By Pastor Kerry Nelson
Why is “average worship attendance (AWA)” such an important number in the life of a congregation? What follows are three reasons why knowing, and tracking, this number is crucial.
1. Knowing your average worship attendance is a sign of a well-administered congregational ministry. The only way you will know your AWA is by putting in place a consistent system of counting, recording and sharing the number of people in worship at every service. This requires recruiting and training teams of ushers (or others who will count), a place for them to record the number, and a spreadsheet or other means of keeping track over time. Odds are very good that any congregation that does not have a system to do this in place, there are probably a lot of other congregational administration matters that are also not being properly managed.
2. The trend is more important than the snapshot. Just like a person’s blood pressure needs to be checked over time to get the best sense of how a person is doing, Sunday attendance numbers also vary throughout the year. Everyone knows that there are certain big day Sundays like Easter, Mother’s Day, confirmation Sunday, etc. when the sanctuary will be packed to the rafters. And that there are families for whom “regular worship attendance” means coming once a month. Thus, what really matters about AWA isn’t the Sunday snapshot but the trends over time.
Clearly, when a congregation sees a long term decline or increase in AWA, it tells them something. It doesn’t tell the whole story but it is clearly important. If a ministry shows an average 5% increase in AWA over the past five years, they are obviously doing ministry in a way that is attracting and retaining more people over that time. If a ministry is showing a 5% drop in AWA, something is going on that needs to be addressed. Figuring out “what is going on” is the work of spiritual discernment and the real challenge of leadership.
3. A congregation’s average worship attendance defines the appropriate leadership style for a given context. An analogy to parenting is helpful in making this point: Imagine what it means to “parent” a 6 year old… Or to parent a 16 year old… Or to parent a 26 year old… Each stage of life development presents different challenges, obstacles and joys. In the same way, effective pastors and lay leaders do well to understand the changing dynamics between leading a family-sized congregation (AWA 0-100), pastoral congregation (AWA 101-200), program congregation (AWA 201-300), corporate congregation (AWA 301-700) and resource congregation (AWA 700+).
If you haven’t learned the implications of different leadership styles appropriate to the size of the congregation you are leading – and the hard work required to stretch over the barriers between these levels – we’re here to help you. We can come for a conversation with your leadership team and help “diagnose” where you are at and what your next steps might look like.
This might also be a key topic for you to spend the next year or two seeking the right kinds of continuing education. The Alban Institute has some excellent learning opportunities and books written to help congregational leaders navigate the waters through the barriers of congregational growth and development.
Across our synod, these are the size ranges of our congregations based on AWA:
0-50 Cell – 35 congregations
51-99 Family – 36 congregations
100-150 Pastoral - 13 congregations
151-200 Pastoral - 18 congregations
201-250 Program - 10 congregations
251-300 Program – 5 congregations
301-400 Resource – 3 congregations
401+ Corporate – 3 congregations
Summary
28% of our congregations worship under 50
58% of our congregations worship under 100
83% of our congregations worship under 200
