I don’t hear many church leaders advocating weekly worship attendance of their church members. They do not want to be legalistic. They do not want to suggest church should come before entertainment, sports, and sleeping in. Perhaps some of them do not want to hold themselves to the same level of expectations and accountability.
It’s a mistake. A big mistake.
Before we look at the reasons why weekly church attendance should be the norm, let’s see where we’ve evolved. For simplicity, I will use only two years of data: 2008 and 2024. It is sad to see the changes in just 16 years.
The Categories
The goal of leaders should be moving church members to weekly attendance. The Core has declined from 31% of Americans to 25%. The effects of a six-point decline are major. These members who attend weekly are your church’s most faithful volunteers, givers, and inviters.
We called the monthly attendees Capricious. They are difficult to predict. Some will return to more frequent attendance, and others will move to the less-frequent categories. Their numbers are the smallest of any of the categories (10% and 7%) because they usually don’t stick here. They could move to higher commitment or lower commitment on a whim. It is important for church leaders to identify the Capricious to encourage them toward higher commitment.
Both the Casual and Conditional attendees are really church dropouts. The Casual will most likely attend on Christmas Eve or Easter. It is vital for your church to have a Christmas Eve service, the most likely time these persons will attend. I met with a pastor who refused to have a Christmas Eve service because it was his family tradition to open gifts on that day. Humbug! Move your family tradition to December 23 and reach people with the gospel.
The Conditional will only come to church typically with some life-altering event. What was the day that more Conditionals came to church in recent history? It was September 16, 2001, the first Sunday after the 9-11 attacks.
The Closed never go to church. Their attendance is rare. Many of them are second and third-generation unchurched people. Look at the numbers in the chart. The Closed grew the fastest from 2008 to 2024, a full 14 percentage points.
The Solution?
There is no silver bullet, but allow me to make three suggested strategies. First, add faithful attendance as an item in your prayer ministry. If you don’t have a vibrant prayer ministry, look at The Hope Initiative as a great starting point. Second, do your best to identify those who are Capricious (monthly) and Casual (yearly). When your church has a special event, specifically reach out to these infrequent attenders. Invite Your One is a great tool to use with a special event at your church.
Third, emphasize small groups or Sunday school classes consistently. Those who are in a group are five times more likely to be weekly attenders than worship-only attenders, and they give eight times as much as those who attend worship services only. Groups have sticky power.
Stop Apologizing for Expecting Faithful Attendance
I’ve noticed that some pastors and other church leaders are reluctant to encourage church members to attend faithfully, particularly weekly. In the words of the famous Bob Newhart, “Stop it!” The New Testament, from Acts to Revelation 3, was either written to a local church or was written about a local church. If it is that important to God, it should be that important to us.
The local church is God’s plan A for His mission on earth, and He didn’t leave us a plan B.
Weekly worship attendance should be the norm for Christians.
It’s just that important.
