Last month we asked this question having looked at the way church attendance based on a ‘normal’ Sunday has changed. Whilst recently attendance seems to have steadied, there has been a longer term decline. Some of this is apparently linked with changing patterns of attendance. We discovered that peak attendance in October is in the first week of the month, both on Sunday and on weekdays, and then tails off during the rest of the month. Clearly attendance varies during the month and weekday attendance is about a tenth of the total. How does the attendance pattern of each church member influence these totals? We don’t collect information of this sort as a matter of course so to gain some insights we must rely on the surveys of others.
The British Social Attitudes Survey (1999) found that of those who said they belonged to a religion, or had been brought up in one, 13% attended church once a week, 2% at least every two weeks and 6% at least once a month. Of the remaining 79%, two-thirds never or practically never attended. Is such a pattern of attendance typical of our own members?
In Statistics – A Tool for Mission (Archbishops’ Council, 2000), there are results from a survey in a deanery of Wakefield Diocese in 1997. In an eight-week period it was found that people were not attending church as often as church leaders thought. Even committed church members were attending on less than half the weeks. Similar surveys consistently indicate that the number of attenders over a month is more than 40% greater than the average weekly attendance count; a count in which more than one in eight attend, not on a Sunday, but during the week.
The results of this survey over the eight-week period were:
| Attendance | every week | every 2 weeks | once a month | casual one-off |
| Percentage | 17% | 15% | 16% | 52% |
Why people choose to come more or less often is important if we are to respond to their needs. Having a good knowledge of attendance patterns within a local church prompts consideration of practical issues such as the form of a sermon series and communicating information, as well as organising a pastoral care system.
Recently St Osyth Deanery attempted desk research using the new 2007 Electoral Rolls for its parishes. The survey covered 400 members with the results shown. Clearly the survey excluded regular attenders not on the roll and casual visitors. We may also have fallen into the trap of thinking people attend more regularly than would be shown if we had kept an accurate register over a prolonged period. However, the results came as no surprise; and it would be good to hear from parishes which have attempted this sort of analysis for themselves.