I recently spent a few minutes reviewing church statistics. While curiosity had drawn me to look at the numbers of a specific church, what I noticed in this congregation was replicable in the numbers of several other congregations.
We have an online worship problem.
Let me be clear about what I’m not saying. Online worship is one of the few gifts we received from the pandemic. It provides another way for people looking for a faith community to get a sense of what our churches have to offer. It helps our churches stay connected with members who have fluctuating work schedules or spend part of the year in a warmer climate. And it gives us a way to offer a worship experience to members who are shut-in or dealing with a temporary illness.
Our problem isn’t online worship itself. Our problem is how we count it.
In 2017, our United Methodist end-of-year statistical reports began offering online worship attendance as an option alongside in-person attendance tracking. Here is the wording that accompanies question 7a in the statistical reports:
“Average number of persons who worship online – Report here average weekly number of unique viewers who access worship online. This includes those live streaming your worship service and views/downloads of recorded worship services (audio or video), sermons, and/or podcasts. Do not include generic hits/visits to your website.”
The problem isn’t the question so much as the vagueness in which it is asked. Back in 2020, we started sharing guidance from others in the connection to help churches get a better sense of what to count as meaningful online engagement. I continue to share a version of what follows when I speak with church leaders on this topic (emphasis mine).
“For online views, count anyone listening online for whom the church has evidence of participation. This can be done through an online check-in process or through analytic software associated with your streaming platform. Confirm that the analytics demonstrate that the person viewed the worship for a significant portion. Create a standard and stick to it consistently. Be aware that some platforms’ analytics – like Facebook – will even count someone scrolling by as a hit. You should filter down to those who “attended” a significant portion of your stream.”
In talking with church leaders, I’m surprised to learn that few have developed an online check-in process. Some do this well, but others rely solely on the analytics provided by the platform they use, most often Facebook or YouTube. Additional conversations sometimes reveal that they are using the easiest-to-access numbers, meaning they are significantly overcounting online attendees by including people who see their worship for mere seconds.
Now, this wouldn’t be a problem if we only captured these online numbers as a curiosity. But in some ways, they can obfuscate data trends we should be paying closer attention to.
For example, UMData, the website that provides church statistics for the denomination, combines in-person and online data when presenting its top-line Average Worship Attendance stats. So, for 2024, this had churches in the PNW Conference with an aggregate average attendance of 15,127. This number doesn’t feel far off from the 16,597 (combined) reported in 2019. In fact, you could even say it speaks to our resiliency in recovering from the pandemic.
The problem, however, lies in the ratio. In 2019, online worship attendees accounted for just shy of 7% of the total average worship attendance in the PNW. In 2024, online attendance makes up over 38%. Again, I’m not opposed to online attendance, provided we arrive at accurate numbers.
Looking at other statistics, we may need to review our online numbers more closely. While they aren’t closely tied to average worship attendance, membership numbers continued to decline steadily on a familiar curve from 2019 to 2024. Over this span, PNW Conference churches lost over 25% of their membership, dropping from 34,734 to 25,978. The rates of baptisms and of those joining by profession of faith are off by a similar proportion, as are the numbers participating in mission and community outreach ministries. Sunday School attendance is down by 62%.
On first glance, the financial numbers paint a different picture, with total income rising by over 5% from 2019 to 2024. The problem for local churches is that inflation for the same period is estimated between 21-23%. The amount of debt held by local churches grew by 22%, rising from $3.2 million in 2019 to $3.9 million in 2024.
Again, online worship isn’t a bad thing. In fact, I would argue that it is a good thing. The data, however, suggest that it is also significantly overcounted if we expect to see anything like a comparable impact across the two audiences.
While there is also evidence that churches are beginning to self-correct in tracking this statistic, we can still do better. If you aren’t using an online registration to invite people to share that they attended worship (live or recorded) in a given week, consider implementing one. If you are relying solely on platform data, consider using a higher bar that may require deeper digging for greater accuracy. This guidance from the Mississippi Conference could be helpful.
I know that a lot of what precedes may feel like doom and gloom. There are a couple of data points that offer some hope.
For the first time since 2010, congregations in the PNW reported an increase in in-person average worship attendance. The reported 487 increase is a 5% growth in this statistic.
Churches also reported an increase in total income, from 2019 to 2024, amounting to over $2.5 million, roughly 5.4%. While this statistic lags significantly behind inflation, it still testifies to the generosity and resiliency of faithful United Methodists.
These are real signs of life, and they deserve to be honored. Honoring them well means doing the hard work of accurate measurement so that when we report growth, in worship or in generosity, we know it reflects people actually being reached, formed, and sent.
I think this is a complex situation for many, and, speaking for my church, a pastoral change had an effect on how this data is or tracked (or not)… While we technically have a form for people to fill out to track attendance online, most people do not take the time to do so, and opt to “react” to it instead, if showing any way of identifying them at all beyond pure numbers. With Facebook, even more than YouTube, there are only two metrics for anything meaningful in the stats: 3-second and 1-minute views. To further complicate this, within the last year, they’ve changed their policy around live-streamed videos such that they only remain on Facebook for one month’s time, so if we don’t have someone actively looking at this data within those four weeks, we totally lose it. Speaking for myself as one of the admins, I just don’t have the time to gather that data on a very consistent basis, and we don’t have anyone who has agreed to taken on that role after our last pastoral change (our former pastor usually had tracked that data for our membership secretary). Typically, prior to that change, we would track the 1-minute views and then multiply that by 1.4 to attempt to get some sort of meaningful count of people, as we couldn’t rely on the form or the “reactions” alone, considering the lack of people engaging with those options. Obviously, this was not the most scientific / accurate way to do it, but we did the best we could, given the reality of the situation. Then, add the YouTube numbers on top of that, and it’s even more challenging… So, bottom line is that this can be complicated.
It is absolutely fair to point out that it is complicated.
Reporting data without critical analysis also complicates things, especially if someone if trying to assess congregational vitality, from a statistical vantage point (which is only one view, of course).
Thanks for reading and offering your perspective, Andy!
I’m a faithful member of the Coupeville UMC and I’m in Mexico most of the year — so I watch on-line every Sunday. Our former pastor always acknowledged those of us in “the back pew” (i.e. on-line) and it made us feel like we belong. There are quite a few of us because of our age or travels. But when there is no acknowledgement, I feel like I’m invisible. I have 3 or 4 members who always wave at me in the camera and I’m all smiles every time. I don’t know how you count people like me, since I don’t use social media. I use the streaming service straight from the church. But I am here! (And sometimes I watch some of my pastor friends in their services.) You can count me attending at least 48 Sundays a year.
And that you for caring about us.
So great to hear your feedback, Georgia. I know there are hundreds (but maybe not thousands) of individuals like yourself who benefit from this technology across the conference. In my local church, I’m proud to be a part of our streaming ministry, and appreciative that our pastor tries their best to acknowledge out online guests and members.
Thanks for reading and leaving a comment.