You need to know a couple of things about me. First, I love the local church. I love the experience of people gathering in order to worship together and encourage one another. Second, I enjoy seeing what other churches do. So, when we’re out of town on a Sunday we usually find a church to attend. Part of that desire is probably research and seeing what others are doing and what we can learn from it, but part of it is enjoying the opportunity to see that no two churches are exactly alike. It’s a rare Sunday when we aren’t being a part of a church somewhere.
That being said, where do people go when attendance drops. Over the course of any given month of Sundays we can have attendances that differ by as many as 200 or more. Where do people go? In a couple of weeks (for Easter) we’ll have an attendance of around 2000. The week before it will probably be around 1200 and the week after it will probably be nearly the same. Where does everyone go?
Understand this isn’t a rebuke or a ploy to make you feel guilty. It’s just a point of interest. I just find it interesting to watch how up and down attendance can be from one week to the next. It could be sickness. It could be weather related. It could be vacations coinciding. But, where do people go? I’ve sometimes wondered if it’s an inside joke people like to play on pastors the ol’ “Hey, let’s all skip services this week and see if the pastor will panic” kind of thing. It’s a cruel world. It could happen!
So, join with me and watch over the course of the next few weeks and see if you can figure it out, “Where do people go?”
