Spiritual Vitality & Attendance

It has been a busy week getting back into the flow of ministry after time out for vacation and the School for Congregational Development.  While gone I had the opportunity to engage in some stimulating reading:  Jesus Wars by Philip Jenkins, Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement by Will Mancini, and The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’ Essential Teachings on Discipleship (audio book) by Dallas Willard.  I will try to share some information on later blogs. Going through my email I got the chance to catch up on some other writings.  The work that Dr. Lovett H. Weems, Jr does out of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership is consistently excellent.  Recently he passed on some new findings about American Congregations based on the Cooperative Congregations Studies Partnership out of the Hartford Seminary foundation.  The report’s author is David Roozen, a noted researcher in the field.  I thought you might like a taste.

Some of the factors associated with growth in spiritual vitality and attendance are:

 

Changing a congregation's style of worship or adding a new service tends to improve attendance, and there is a clear affinity found between contemporary worship and higher attendance. However, the quality of the worship appears to be more important than the style. Congregations that have a clear identity and purpose tend to grow in attendance and spiritual vitality. This is true of churches that see themselves as more conservative than other churches and those that see themselves as more liberal than other churches. There is rising interest in youth ministry. While not strongly associated with attendance growth, a strong relationship was found between youth ministry programs and increasing spiritual vitality of the congregation. While no one method of contacting guests seems to work better than others, the number of different methods a congregation uses to connect with newcomers is highly associated with attendance growth. Member involvement in reaching new members is tied strongly to growth in attendance and spiritual vitality. This connection is more important with Oldline Protestant churches than any others. Contacting members who stop attending makes a positive difference in churches that average 300 or more in worship. However, large churches are the least likely to make such contacts. Creating strong interpersonal bonds and purposefulness are two factors that decrease the likelihood of conflict. There is a strong positive correlation between spiritual vitality and financial health. Increasing financial health leads to greater giving to mission. A free download of the report can be found at http://faithcommunitiestoday.org/research-based-products-congregational-leadership.