Thursday, March 8, 2018
Hey Fletch … In Australia the trend is quickly moving away from every week attendance. People who almost never missed a Sunday, maybe missed once a month, now maybe only come once a month. Yet if you asked them they are still ‘committed’ and consider our church to be their spiritual home. We may have 200 average Sunday morning service attendance, but over a 4 week period may have over 350 separate individuals who came. Do you have any advice?
DRF—There are trends in many US churches where people are going to church 2x a month. Posting the services or sermons online may contribute a bit to it … “we will go away for the weekend and still catch the message.”
Many churches are have vibrant sermon based small groups. Larry Osborne tells me that at North Coast an overwhelming number of their members are in small groups. The sermon is developed with questions for the groups, and the groups are the hub of shepherding life. People may think they won’t be missed from the worship service. But, everyone who is absent is missed in a small group.
Response from Larry Osborne—Our small group percentage is a public number. We use it internally more than externally. But it is free to share. Our benchmark is a comparison of an October average adult attendance with October small group attendance. We have been above 80% for 32 years and 92-97% for the last 10 years or so.
