Reflections by Lou Hays: The State of the Parish
We are closing the books on 2015, finishing up the Connect stewardship campaign, reviewing 2015 attendance data, finalizing the 2016 parish budget, and preparing for the Annual Parish Meeting. It’s an appropriate time to reflect on the state of our parish. I will have more to say about this in my report for the Annual Meeting, but I wanted to share some preliminary thoughts.
Giving and budgeting
As you know, we are almost entirely dependent upon giving by parishioners to fund our mission and ministries. Several months ago it appeared that giving was down and that we risked ending the year with a deficit. Given that we have a budget of approximately $800,000, if we are off by only 1% in our income or expenses, we could have either a deficit or a surplus of as much as $16,000. Thanks be to God, we ended the year very strong in both pledges and special year-end giving, resulting in a surplus. We had both higher than budgeted income, and lower than budgeted expenses. Detailed information about our finances will be presented in the Annual Report and at the Annual Meeting on February 7.
On the other hand, pledges for 2016 seem to be down somewhat from 2015, due to a variety of factors: parishioners who have died or moved away; parishioners who have encountered life changes that make pledging difficult or impossible; those who are late in submitting their pledge; and fewer newcomers who have pledged in comparison to last year’s newcomers. By the way, if you haven’t yet pledged, it’s not too late to do so, either on line here or by filling out a pledge card that’s available in the church office.
Fortunately, it appears that there is a sufficient surplus that can more than make up the difference in the potential decrease in pledge income for 2016. The Vestry will be making final decisions on the budget this month and it will be available at the Annual Meeting.
The bottom line on giving is that we are blessed with very generous parishioners who always seem to come through and enable our life-changing ministries to continue or even expand, albeit with sub-par salaries for many of our staff. Overall, giving in the Episcopal Church is declining; ours increased from 2014 to 2015.
Attendance
Our average attendance for all of 2015 was 258. Average attendance is derived by adding up total attendance at all Saturday evening and Sunday morning services during the year, and dividing by 52. Attendance is higher during the school year, and lower during the summer months. Average attendance is declining in the vast majority of Episcopal churches; ours increased by one from 2014 to 2015. Certainly this is not a significant increase, but it is significant in that, unlike most Episcopal churches, there wasn’t a decrease.
Before we celebrate our attendance too much, the longer term trend isn’t nearly as rosy. We suffered two years of significant decline in attendance, going from 304 to 275 in 2013, and from 275 to 257 in 2014. We can pray that the stabilization we have experienced between 2014 and 2015 continues, but it will take the grace of God and strong efforts on our part.
There are two components to changes in average attendance. The first is, how many of our existing members come to church on any given weekend? There is a trend in the mainline denominations for members to attend less frequently than in the past, perhaps due to the increasing demands on peoples’ time and competition from Sunday sports and other activities. We are not immune from this trend. The second component of average attendance is, how many members are there?
Our total membership has been stable over the past several years at about 1,400. Every year we lose members to death, moving away, or leaving. Every year we gain members through births and newcomers. As of this writing, we don’t have results for 2015. However, I believe we have had fewer newcomers this year than last year.
Many parishes have virtually no newcomers. As the world becomes more secular, fewer people seek out a church when they move or have a child. We are fortunate that we are in an area with a somewhat transient population, some of which still seek a new church home upon moving or getting married or having a baby. However, we are not immune from the trend that is affecting most Episcopal churches, and I am concerned that the number of people coming to us as newcomers may be declining.
You will recall that this past fall we held the Invite-Welcome-Connect program at St. Paul’s. We did this because of our desire to do a better job of inviting, welcoming, and connecting newcomers to our parish. One of the fruits of the program was the hiring of Katie Yates as our part time Director of Newcomer Ministry so that we can do a better job of identifying, communicating with, and connecting with newcomers. Often newcomers enter through the front door, but leave through the back door, never to return. We want to do an even better job of welcoming and connecting our newcomers.
But sadly we haven’t done so well on the inviting part of the equation. As the number of self-initiated newcomers declines, the importance of invitation becomes even more important. While I see evidence of parishioners being welcoming and connecting every Sunday, seldom do I see any evidence of parishioners being invitational. Research has shown that almost 80% of unchurched people will accept an invitation to come to church, and that personal invitation is the most effective way of getting new people into church. However, the sad fact is that most of us have never invited anyone to come to church.
Here’s my request: invite someone you know to come to church with you. The worst that can happen is that they will decline your invitation. If it’s too scary for you to invite someone to come to worship, invite someone to come to a concert or a dinner. If it’s too scary to do that, look for opportunities to share in conversation how much you enjoy coming to St. Paul’s, or just that you do come to St. Paul’s.
The bottom line on attendance is that it is stable, at least for this year, in contrast to most parishes where it declined. Total membership is relatively stable. We still have what I would call voluntary newcomers, but probably fewer. We do quite a good job of welcoming and connecting them. But we have to be much more intentional about inviting people to St. Paul’s if we want to grow or maintain the size of our congregation.
Conclusions
I believe that St. Paul’s is a vibrant, healthy congregation with many children and youth, a good mix of ages, and strong programs for music, children, youth, outreach, fellowship, education/formation, and pastoral care. Parishioners enjoy being here. Those who come to coffee hour, dinners, concerts, and other special events have a great time. We do lot of outreach to help those in need here and around the world. We provide wonderful formal and informal pastoral care. We have outstanding staff who are dedicated and committed to serving our parish. We budget and spend prudently and carefully.
Parishioner giving makes all of this possible. More giving would be great. More frequent attendance at worship would be great.
Welcoming and helping newcomers connect is going well. More welcoming and connecting would be great. Inviting people to St. Paul’s will be increasingly essential to our long-term health and vitality.
I give thanks to God for the privilege of being with you and serving as your Rector.
Blessings,
Lou+
Tags: Messenger January 2016