, have left many church leaders tired of fighting the budget and therefore…
7 Ways to Lead When the Way Ahead Is Unclear
…clear problem definition or a known solution, but you can acknowledge the symptoms and the impact that the problem is having on people. “Attendance at the 10 a.m. service is…
F.I.S.H. Differently! Take Stock of all Available Capital Resources
…Capital, Intellectual Capital, Social Capital, and Human Capital. Established congregations face a climate of declining attendance, increased financial pressure, and a growing frustration with the decline in church membership. The…
Resurrection Hope and the Response to COVID-19
…worship attendance, aging constituents, and troubling giving trends. But what if, instead, this jolt to the system is a necessary wakeup call, opening our eyes to new possibilities, new patterns…
Digital Church Is Here to Stay
…percent Sunday ‘attendance’ spike since the pandemic grew. And, yes, people are texting in their decision to follow Jesus and we’re opening up digital discipleship pathways and groups for more…
5 Practices for Fruitful Congregations in a Post-Attractional Era
…are more compelling than church attendance. When people do not find the idea of church appealing, they are not attracted to what we do, no matter how well we do…
When You Don’t Know Who’s Worshiping
…our church. Now, of course, this we isn’t static; there are always people coming in and out of regular attendance and membership. But still, those who have been around awhile…
