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How do I increase attendance?
I'm being asked to increase attendance on Sunday mornings. Specifically, I've been questioned about how we are helping kids who are peripherally connected to our church (i.e. on the roster) but aren't involved. Ideas? What are y'all doing? I've considered serving beer, because that would certainly draw a crowd, but my budget won't support that cost. I'm just kidding. My budget would totally support the cost. But it MIGHT be slightly counter productive. And more than slightly illegal.
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- brianferry
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- 1 year ago
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Seriously, check out the book "Getting Kids to Show Up" by McKee. I don't get paid for that :-) I honestly didn't like the title of the book at all, nor focus on numbers, but found a lot of what he's talking about very helpful, useful, and kingdom minded. |
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All that you can really do is to make sure your programs on Sunday morning are as good as you can make them. Shore up any unsatisfactory elements and just do what it takes to disciple the students who come. I also suggest simply calling the peripheral students and inviting them directly. I did this to show that it would not work, and it turns out we gained four or five students who had just taken it off of our radar. One other idea is to take kids out to lunch after church every now and then. One big reason that kids don't come on Sundays is that they don't connect to the worship service. Can't do much about that. Can't do much about kids wanting to sleep in either. Maybe pass out alarm clocks as St. Patrick's Day presents. Also, if your roster is like mine, most of those kids go to another church or live in Florida and just visited. Consider finding out who these roster kids are. We had two that someone had just made up. Those two were the best behaved students we had in our group. Hated to take them off of the roll. |
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I got asked about the attendance in the elders meeting last Sunday. So annoying. There's ways like you said--serving beer, donuts, meals, ice cream cake. Truthfully, we want people there because they want to fellowship/study/be spiritual. These other things can cheapen the truth. It's worth presenting both sides to your superiors, mimicking what's already been said. |
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Totally agree with Nacho. If you want to build your kindgdom do as Joel Osteen...water down the Gospel, give away stuff, and accept everyone. So what's the model for growth? Jesus didn't welcome everyone did He? He ran off way more than He drew in. Also, when we look at Acts 4-5 we see the growing church (fellowship and constantly teaching and preaching Jesus as Christ in the temple and house to house). When we open ourselves to God, teach the Word of God, and rely on God, then God will grow His church through us via the Holy Spirit according to His will and glory just as He did in Acts 2 to the ones who devoted themselves to the teachings of the Word of God and fellowship one with another. We're called to make disciples & baptize...period |
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Want to grow the youth group, grow the church! Most youth groups are 10% of the congregation size. If anyone ever ask me "How many you running?" I always respond, "I don't know, but 6 people accepted Christ last month and we baptized 4! How is your group doing?" The moment that we stoping taking our efforts to artificially inflate the numbers and focus on the maturity of the believer (discipleship) God will embrace and bless your efforts and growth will naturally come from the contagious environment that you have created that will naturally flow from the students. Truth be told, I would be surprised if most churches had a significant portion of their group present on Sunday mornings. On Sundays we usually run 40% of what we run on Wednesdays. |
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I'm not not saying this to be dumb, but it's not your job to increase numbers. God adds to the church. You are called to serve. If you provide a ministry that is deep, meaningful, and Christ-centered then God will do everything else. Your focus shouldn't be numbers but rather developing disciples. That ranges from evangelism to mentoring. Be faithful to what you have been given and trust God to be the provider. It doesn't benefit anybody if you have lots of people that are shallow. I would ask yourself and those asking you why the numbers are so important? That's just my two cents. |
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To grow Sunday Morning attendance, you need a strong adult ministry. Most teens do not drive but rely on their parents. Have a program that appeals to your parents will give you a boost in attendance. |
