Get Your Strategy On
Mail Bag | The Numbers
Jan242006 Filed under: Ministry Questions Author: Tony MorganLetter #6 - When you give the box score and list children, what ages does that include? –from Gary in Canton, GA
We have children’s ministry during our weekend services for birth through fifth grade. All the older students are in the weekend services. Middle School has a weekly gathering on Wednesday night. High School meets on Sunday night.
If you’re keeping score at home, you may have noticed that we average 1 child for every 3.65 adults in the auditorium. I thought that was high until Gary responded with some amazing stats. In the first 18 months of ministry, his church had one baby born for every 7 adults that attend. Now they have 1 child for every 2 adults in the auditorium. Since I already have four kids, I’ve decided I’m never going to Gary’s church–the odds are too high I’ll end up with number five.
Letter #7 - What is the seating capacity in your auditorium? Are you guys doing 3 on Sunday in order to get more people in? How full are your services? –from Mark in Cypress, CA
Currently our seating capacity is about 1,400; however, we’re about ready to add 300 more chairs for the Sunday 10:15 service. The auditorium could actually hold as many as 2,200, but we won’t set up the rest of the chairs until we have adequate children’s space, parking, and added video support.
Yes, we do three services on Sunday to reach more people. As you can see from the box scores, the 10:15 and 11:45 services are better attended…at least this time of year. During the warmer months, we see some of that 11:45 crowd shift to earlier services and the 8:45 service is better attended.
On average, the services are about 60% full. Because of the current configuration of our seating and the auditorium, that feels full. The smallest crowds are at about 40%, and the biggest crowds push up to 80 to 90%–which is why we’re adding chairs to that middle service.
And, just as a side note, these two questions are one of the key reasons why I try to regularly post the box score. I think it’s helpful for leaders to see what’s happening with attendance at other churches. Numbers (which represent people impacted by ministry) help us make better decisions.
5 Responses to “Mail Bag | The Numbers”
Leave a reply
Tony Morgan is a pastor and the Chief Strategic Officer at NewSpring Church where he develops creative solutions for communications, technology and NewSpring Ministries--the church's ministry that equips other church leaders.
[read more...]
Kevin
January 25th, 2006 at 9:07 am
We have a church of about 2,000 and things are going well - progressive, relevant, on target worship, etc… but we wonder what do with all of our pastors so they feel more a part of what we’re doing on the weekends. There are too many of them for us to involve them in a service and we want them to feel that they’re part of it. Any suggestions??
James 'Smiler' Farrer
January 25th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Plant out 4-5 churches and ask them to lead them
Joshua Gregory
January 26th, 2006 at 8:29 am
I think it’s great that Granger is so committed to excellence that you are not sacrificing the quality of the service just to “fit more people in the doors.” Like you said, you could seat more, but the children’s ministry, parking, and media aren’t ready to handle it. If you put more people in, it would reduce the quality of the service for everyone. People sitting where they can’t see the speaker or the screens, and children packed into classrooms like sardines. These are issues that make the church feel “too big,” and could convince people to go elsewhere.
Tony Morgan
January 28th, 2006 at 10:39 am
Kevin, if you continue to try to include all your pastors in your weekend service, you’ll ultimately limiting the growth of your church. At Granger, we have a number of pastors (me included) that rarely have any role in the weekend services. Instead we’re serving in roles are better fit for our SHAPE (spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality, experience). By modeling that at the pastoral level, we’re also encouraging other people to determine their SHAPE and find a ministry that best fits who God has created them to be.
tony
Kevin
January 28th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Tony, thanks for responding — we admire Granger in a huge way — and completely agree that everyone should serve in areas where they are best SHAPED. I think we’re trying to figure out how to reconcile the “It’s all about the weekend” concept, which we tend to agree with - with some of our staff pastors who do not feel as strongly that it’s ‘all about the weekend,’ especially where their areas are concerned. They feel it would be more beneficial to the areas God has called them to serve and ultimately more ‘growing’ to our church if they did their own occasional retreats with their areas (for instance, youth) off campus rather than sit in a weekend service with less to do. We could have them in other rooms doing other ministry, but again, most of us DO believe in the ‘It’s all about the weekend’ concept and most of the leaders the ministries eventually get to serve in their areas come from the big pool of the weekend service.
We’re in some transition here, as you can tell - and it’s all very exciting - but we’re trying to navigate it all in the best way.