Leading Ideas: Top Lewis Center Resources of 2019
…video tool kit helps your congregation discern and implement God’s vision for its future. Learn more now. 50 Ways to Increase Worship Attendance Learn practical strategies to help you invite…
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…video tool kit helps your congregation discern and implement God’s vision for its future. Learn more now. 50 Ways to Increase Worship Attendance Learn practical strategies to help you invite…
…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…
…in until they muster the courage to jump in through physical attendance. But discussion about the online church is too often binary. Church online is good or bad. Wise or…
…online viewers. If it continues to happen, the likelihood of high online attendance will plateau and decline. We started Impact Church in a public school where we did not have…
…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…
…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…
…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…
…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…
…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,…
…creativity and new ideas. The challenges seem to be sustaining that creative edge over time and translating new ideas into fruitful outcomes when it comes to worship attendance and discipleship…
…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…
…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…
…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…
…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…
…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…
…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:…
…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…
…and have a quality worship experience. This article was originally published on March 8, 2017. Increased worship attendance on Easter Sunday requires some churches to set up spaces beyond the…
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….
…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…
…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…
…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…
…of congregations (over 80 percent in my area) are smaller congregations with average worship attendance of 100 or less. And smaller congregations thrive in different ways than their larger sister…
…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…
…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…
…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…
…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…
…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…
…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…
…had gone. We learned that every single one of our groups reported higher attendance and increased engagement than was happening before COVID-19. More than half of the groups reported that…
This article is reprinted by permission from Leading Ideas, a free e-newsletter from the Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary available at churchleadership.com.