Dear Friends and Colleagues in Ministry,
As you know, year-end statistical reporting is just around the corner. In anticipation of the anxiety that that task undoubtedly provokes during this pandemic, let me offer a few words that I hope will be both reassuring and practical for this work, particularly related to reporting worship attendance.
First and foremost: do not panic, and don’t be anxious. Everyone in Conference leadership (from your District Superintendent on down) knows and understands that all sorts of normal measures of a congregation’s life together will not approach anything normal during this year. At the same time, it is still helpful for us all to gain a reasonable “snapshot” of your congregation’s life and health during this year. The best general guidance we can provide (aside from “do not panic” and “don’t be anxious”) is simply this:
do the best you can;
be as consistent as you can in how you gather and report your data; and
provide the most honest “snapshot” of your congregation’s health as possible.
Much of the statistical reporting will remain relatively consistent. While giving (Table 3) and spending (Table 2) may be different than in the past, gathering and reporting those numbers is largely the same as in prior years. However, calculating on-site worship attendance (with services postponed, cancelled, or suspended for a time) and calculating online/virtual worship attendance is another matter.
AVERAGE WORSHIP (ON-SITE) ATTENDANCE (Table 1, Line 7)
With respect to the regular worship attendance figures, as always, we are simply looking for the average (on-site) weekly worship attendance for regularly scheduled services. In other words, for those weeks of the year when you were regularly gathering for on-site worship, what was the average attendance for those services? If your church did not close, then calculating worship attendance for those weeks would be comparable to previous years’ calculations.
For many churches, however, your calculations for on-site worship attendance will include only those weeks when the church was open for worship and not under mandatory or voluntary stay-at-home orders. For these churches, there will be an interrupted series of weeks. For example, you may have twelve or more weeks from early in the year (pre-pandemic), and twenty-eight (or more, or less) weeks post-return to on-site worship. Further, some of you have had to occasionally cancel on-site worship in cases of possible exposure. Do the best you can to average worship attendance across or in spite of these interruptions. It is to be expected that any post-return figures would be lower than the pre-pandemic figures as some of your folks stay home. It’s okay. Again, do the best you can, be as consistent as you can, and provide the most honest “snapshot” that you can.
In all cases, however, do not include any interrupted weeks (no on-site worship) when calculating weekly worship attendance. So, if on-site worship was suspended for a period of time, that suspension interrupted “regular worship services” and should not be included in your report of average weekly worship attendance. Again, do the best you can, be as consistent as you can, and provide the most honest “snapshot” as you can.
NUMBER OF PERSONS WORSHIPPING ON-LINE (Table 1, Line 7a)
Some churches have had television worship or have been streaming their worship services for years. But, for many, 2020 provided a crash course in holding on-line worship services. Determining the number of virtual worshippers is not an exact science so, again, do the best you can, be as consistent as you can, and provide the most honest “snapshot” that you can.
To do that, please consider the following guidance:
Facebook Live: Use "1-Minute Video Views" as the number for metrics reporting.
You can also view the analytics on the Facebook Business page on how long people watched and when they stopped watching.
YouTube: List the number of unique views. View an illustration here.
Vimeo: List views over a 7-10 day period.
Other Streaming Services: If you use ZOOM or some similar platform where you simply gather people remotely for a live or virtual service, counting attendees as best you can (averaging across all the weeks you have regular services of that sort) should be relatively straightforward (e.g. unique IP addresses or peak viewers).
Multiplier: As often households watch the service together, you may need to multiply the views/viewers by a number to account for this. Multiply by 1.5 if your normal physical attendance is comprised of mainly couples and singles. Multiply by 2 if at least 1/3 of your attendance is comprised of families with children. If you have good reason to use a different multiplier (e.g. a singles church should multiply by 1), feel free.
These multiplier numbers are used on the number of views that match the guidelines above.
TV or Radio Services: Contact your local station and ask about the estimated audience size. Don’t use a multiplier in this case. This may also be recorded under online attendance.
Be sure to wait at least 24 hours after the video is published to count the number of views the video received.
I recognize that what was often a fairly simple process in previous years has become infinitely more complicated this year. I also recognize (as do many, many others), that what we measure, and the importance that we attribute to those measures has—justifiably—come under greater scrutiny at this time. While I personally still think measuring matters (both how many and how often and who we engage within ministry for the sake of the gospel of Christ, and Lord knows, I love a good spreadsheet!), I also think that this year should be the year to relax our expectations and anxiety about measuring. Do not let this become a hardship for you or your ministry. Simply do your best (estimate if you have to), be consistent, and provide the most honest picture of your congregation’s life at this time.
I have witnessed the extraordinary resilience and leadership you and your congregations have provided during this extraordinary time and it has been very encouraging. Thank you for your perseverance and may God continue to bless you and your ministry.
Blessings,
David W. Andersen, CFO & CBO NWTX Conference