What a great month it has been! We welcomed 6 new members into our fellowship last week, all but one by profession or reaffirmation of faith. 3 of them had been out of any church fellowship for the past 12 years, 1 of them is a recent convert, and 2 just moved to the area. We celebrate their commitment and welcome them to our congregation. As I updated our membership records, I started looking at the numbers, and what I saw surprised me. This year, we've added 10 new members. Last year, we added 23. That's very exciting! But, our average attendance is down from 127 to 117 over the last 2 years. We've had some deaths and some folks moved away, but not enough to account for 33 new people and 10 less in attendance! What gives? I looked at a listing of our regular attenders (those who are here at least twice a month). 180 people. And yet, our average attendance is 117. That means that 1/3 of our regular attenders miss on any given Sunday! Discouraging. However, I am encouraged that we have 180 people who are committed members and who attend regularly. This isn't a Christmas and Easter crowd, me and our PPR looked over our attendance and together came to the conclusion that we do have an active congregation of 180, yet our attendance is closer to 120. A few years ago, our regular attenders numbered closer to 150, so we do have 30 more than we did. Are people just less committed to attending worship than they were before? I'm really struggling to figure out this trend. Anyone else run into things like this?
6 comments:
Hi Jeff.
I definitely think that it has become much easier in recent years to treat worship as an optional activity. Even those who have made the covenantal promises of membership are often more inclined to see worship as a once or twice a month activity than a weekly (or daily) discipline. Of course, there has always been some of this in the church. But I agree with you that apathy concerning worship has reached new heights in recent years.
Like you, I don't have definitive answers as to why this is. I wonder if some of it has to do with some of the cavalier attitudes toward worship generated by some of our pastors, worship leaders, and worship teams. I do not offer this as any kind of a condemnatory word against "contemporary" worship experiments in general. (That would be hypocritical of me, wouldn't it?!) But, all too often, I see churches making "contemporary" synonymous with "casual". I understand the kind of welcoming atmosphere that those congregations are attempting to create. But, over time, it is possible for worship to become so "casual" and cavalier in its tone and content that we begin to send an unintentional message--specifically, the message that worship is less about an urgent encounter with a God who deserves reverence and trembling and more about an optional pep-rally for the already-convinced.
And maybe this is not just a problem for contemporary services. Perhaps our "traditional" worship (whatever that means) has also grown too casual and cavalier in too many dangerous ways.
I'm just speculating here, of course. But I fear that if worship is put forth as being ultra-casual, comfortable, and user-friendly, the users might just see it as something that doesn't deserve their weekly investment. They might become, in other words, casually absent.
Just some thoughts. Forgive me if I've overreached.
Keep the faith, brother.
I think it's your magic they're afraid of.
Eric - That's exactly what I've been worrying about. Have I created an environment where people don't take church as seriously as they should? The thing is, some of the people are MUCH more committed than ever before, and especially the newer people seem to be getting very involved. It's the ones on the fringes who seem to be less and less involved. It's hard to gauge the spiritual tempo of a congregation, there seems to be both good and not so good things happening!
Keith - It's probably from that one Sunday when I played Beatles music...
Jeff--
Yeah, man. I hear you.
Some people seem to be more passionately devoted than ever to worship, while the fringe people are becoming even more...uh..."fringey."
I wonder, then, if it has more to do with the nature of the fringe. If the new folks are catching fire for worship, perhaps the fringe folks feel (either consciously or subconsciously) that the church's worship life no longer holds a place for them.
Or...
Perhaps your church's particular fringe is eroding. Perhaps the passion and freshness that the new folks are bringing is eating away at the comfortable fringe and replacing it with a line of demarcation--i.e., a line between fully devoted followers and cavalier spectators. Maybe the fringe people feel like their spiritual bleachers are being taken away (which, of course, is not a bad thing).
Just some additional thoughts.
Although, concerning Keith's input, I still think that you probably shouldn't have sawed that woman in half as part of your children's sermon a few months ago. There are much less violent ways to illustrate the whole "if your hand causes you to sin" teaching!!!!
Hang in there, magic man.
I am guilty having an attitude of option when it comes to worship.
Jeff,
Culturally, the USA is definitely moving away from a "Sabbath on Sunday" mentality. Around here, it's not unusual for coaches to schedule practices on Sunday mornings, or for extra-curricular activities to have meetings during Sunday evening youth group time. Plus, congregations find all kinds of ways to rationalize "skipping out" on Sunday morning services every once in a while.
I don't know if America will ever go back to the way things were. But I do know that whatever happens culturally in this country, we need to be preaching theologically the necessity of "sacred time." That may no longer mean Sunday morning services, but we need to creatively challenge people to make time to worship and fellowship in communion with Christ.
Jeff
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