Why your church has to replace 32% of its attendance every year: Where have all the church attendees gone? Let’s look at four important components.

Christian Post ^ | 01/30/2023 | Thom S. Rainer

[SeekAndFind]

Let’s start with a scenario that your church has an average worship attendance of 100. I use that number for simplicity. The median worship attendance is 65.

Now, let’s ask a simple question. How many attendees do you have to add to your attendance in a year to stay even?

The answer for a typical church is 32 with a worship attendance of 100. You can double the number to 64 if the church’s attendance is 200.

Did you get that? A church has to increase the number of attendees by 32 percent each year just to stay even.

In a church with 100 in attendance, an additional 32 attendees would have to be added to stay even, and they would have to attend every Sunday. If they attend every other Sunday, the church would need an additional 64 attendees.

Where have all the church attendees gone? Let’s look at four important components:

Component No. 1: Deaths

The death rate in the United States is 1.0 people per 100 population. The death rate is likely higher in churches since many congregations have an aging membership.

Component No. 2: Moving Out of the Community.

The mobility rate in the United States was 9.3 percent in 2020. The good news is that the rate of mobility is declining. It almost reached 20 percent in 1985. Many of the moves are considered local, but most of them still move out of the church’s community.

Component No. 3: Transfer to Another Church in the Community

This number is not as precise as the previous two because it is based on the churches where we have this information, typically churches we consult. We think our estimate of 7 percent is close. In other words, your church will lose 7 church members to another local church for every 100 in attendance.

Component No. 4: Declining Attendance Frequency

We estimate that the attendance frequency is down about 15 percent per year in U. S. churches. For example, if a church had 100 members who attended every Sunday, the average attendance would be 100. If all those members attended every other week, the average attendance would be 50, or a decline of 50 percent. Declining attendance frequency is the number one factor in church decline in the United States.

So, here is our summary. For every 100 persons in attendance in your church, you will lose each year:

• 1 to death
• 9 to moving
• 7 to transfer to another church in the community
• 15 to declining attendance frequency

Thus, if you add 32 attendees for every 100 you have in attendance now, the church will stay even. Anything less and the church will decline.

But there is hope.

More on the hope factor soon.

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Originally published at Church Answers

Thom S. Rainer is the founder and CEO of Church Answers, an online community and resource for church leaders. Prior to founding Church Answers, Rainer served as president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources. Before coming to LifeWay, he served at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for twelve years where he was the founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism. He is a 1977 graduate of the University of Alabama and earned his Master of Divinity and Ph.D. degrees from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

They might add online streaming.

Many churches initiated this during Covid and many watch online…

[Revel]

When the churches left God and wrote their own bible then they terminated their reason to exist.

[cyclotic]

Eric Metaxis touches on this in his book Letter to the American Church.

The church has failed in its mission by bowing to the culture war and bowing to the State and not the Lord.

I’m not done reading it but it’s eye opening to exactly what’s happening at our small church

[TonyinLA]

SoCal Catholic.

When the Archdiocese put Cardinal Mahoney into retirement at a luxurious villa instead of a prison for his cover-up and shuffling around of pedo priests, that left me so disillusioned my heart left the Church.

Also when my congregation booed a visiting priest from Africa when he had the temerity to defend life and call out abortion.

I’d say that was the trigger for me and quite a few of my fellows.

[Vision]

Insert picture of Commie Pope.

[Huskrrrr]

“When the churches left God and wrote their own bible then they terminated their reason to exist.”

The New Apostolic Reformation movement is infiltrating many Churches.

[Dilbert San Diego]

It sounds like churches need to always be recruiting new members.

To look at it does any business would look at their customer base, there’s always going to be some erosion of the customer base.

And tight end with this would be the related issue of donations and offerings to support the church.

[central_va]

Go gay and the parishioners will run away.

[Wallace T.]

Without backup data, this article is meaningless. Are we talking about mainline Protestants, Catholics, evangelical Protestants, Orthodox, Mormons, charismatic and Pentecostal Christians, or whatever? What of regional differences and rural vs. urban vs. suburban?

[bantam]

This is what did it for me!!

[gitmo]

Our church is growing incredibly fast. People are moving from other states to join. Teach the Bible and they will come.

[BipolarBob]

Too easy to watch Joel Osteen and feel good about yourself. Positive Thinking - that’s where it’s at. Taking up a cross and following sounds hard.

[madison10]

That is horrible! And sad.

There is a group of Catholic school students from my county making a pilgrimage for the March for Life soon. All is not lost.

[4Liberty]

For centuries, churches were a meeting place and way to socialize in one’s community.

There are many other outlets providing that function now (including online/social media)...

[TalBlack]

Hearing leftist politics coming from the alter did it for me.

[Jan_Sobieski]

2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

The great falling away (apostasy) that Paul warned us about is happening. LGBTQI and COVID-19 have shown us this…

[rellic]

I live in rural Hawaii. I stream a church service and Zoom a weekly bible study. Because I can’t physically be there I’m not considered a member.
Locally there are lots of churches, but I don’t like their rules, their politics, or follow their peculiar faiths rules.
I’m OLD school Lutheran. That is hard drinking, not politically Liberal, aggressive, and pretty scriptural.
I don’t cherry pick verses, I look at the whole picture.
So I don’t do so well in Democrat dominated churches,
which Hawaii is full of.
We are out here, but hard to count as we don’t trust the counters.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: sounds like churches need to always be recruiting new members

That’s EXACTLY what Jesus told his disciples to do. Let’s reread the last three verses of the Gospel of Matthew, and the first nine verses of the book of Acts.

[rexthecat]

Who trusts that their priest isn’t a pedophile? I’d stay away too.