While preparing the financial report for our leaders a few weeks ago, I thought our attendance trends might be of interest. Of course, if you attend Grace on a regular basis, you've probably developed your own conclusions based on what you've observed in the Auditorium or what you've read from Pastor Scott. I'll put it in graph form, but first a couple of explanatory comments.
The following graph represents the average weekly attendance, reported by quarters. The actual weekly attendance gets a little hairy for several reasons, first, 52 data points (the Sundays in a year) is a lot of data, particularly when you want to compare historically over time. Secondly, with the changes in calendar, it gets confusing as to when Easter fell, etc. Thirdly, because church attendance varies based on the time of year, weather conditions that particular Sunday, etc.
The quarters are based on our fiscal year, so they break out as follows:
First quarter - July-September
Second quarter - October-December
Third quarter - January-March
Fourth quarter - April-June
I broke it out by quarters because annually left out detail that I thought was important, particularly, what months we experienced higher attendances than others.
What the graph indicates is weekly Sunday morning worship attendance, through week 27 has tracked 8.23% ahead of attendance through week 27 of last year.
The grey dotted line marks when Pastor Scott began his ministry at Grace and most noteable about that period is that our latest growth trend actually started before Pastor Scott arrived. That's also the period that marks when our attendance trend changed. Forecasting attendance prior to that point was easy, now, not so much. But that's okay!
So what does all this mean?
SEATING - Seats continue to be a premium in the Auditorium. Our aim is to be at or below 80% capacity, the generally accepted mark of when a room looks full. We've been right around 80% capacity in recent weeks and I don't know about you, but it looks full to me. Jay and I talked just this morning about what we're going to do about seating as we head toward Easter. Options available to us include shrinking the row widths between each row of chairs and reducing leg room, and adding rows under the Mezzanine. For now, expect to see rows under the Mezzanine in the next few weeks.
How can you help? Please fill up the rows towards the front of the Auditorium. There were some 175 empty seats in both services on Sunday, but a lot of those are in the middle of rows, a few hear and a few there, making them hard to find. Fill up the rows and the empty seats will be easier to find which will help ushers fill them up!
PARKING - Thank goodness we paved over the small soccer field this past summer! Through the fall there were a good number of empty parking spaces, but in recent weeks, they've been filling up too. All the while, cars are still parking on Arrowhead Dr.
How can you help? Recognizing that it's not always feasible, the best you can do is carpool to reduce the number of cars we have to accomodate each week. If you're single, hook up with friends/family and carpool. If you're a family with driving teenagers, come to church as a family instead of using multiple vehicles. Finally, to be guest oriented, park as far from the church entrances as possible. You'll notice that the majority of staff are parking in the far reaches of the lots; follow our lead.
I'm excited by these challenges. We're not backed into a corner, we've got choices as to how we want to solve them; a great position in which to find ourselves. And we haven't even begun to consider the more rash approaches the early church employed, i.e. lowering the lame man through the roof or people sitting in window sills.
