Where 2 or 3 are gathered
Jesus tells us, in Matthew 18:20, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” We have just passed the four-year anniversary of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we reflect on the past 4 years, with the pandemic and risks of illness, the subsequent lockdowns and the recovery period, we may feel as though life should be “back to normal.” In some ways, we are back to a normal state: the rules for how to leave our houses and move throughout our community as well as the rules for masking and social distancing have all been dropped. We feel that the threat is over and we expect to be able to return to our pre-Covid activities.
But, in many ways, our lives have been permanently altered. We no longer have the overt changes by rules and masking, but each of us has changed and our church community has changed. One of the major ways we’ve witnessed this change is through our church attendance. In thinking about this problem, our church elders have initiated a new process to count the attendance in worship and examine the views on our YouTube channel for our church. In these numbers we find some answers as to the state of our attendance.
In previous years, we have averaged approximately 60-80 persons attending our 11:30AM service and 30-50 at our 9:30AM service. When looking at the data from the month of March 24 - April 21, we see the following:
Our average in-person attendance is 26.5 for the 9:30AM service and 62 for the 11:30AM service.
Our average YouTube views are 28 for the 9:30AM service and 46.7 for the 1:30AM service.
Therefore we can see that - on average, for this time period - we average 54.5 for the early service and 108.7 for the late service.
Now, a few disclaimers: It is a small sample, only 5 weeks. We will continue to add to our data to determine whether our findings are accurate. In addition, this was the period of Palm Sunday and Easter, two of our most highly-attended services, so it was not a “normal” month.
The major difference in our worship activities in the past 4 years has been the addition of our YouTube channel. Each week, Jose Cueto records and posts the service and then the elders distribute to their care lists, Rick Boyle posts it to Facebook and David Sanders posts in to our church website and we now have a viewing audience that virtually attends our service each week. Many thanks to our virtual congregation and all those on our Media Team. They help us gather our virtual congregation together, and where two or three are gathered, Jesus is there as well.