One of the things I noticed with a small church in a small town is the attendance patterns actually have rhyme and reason to them. When I first came here it drove me nuts how people would just come and go throughout the year without any explanation. But after six years it has dawned on me that there are seasons for everything, even attendance. It use to cause my blood pressure to rise and my morale to lower but now that I know this is the way it is I can work with it. I have made some changes to help with the growth of the church. For instance, I noticed our highest attended service is Easter. So this past year I started a series on Easter to get people interested in coming back. It worked sort of. Every year, the week after Easter, about 20% of the congregation goes AWOL. And it basically is that way all the way through to the fall, then they miraculously show up in Sept. Our attendence steadily grows through the fall into the winter. Obviously people take off for the holidays so that is a no brainer but it still stays high up through Easter. And then the drop off again. Since July and August is the lowest attended months I decided to take a three week vacation this year in July. Instead of getting upset about attendance numbers I got to visit serveral churches that have been on my list to go to. It was great. I also noticed they had the same attendance issues. Whew, I'm not alone. But I think one of the better benefits about knowing these patterns is that I don't get as uptight about it anymore. I expect it. I sleep better these days.
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