Stop Counting Worship Attendance!
Worship Attendance numbers have caused more pastoral anxiety (and more false pride) than any other number listed on the Nazarene Annual Pastor’s Report (APR). Those numbers don’t reflect the what’s really happening or not happening within a church. Church growth (or lack of growth) does not necessarily reflect the health of a church. Too many good pastors have been defeated because a group got miffed at what the faithful pastor said or didn’t say and stormed off to the Baptists down the street. Attendance fell and so did the pastor’s confidence. Others were puffed up when the Baptist church in town split and half their crowd hopped over to the Nazarene church. There is a solution to this less-than-holy enticement. Stop counting. Stop asking how many were in church last Sunday. Just stop.
All those experiencing modest growth and the church growth prodigies in the crowd are having a heart attack: “We have to count people because people count.” Thank you Elmer Towns (Don’t know Elmer? Google him). No, we don’t have to count people. Who says? And we don’t have to focus on numerical realities because there is a book in the Bible called Numbers (I heard that lame argument back in the day too). Just stop counting.
In most cases, in USA/Canada anyway, the numbers are useless. Here are the facts:
Fact 1: Most churches are declining or have flatlined in USA/Canada.
Fact 2: Most growth occurring is transfer growth (sheep changing pastures, not lost sheep coming home).
Fact 3: On-line attendance is the most inaccurate number of all.
Fact 4: Combining on-line and in-person attendance is a deceptively inaccurate grand total. It’s inclusion on the APR is for bragging rights only and no other reason.
All this to say, why count worship attendance numbers?
If anyone knew the fickleness of numbers, it was Jesus. He fed 5,000 on one occasion and 4,000 on another (someone was counting), but how many of those folks were there when he really needed them? A few women and the teenager John were the only friendly faces on Golgotha. Even after He was raised from the dead and lots of people saw Him, only 120 showed up for the prayer meeting until Pentecost. Not exactly earth shattering numbers (yeah, yeah, I know someone counted the 120 people and someone counted the 3,000 who were “added to their number” on Pentecost too. Blah, blah, blah…does it really matter what those numbers were?).
Can’t we count the things that Jesus said were important (see the Great Commission if you need a lesson on what’s important). Count Baptisms. Count Disciples-in-training. Count those engaged in ministry. Like the nameless mathematician in the disciples’ circle (probably Matthew the tax collector), count the number of people fed. In other words, count community impact? Count those numbers, not how many butts are in seats or clicks made on Facebook live.
The church growth movement (and it’s prioritizing noses and nickels) is in part to blame for the declining mess we are currently in. We were counting people, but didn’t care for them. We were counting nickels, but not nurturing neighbors. Let’s stop caring about who has more people in a pew and start caring more for the hurting people not in our pews. Let’s start calculating ways to show Jesus’ love to the “never attenders” and “down-in-outers,” instead of building brownie points with power brokers in a denominational office.
Stop counting worship attendance and start serving!
