Posted on 01/30/2023 10:22:19 AM PST by 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:
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.
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.
I wish you would just go to a Bible believing church instead of abandoning altogether. Your response if it is “stop worshiping and being a church member” pleat right into our enemy’s hands.
Actually I believe the largest denomination in America is the Southern Baptist’s. Roman Catholics are second largest. Anyway.
I think for some. myself included find church and Christians more of a political animal and behavior more akin to pharisees. My wife still attends and I will at weddings and baptism. It doesn’t mean I’m playing in to the enemy’s hands. It means for me, being in that environment does not enhance my faith, it diminishes it.
“Your eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church?”
The cardinal in return said to to Napoleon:
“Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy,
Cardinals, Bishops and Priests,
have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1,800 years.
We have not succeeded, and neither will you.”
While it may not seem so in the headlines-
There's more about the Church than just man's folly.
Actually I believe the largest denomination in America is the Southern Baptist’s. Roman Catholics are second largest. Anyway.
It is Jesus who set up the church. He gives divine instruction for its operation (much instruction in the apostolic writings as well as examples). That is where He has us gather and we are not to “forsake the assembly of believers). If we disobey Him, we are not doing well, even if we feel like we are.
I don’t say go to a terrible church. But there were some pretty bad things recorded about the early church at times and the Lord still expected us there and the apostles still ministered and led worship etc. so we don’t get to forsake.
Haven’t heard that one. Funny because it’s true.
If people weren’t required to sing all 17 verses of “Jesus Is My Boyfriend’, bassists were allowed to occasionally hit the high G note and the drummer was freed from his plexiglass cage, the replacement number can be dropped to 27.
Some us saw this coming years ahead. In an Interview with Fr Malachi Martin back in 1998 he laid it all out in brilliant deep detail. He predicted that any real church would have to go underground. He was obviously Catholic, but he refers to protestants as well. He talks about it in the first hour or so of this interview. Then he goes into the 3rd Secret. This interview is often the basis of proving that the 3rd secret later released by the catholic church is a fake account of its content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxwRWs0L4f0
I stopped going to my traditional church when they became more interested in external “causes” than in the congregation.
I stopped going to my wife’s parish when my kids got confirmed. Too many pedos in my diocese. I know that’s not the case everywhere. It happened to be true where I grew up.
You can’t do everything at the same time! BUT — at each stage of life, it makes sense to check the boxes that lead to other opportunities in the next stage.
Passivity is not an option.
* A youth should prepare himself to start and support a family.
* A family man should also catechize his children, lead family worship, and enlist his children in some form of “ministry” or service.
* A middle-aged guy with godly adult children should take a benign interest in the younger guys around him, especially those who are called to similar occupations.
The idea that sitting and listening to a lecture is the whole duty of a man just does not float my boat!
People began believing that church was all about them. If the church didn’t agree with them, they left. Church is about serving. Church is about sacrifice. We have dozens of UMC circuit churches in this county and the congregation may only be 20 people but they are faithful.
It appears TomEd was doing a (somewhat modern) paraphrase of 1 Tim. 3:1-13?
Or am I wrong?
And yet the Lord Himself said “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.”
Perhaps that was the intent, but one should not desire cookie-cutter solutions or box-checking that may be somewhat more infused with modern cultural standards than with the full balance of the scripture.
According to Wikipedia, there are 70.4 million Catholics in the US, and 13.6 Southern Baptists.
Catholics form 22% of the US population and Protestants as a whole 49%; maybe that is what you were thinking of.
Ah maybe thanks for the info
There have always been problems in the Church. Like that quote someone posted....
But the Protestants do not have the Eucharist.
And I think about it this way: I am an American. At leastt 1/2 of Americans vote Democrat, many support terrible things, and way too many are either behaving criminally or aiding criminals.
And yet, I am still here. Not making much of a dent but doing what I can.
To me, I can look at the Church, “the Body of Christ,” and see that again the Body of Christ is going through a crucifixion. Do I want to be one of those who were at the foot of the cross with Christ when He was crucified, or one of those who were not around?
Why do we go to Mass? To worship God as He commanded. That is the sole reason to go; anything else is extra. When we see people acting in a way that offends God, even those within His Church, should we abandon God or love His enemies? Maybe even pray for the conversion of those whom He has called but who do not follow, that they might be converted.
I am not good at doing all those things, being especially forgetful of praying for enemies, but this is how I see things and have a foundation for my goid actions.
Prayers for you!
I’m with you on that. But I won’t pretend my diocese and the Church [as it behaves in the Western world] are cowardly at best.
For centuries, churches were a meeting place and way to socialize in one’s community.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Socialization as a reason to attend church has always been, and always will be, an INSULT to God, so it should come as no surprise that these social organizations are devoid of any permanent sense of a relationship with the Lord.
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