“How are we doing?” Corporations ask this question. Couples ask this question. Sports teams and opera companies and preschools and PTAs ask this question. We do and do and do, and then, every once in a while, we ask, “How are we doing?” To help AHCC address this crucial question and put some of the current AHCC metrics in context, I offer a word of wisdom from Earl Exum and a few observations related to trends in the churches around the U.S.
Two Contexts for Metrics
Earl’s death is a heart-wrenching part of our current context at AHCC, but the legacy of his wisdom and perspective lives on. In his September response to concerns about attendance and revenue numbers, Earl wrote,
I don’t judge the health of our church by the number of new members, or the amount of pledges. These metrics are important, and I will share the actions we are taking to improve them. However, judging the health of the church based on numbers alone would be like judging each other based on how much money we make, as opposed to the good works that we do.
With these words as a starting point, let’s look at the context and content of AHCC’s self-assessment.
Our 2020’s Context for Church
There is good reason to count noses and dollars, because how many people engage and how much people give to this church matters. But comparison across eras gets us into a bit of trouble, because the 40-year trend away from church in American culture also matters for any good current assessment of church health.
- In 1983, more than 70% of the U.S. population were members of a church or synagogue. In 2023, that number is just more than 50%. (Gallup)
- In 2000, nearly 33% of the U.S. population attended worship services weekly. In 2023, the number is down to 20%. (ChurchTrac)
- In 2000, about 13% never attended worship service, and that number is up in 2023 to 33%. (ChurchTrac)
- Additionally, a March 2023 Pew Research Center study shows that nationally 8% of people who attended religious services at least once per month pre-Covid have ceased that practice afterward.
- Zeroing in locally, although the Pacific Northwest has often been called “the none zone” for its areligious ways, a 2014 study found that 5 of the 6 least churched states in the union were New England states.
Not surprisingly, then, AHCC’s numbers have declined in recent years – especially post-Covid. It is not an easy task to search out AHCC’s attendance records from 2003, so I cannot produce them here at this time for comparison. Nonetheless, anyone who has been at the church for twenty years has noticed a fall-off. Here are current attendance and revenue numbers:
- Members – 1487
- Households – 869
- Weekly In-Person Attendance – 123
- Weekly Online Attendance – 190
- Pledging Units – 700
- Current Committed Dollars for FY2024 – $784,271
- Contributions Received for FY2023 – $940,128
None of this should dampen AHCC’s aspirations to reach more people. But church folk who look longingly back to more plentiful population in the pews when they assess ministerial success must reckon with vast cultural changes in the place of religion in lives and priority scales.
In fact, it is time to let hope guide support. Asylum Hill Congregational Church has a long and strong tradition and place in the city of Hartford, and your pastors and leaders are adapting creatively to the new territory that is church life in 2023. This is no time to “wait and see.” This is the time for faithful folk to double down on this vibrant church’s future by resuming regular attendance and pledging financial support. Hartford needs a thriving AHCC – and so do you!
Jesus’ Vision for a Church
Of course, the more important question for any assessment of success must begin with the purpose of the church. There are huge churches that fail this test and small ones that ace it. As AHCC takes a moment to ask, “How are we doing?” we will do well to take Jesus’ restatement of the goal as our starting point.
When we ask, “How are we doing?” We often move quickly to the related question, “How are ‘they’ doing?” The ‘they’ can be another business or family or team or company or school – or it can even be our former selves, as we ask how we’re doing relative to our past performance. We tend to want context, so we bring “them” into the picture for comparison.
We do this because we humans are a competitive lot. We need only step into a corporate board room or a nursery school classroom for evidence, as power brokers in suits and tots in short pants vie for primacy or advantage. And, while some Christians have proposed that being faithful requires a sort of “competition-ectomy” – removal of our competitive instincts – Jesus does not. He treats them as a given. In Mark 10, when his disciples James and John begin (again) to one-up the rest of the disciples, Jesus does not say, “STOP COMPETING!” Instead, he tells them that their specific aspirations are worldly; but then, rather than extinguishing their competitive urges, he taps into them. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,” says he. “And whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” Then he offers himself as an example. “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” Jesus may as well have said, “It’s natural that you want to be ‘great’ and ‘the greatest.’ Here’s how to win the right games.”
A church can and probably should think competitively – partly because human nature makes us unable to help it. But when we are faithful, we strive to win at different games than the world around us; so, when we assess ourselves, it will be important to form “A Different Dashboard.” And as we do, we’ll need to identify what metrics or measures or qualities will be most important to track – essentially, to decide what games we want to win.
Once we’ve identified what Jesus defines as winning, numbers will matter in our assessment. But what shall we count? Of course, if we interpret the word “serve” loosely, this could lead us back to the most common metric used by churches: souls in seats. “Let’s count how many people come to our worship ‘services’!” But a better reflection on Jesus’ words would ask, “How many servants are we partnering with God to form?” Or, to go to another set of Jesus’ primary concerns, “Are we forming people who are not constantly angry or vengeful (Matthew 5.21-26, 38-42) and who are constantly striving to love their enemies?” (Matthew 5.43-48) We could continue through an array of Jesus’ other words, but you get the picture. The One we follow appears to have been much more concerned with the quality of the lives he was forming than with attendance at his events. Those transformations produced a magnetic effect, and churches grew. What would an assessment look like if the focus shifted to these markers?
Earl Exum’s reflection below caught this spirit.
I am encouraged by how the spirit is moving in the church since the pandemic. We are a different church from when I joined over two decades ago when the iPhone did not exist. We have a strong digital presence that keeps members and guests engaged from all over. Our worship services have been inspiring. The summer series – The Gospel According To Broadway – was creative, engaging, thought-provoking, and motivating. Our Homecoming Sunday service included the elements that make the AHCC worship and praise service unique – unique and inspiring music, dance, art, children, and insightful words. It also re-introduced name tags in a new way, and we’ve added the passing-of-the-peace to the worship service. These promote the fellowship and community I want for our church community.
We continue to serve and be in fellowship with our church community and neighborhood through the Sunday Community Meal.
I review the church announcements and am encouraged by so many ways we are able to be in fellowship with God’s servants; and the many opportunities to support and encourage each other.
I am quite encouraged about our church. Most of the discussions I have informally and during office hours reflect thankfulness for these things I’ve shared. After the worship service and my office hours discussions I leave with a sense of purpose to do better as a Christian, as God’s humble servant, and as moderator at AHCC.
Earl’s profound words ought to matter as AHCC walks forward together into whatever is next.
A Final Thought
As I work with churches and their leaders around the U.S. in 2023, I see a clear continental divide between two ways of responding to the discouraging statistics we surveyed above.
Response #1: A Yearning for Yesteryears
Some churches’ pastors, lay leaders, and congregations spend a lot of their time yearning for the pre-pandemic glories of 2018 or, on a broader canvas, the halcyon days before our four-decade decline. Churches who think this way prize in-person participation far above online engagement, look at emptier pews with regret (and even shame), and try shoving old, square pegs into new, round holes. As a consequence, they tend toward what one pastor recently called “a collective chronic depression.” They do church, but always with the “better days” of the past in mind.
In my experience, these churches usually move quickly into a scarcity mindset and shrink both in spirit and in number.
Response #2: An Improvisational “Yes and…”
A starkly opposite other group of churches has leaned into the changes the cultural shift and pandemic challenges present. They realize that younger generations have good reason to be skeptical when they hear a church invite them in, that Sunday worship is not the only way for new engagement to begin, and that an agile and improvisational church can build new ways of thriving. These leaders and churches live by the universal mantra of improvisational actors everywhere: “Yes and….” They recognize that we can’t always choose our prompts and circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.
These churches continue to pursue thriving lives together, evolve new ways of carrying out their mission, and tend to grow in spirit and, eventually, in number.
Friends, I’ve watched closely through these last several years, and AHCC’s pastors and leaders fit Response #2. I predict that their innovative programming, empathic leadership, and a “Yes and…” attitude will produce the right kinds of growth in these challenging times – and that the congregation would do very well to follow this lead.
The Reverend Sonya Green is a native of Hartford, Connecticut. Drawn to peace-building since childhood, Sonya is certified as a Level 1 Trainer in Kingian Nonviolence and is the Board Chair of the Connecticut Center for Nonviolence. She served as an associate minister at the Union Baptist Church in Hartford.
Rev. Nina was raised on the Connecticut shoreline and loves all things sea and shore. She is a “cradle Congregationalist,” having grown up in the Old Lyme Congregational church. Prior to discerning her call, she worked at various and sundry undertakings, after which she resided on Fishers Island, NY, becoming a member and lay leader at Fishers Island Union Chapel UCC, where she was ordained (2016) following her graduation from Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO, (MDiv) in 2015.
Country of Origin: Ghana
Country of Origin: Tanzania