Counting Attendance

[Norayr Hajian]

I'm sure there are many who will gasp at the ungodly thought of counting attendance :) , but I'm wondering, how do you count attendance in a church? It wasn't very difficult when we had 30 or 40 people. Lately we're getting 70 people, and I can see the day when we get many more. What do churches with a few hundred do? Install those revolving gates people walk through to enter some places? :basic01

[Hans Deventer]

Paid seating! Works perfectly, and you also keep out those that can't afford it and whose tithe would be worhtless anyway. :basic05

[Barb Bouldrey]

Our ushers count as they receive the offering and then compile their amounts when they get to the back. One usher goes to Children's Church and walks through the church, counting anyone he finds.

Barb

[Marg Webb]

Oh Hans and Norayr that was funny.
I wish there was something to take care of people that save seats. They place their Bibles along the pew and no one dare move them. One of my friends move two Bibles a few years ago and they sat down, the person has not spoken to them since:)
My husband and I were ordered out of two seats a while ago. My husband is a heart patient. The man kept saying "out, out, out". I was not going to move, but my husband insisted.
As far as counting people. Just have a "sign in sheet" at all the doors".:)
Marg.

[Marsha Lynn]

I'm sure there are many who will gasp at the ungodly thought of counting attendance :) , but I'm wondering, how do you count attendance in a church? It wasn't very difficult when we had 30 or 40 people. Lately we're getting 70 people, and I can see the day when we get many more. What do churches with a few hundred do? Install those revolving gates people walk through to enter some places? :basic01

We try to cap the attendance to keep it within the counting ability of the ushers. That was working pretty well until all the ushers either left the church or went to Florida for the winter and we had to train new ones. Lower attendance, having lost all those people, has helped with the training. :gen03

Too many people to count isn't a problem locally, but the importance of knowing not only how MANY were in your worship service but WHO was there was brought out in the R.E.A.C.H. conference I attended a few weeks ago. The speaker mentioned a couple of different approaches:

1. Pew registers -- a little folder at the end of each pew with a registry inside. At a specified time it is passed down the pew and everyone in that pew signs it.

2. Cards in the pews -- the speaker mentioned a design he had used where one side had a space for regular attenders to sign in and the other side was used by new people to register their presence. Everyone drops a card in the offering plate every week. (Otherwise you get a call on Monday morning asking if everything is all right at your house.) The cards are collected and put in a box for the big drawing at the end of the year. The more frequently you attend the better chance of your name being drawn for the cruise or car. (No, wait, he said that was a joke. There was no drawing.)

3. A tear-off portion of the bulletin with space to sign in or register or make prayer requests or other "bingo card" type things -- I've seen that method used.

Marsha

[Brian Hammons]

I once served with a senior pastor who would take the count given by the ushers and automatically "pad" it by 10% in order to cover those that may have been missed. This "padded" count was used for reporting purposes.

[Jim Franklin]

When I ushered we actually got up in the far reaches of the balcony and counted and then went to the Children's Church and the Nursery for counts there. Generally totalled about 400-550.

[Doug Kitchen]

I'm sure there are many who will gasp at the ungodly thought of counting attendance :) , but I'm wondering, how do you count attendance in a church? It wasn't very difficult when we had 30 or 40 people. Lately we're getting 70 people, and I can see the day when we get many more. What do churches with a few hundred do? Install those revolving gates people walk through to enter some places? :basic01


I was just at festival of life at ENC and was at the church at the end of chapel. They have 3 or 4 people with bar-code readers to keep track of the students - the students have to be wanded twice for their attendance to count.

I'm sure a system like that would work in my church ;) Hmm, we could then have automatic deductions from bank accounts for offering.

For large crowds, you could count one pew and then multiply by the number of pews.

We have a particularly good usher who counts the sanctuary and then children's church. He hands out the bulletins and mails reading materials to the shutin's. Every church should have an usher like him. Someone else seems to keep track of who's in worship but I think it relies on their memory. I'm pretty sure if we were running 100 we would need something better to keep a very accurate count. We have a greeter system that seems pretty good - sometimes visitors seem a little reluctant to fill in forms but most will fill in their name.

Doug

[Jim Severns]

it is mostly the ushers that count.

Our church sanctuary has 3 main seating sections split by 2 aisles and 2 outer aisles along the walls. Split that 50/50 front to back and you have six sections. Each section generally has 2 ushers to take the offering. They each take a count for their section. I presume they calculate an average if their counts differ.

I have seen some use a little mechanical counter that you click once for each person.

[Billy Cox]

I presume they calculate an average if their counts differ.



What?? No...you take the highest count...and add one for each person who 'attended' by virtue of downloading the sermon from the church website.

You can also do an 'encore performance' of the sermon on Wednesday night and count those people toward the Sunday attendance as well.

This is cutting edge church attendance accounting. Not everyone will understand.

[Jon Twitchell]

I had 230 downloads of my audio sermons over the past 30 days. Shouldn't those count for something?

Actually, we have a pretty small church--averaging 41 last year (though I always say that it's a church of about 50). My wife (who is also the pianist) counts for us from the platform. She's seated and facing the congregation at a low-rise digital piano, and so when she's not playing, she scans the pews and counts. She's pretty discrete about it--I think only one person has ever figured out that she's counting. :)

[Barb Bouldrey]

LoL...and don't forget to add 3 for the presence of the Trinity.

BB

[Brad Mercer]

Our church isn't very big. I just keep counting the crowd over and over until I get the same number 2 or 3 times in a row. I'm kind of an obsessive-compulsive counter, so I'm hoping that someday when we get too big to do an accurate headcount I'll just get over it. ;-)

I'll bet you there weren't exactly 5,000 men that Jesus fed. The 500 people who saw the resurrected Christ sounds like an estimate to me, too.

For absentees, I just look around the crowd with a printed copy of the church directory in my hand to make sure I remember who all is absent.

I think just telling the stories of people who have transformingly encountered God in the past year through our church is a way better indicator of church health and "success" than the numbers, even when the numbers are good, which is why I've spent more time here telling those stories than reporting our attendance and giving numbers, even though for most of our church's short history, those numbers have been positive.

I'm afraid that the tragic reality is that an awful lot of churches couldn't come up with a positive report by either method. In that case, we need to worry more about why lives aren't being changed than about why the numbers are heading in the wrong direction. I think if we take care of the transformation issue, the numbers issue will take care of itself.

Brad

[Cindi Hammons]

Hmmm...let me guess which city...:(

Cindi H.

[Charlene Clevenger]

We have a couple of tally counters like this (http://www.shoplet.com/office/db/GBC9841000.html) one. The ushers walk part-way down the side aisles clicking once for each person. I think two ushers do it, one on each side.

We've had a bit of a problem since we went to 2 services. Some of us are in both services so they've had to subtract us from the 2nd service. I hope it's getting straightened out, since we've had 2 for several months now.

[Marg Webb]

Do any of you have an answer for "SEAT SAVERS".
I really am not kidding.
Two very proper ladies came in awhile back and started to sit down and people chased them out. They looked rather shook up. Very proper ladies.
I made room beside my husband and I.
Of all things, it was the new Stepmother and friend of the Pastors wife. There was room for Pastors wife to sit after choir.
We really were embarrased for the Pastor. It was so noticeable.
This has been a "thing" in our church for years.
Any others??????
HELP!!!
Marg.

[Norayr Hajian]

We've had a bit of a problem since we went to 2 services.

Two services! I forgot all about that. We had two services a couple weekends ago (Saturday night and Sunday morning) - and we'll be doing it again April 22/23. We had 40 out on Saturday night, 54 on Sunday morning, with 20 at both - which gave us a total of 74 different persons. But again, while I can count them with 75 people (even though it's getting tricky), I can't imagine how you would do that with two services running 150 each (with some people coming to both).

Maybe we should get a time clock or something and everyone could punch in on their way in.

[Marsha Lynn]

Do any of you have an answer for "SEAT SAVERS".
I really am not kidding.

That's sad, Marg. I've never attended a church where people felt that strongly about their accustomed seating. I wish I had an answer for you.

It has been several years since I first saw a cartoon about a lady who sat in the same seat at church for so long she became "pewtrified". I've passed that term along multiple times, such as when I'm out of my usual place or notice someone else has moved. Maybe you can encourage people to try another seat now and then to save themselves from the horrors of "pewtrification".

Sorry. That's the best I've got.

Marsha

[Barbara Moulton]

When we came to this church, one person told us that their custom in the past had been to count the cars in the parking lot and multiply by 3.

[Marg Webb]

Marsha. I will give that one to the Pastor. With his personality, he will use it.:)
Marg.

[Betty Bolerjack]

Do any of you have an answer for "SEAT SAVERS".
I really am not kidding.
Two very proper ladies came in awhile back and started to sit down and people chased them out. They looked rather shook up. Very proper ladies.
I made room beside my husband and I.
Of all things, it was the new Stepmother and friend of the Pastors wife. There was room for Pastors wife to sit after choir.
We really were embarrased for the Pastor. It was so noticeable.
This has been a "thing" in our church for years.
Any others??????
HELP!!!
Marg.

Hmmm... we never actually had that problem while we were pastoring, but heard about a situation that had happened years before. A nurse that was taking care of my dad told my mom a story when she heard where we were pastoring. Seems she and her husband visited the church and sat on a certain pew. There were two little old ladies who always sat there every service, week after week, year after year. One of them came in and discovered the visitors sitting in "their pew." "You're sitting in my pew!" she is reported to have said. I don't remember what all supposedly transpired, but they did get up and moved. There was plenty of room for them to move down the pew and still let the little old ladies sit where they were used to sitting, but the husband had very long legs and preferred to sit on the aisle which meant they had to move to another pew for him to be comfortable! These people never returned to that church. We had to laugh about it because when we heard the story, we knew exactly who she was talking about and could just see her saying it. I would have to say, though, that if the lady in question had realized the impact of what she was doing, I think she could have been convinced to sit elsewhere for that one service.

But, how to solve the problem? I'm not sure. Mark has at times asked everyone to sit somewhere different than they are used to. It can give them a whole new perspective! I'm not sure that would solve your problem, though.

[Barb Bouldrey]

Exact numbers are only important during a district Sunday School contest. Any other time, who cares? The number is not used anywhere in the denomination now for any goals.

As of last August, the NMI no long will be setting "Mission Education Goals." It was always set on twice the number of a.m. worship. From now on we will report the number of books read each year, but it will be not counted toward any goal set for Mission Priority One award.

The NPH looks at our numbers so they can estimate how much material needs to be published.

Barb

[Gina Stevenson]

Mark has at times asked everyone to sit somewhere different than they are used to. It can give them a whole new perspective! I'm not sure that would solve your problem, though.

Knowing how people tend to "own" their pews, and having moved around a lot, one thing I've tended to do when trying out a place for more than one time was to sit in different places for quite awihle ... surprising how many more people one tends to meet when moving around like that, rather than finding a pew right away, and staying there.

If someone might come, look like you're sitting in their seat, I might then ask, "Oh, am I sitting in your seat?" and then move just a bit ... but moving around the church -- since regulars "own" pews -- helps meet more regulars, for sure. ;)

[Mark Bolerjack]

...Two very proper ladies came in awhile back and started to sit down and people chased them out. They looked rather shook up. Very proper ladies.
I made room beside my husband and I.
Of all things, it was the new Stepmother and friend of the Pastors wife. There was room for Pastors wife to sit after choir.
We really were embarrased for the Pastor. It was so noticeable.Any others??????...
Marg.

This actually happened to me a couple of weeks ago at none other than Bethany First Church! Betty was home with Tamara who was recuperating from her tonsilectomy Betty's mom and I walked in and took a seat on one of the aisles. An usher came up to me and said that so-and-so would be sitting there. OK, so we moved to another seat on another row. So-and-so never showed up. I never thought it would happen at a larger church, but I guess that no church is too big! I would have understood if so-and-so had actually shown up and was handicapped or something.