Nearly every Sunday morning, I think of someone I haven’t seen at church since the pandemic. Maybe they’ve been back, maybe they haven’t. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.
Everything has changed.
That change for me includes the fact that before July 2020, I was sitting on the chancel every Sunday morning as a minister and could survey the congregation to make mental notes of who was there. I also had access to Sunday school attendance records and could periodically analyze those to make a list of who was perhaps quietly sliding out the back door.
Mark Wingfield
Now I realize even those two factors are not the same as they used to be. I might still be perplexed even looking out over the congregation every Sunday. And Sunday school attendance records are only partially helpful these days because they are an incomplete picture.
A few weeks ago, I was asked to speak to our church’s Belong Team, a strategic planning group that works on helping people get connected and belong at the church. They wanted me to speak about trends in churches and give advice on what they should be doing.
I began by saying as a former staff member, I would not discuss specific details about our church that those who have followed me in staff leadership now have responsibility for. That wouldn’t be fair. But I did agree to speak in general terms about what I see in all churches as they seek to help people belong.
And the No. 1 challenge I see — at our church and your church — is trying to figure out who’s missing. We are four years out from the start of the pandemic and most churches have not figured out how to keep track of people in the new environment.
Here’s why it’s a bigger challenge now:
- Some formerly regular attenders are watching online, and you may not know they’re there. Is anyone keeping track of online worshipers and contacting them?
- Some formerly regular members got out of the habit of attending and haven’t come back. They easily become invisible to you.
- Some people who used to be all in on church are now attending Sunday school but not worship or worship but not Sunday school. If you’re only tracking attendance in one of those two places, you’re missing them.
- Pre-pandemic, the average “active” member in a Baptist church was present two Sundays a month. Post-pandemic, I suspect that’s more like one Sunday a month for a lot of folks.
- Most churches are so happy to have people present post-pandemic that they are focused on those present rather than those who are absent. To paraphrase Jesus: The church’s attention is on the 50 sheep in the pen rather than the 50 who are wandering somewhere else.
Figuring out who’s missing is not easy. Even if you collect immaculate attendance data, someone has to analyze it. Having attendance records and not looking at them doesn’t do any good.
“Who is the one person in your church responsible for keeping track of who’s missing?”
Here’s the most important question: Who is the one person in your church responsible for keeping track of who’s missing? That person cannot be the senior pastor. It’s too much. It’s got to be someone else — whether staff or lay leader — who has a passion for bringing in the lost sheep.
And the second question is like unto it: Who are the people (plural) who will reach out to missing members and invite them back, find out what’s going on, understand their needs?
Maybe it’s time to start passing a pew pad in worship every Sunday to take attendance there. That’s a huge cultural change for some churches, but it’s common practice for others. Remember, though: Even if you collect that information, someone has to look at it.
Have you worked with the leaders of your Sunday school or small groups and asked them to figure out who’s missing from the fold? These are front-line investigators.
Have you looked at giving records? Who was giving before the pandemic but isn’t giving today? There’s a good chance those missing donors are missing from the pews. Presence and giving go hand in hand.
All churches are now at the point when attendance patterns that mutated during the pandemic are getting hardened. The window for bringing the sheep back into the fold is narrowing rapidly.
Is anyone paying attention?
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the author of Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves and Why Churches Need to Talk About Sexuality. His forthcoming book is Troubling the Truth and Other Tales from the News.