Counting the Ones Who Come on Sunday Morning
You probably know how many members your congregation has. But do you
know how many people come on Sunday? The UUA's Growth Team is asking
congregations to start tracking that latter figure. It believes that
knowing Sunday attendance will help congregations chart the growth of
Unitarian Universalism more accurately.
The Rev. Harlan Limpert, the UUA's director for district services and
convener of the Growth Team, says that many denominations now focus
more on attendance than on membership. Having attendance figures will
enable congregations and the UUA to assess growth and determine if changes
should be made in programming.
The UUA asks member congregations to provide a membership number by
February 1 of each year through an online certification process at www.uua.org/congregation.
This year congregations are also being asked for an "average Sunday
attendance" figure.
Some congregations already collect this number. Those that do are asked
to submit it along with their membership number. Congregations that
have not computed average attendance are asked to begin collecting it
for submission in 2007. So the resulting data can be most useful, all
congregations are asked to use the same method.
How it works: Gather attendance figures for all 52 Sundays. Congregations
with alternatives to Sunday morning worship should count attendance
at those services as well. In the following directions, interpret "Sunday"
to include these other services.
Each Sunday, count every person of every age who is in any part of the
building--members, visitors, teachers, children, staff members, choir
members, and leaders. Don't worry about double counting, as when a person
teaches religious education and also attends worship. Total all 52 weeks
and divide by 52. (Adjust this if you meet only part of the year.)
If you have special holiday services that would skew attendance figures
when they fall on Sunday or Saturday evening (e.g., primary Christmas
service), eliminate that Sunday and count twice the attendees for the
following Sunday. Don't adjust for Easter Sunday or any other holiday
that always falls on a Sunday--continue to count those within your regular
attendance figures. Go to www.uua.org/congregation/attendance.html
for further details.
Attendance information is voluntary and will not affect certification,
the annual program fund assessment, or the number of delegates for General
Assembly, Limpert says, adding, "We are simply interested in
looking at attendance trends in UU congregations as part of an ongoing
study, to allow comparisons with other faith groups collecting such
data."
The 820-member First Universalist
Church in Minneapolis, Minn., has kept Sunday attendance figures
for at least ten years. "It's helped us to see trends with our
first and second services," says Bill Elwood, board vice president.
"We can look at those figures and see if the number of children
in church school is changing relative to the attendance at adult services.
And when our minister went on sabbatical a couple years ago we could
tell there was a significant dropoff in attendance. We used that finding
to change our sabbatical policy so that ministerial leaves would have
the least impact on attendance."
The Champlain Valley UU Society in
Middlebury, Vt. (136), switched to two services several years ago, based
on weekly attendance numbers. It has monitored attendance at the two
services since then, and used the results to adjust the times of services.
First Parish in Cambridge,
Mass., has 265 members, but it considers itself a church of 400 adults
when it totals those who come on Sunday and others who participate in
other ways. Says the Rev. Thomas Mikelson, "We think of our needs
in programming and ex-penses as the needs of a church of 400. That serves
us much better than if we simply used our membership figure."
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