by Bob Phillips
“There are lies, d%$# lies, and statistics.”
(Mark Twain)
Numbers are vital to faithful and effective Christian ministry, and not simply as the 4th book of the Bible. Numbers also can be gamed, spun, ignored or attacked in ways that mute the clarity and empowerment that their wise use can provide.Both the UMC and the GMC have clear possibilities for good or ill in the use of numbers.
Numbers and statistics have temptations and downsides. Accuracy is a challenge. Do all churches count Sunday stats the same way, i.e., kids in the nursery, youth group away at camp, choir counts for all services or one service? Are horrible weather Sundays counted…how? Does a pastor and/or frisky ushers routinely over count or under count? Um, I have never heard of a pastor with a reputation for undercounting but that is material for another sermon. How are online snapshot viewers separated from online worshipper, and is that number bundled with in-person or not? When I have noticed in UMDATA.ORG dramatic declines in worship attendance at specific churches in 2020 and 2021, I see both the challenges that the church are facing and the strength of integrity by leadership (of all theological persuasions) to tell the truth. When I see reports that suggest a church totally unaffected or growing in attendance during COVID, I see…something else.
Numbers can be (mis)used to draw ill-founded conclusions. A church with a long attendance average in the 20’s may be doing faithful Kingdom ministry is a rural or small town setting, but is numerically dismissed as an insignificant ‘hospice.’ A church with a large attendance, say north of 300 or more, may be filled with 98% attenders and 2% disciples. I know of a pastor who routinely overstated his 140 average attendance as 350+ in annual conference Journal reports…until an active layman from his church who was involved in weekly accurate counts happened to see a Journal entry for his church. That pastor now is pursuing other vocational goals.
The deep problem and temptation of the church, UMC and GMC, is a combination of denial and selective listening. As a Jurisdictional delegate involved in the process of electing clergy to bishop status I was stunned that no template was used to tell delegates objective data about candidates, such as whether worship attendance grew-flatlined-declined in local churches served by the candidate. As a retired Navy captain who sat on numerous selection boards for promotions, i knew clear statistical data was a crucial part of determining validated effectiveness. Numerous clergy elected as bishops never pastored a church that grew under their leadership, but even raising the question was greeted with dismissal or hostility, as in “It’s not about the numbers.” Tell that to Custer at the Little Big Horn. The military never promotes one to serve as an F-18 squadron commander who never met a plane he hasn’t crashed, but the election system is arranged such that many (not) all successful candidates for bishop can fairly be described as never having pastored a church they couldn’t shrink.
Eleven months ago I asked my annual conference for comparison data on attendance at the three major summer youth camps, beginning with 2019 (the last pre-covid year) through 2022. The intent was to give the conference a snapshot picture of how a vital part of the conference youth ministry was recovering from the impact of COVID. The response was polite but deferred response, saying that the data had not yet been finalized. Two months later, 3 months after the conclusion of the last youth summer camp, I repeated the request and was told that one of the three camps (the one clearly defined as ‘evangelical’) had not provided any data. The next day I sent this publicly accessible data to them, which reflected a 2022 registration 4 less than 2019, a healthy sign of recovery without dismissing future real challenges. The final response, 4 months after my initial statistical request, was to tell me to wait until the combined number for attendance at all camps of all sorts for the entirety of the year was offered at the next annual conference. I gave up, realizing that for whatever reason it was not deemed wise to speak publicly about statistical trends in the individual programs within the camping ministry that annually claims high 6 figure financial conference support.
John D. Rockefeller, in advanced old age, was asked to what he attributed his successful rise from a person of modest means to (then) the world’s richest man, as founder of Standard Oil. He replied, “To the fact we never deceived ourselves.” How can a new GMC and a renewed UMC leverage numbers to empower and enhance ministry, rather that inhibit or derail it? Consider these options:
- Commit to obtaining crucial numbers and statistics. What data provides objective helpful information to track trends of growth, stagnation, decline? What data is not worth the effort to obtain because it measures nothing of compelling value? Attendance matters, more than membership stats that also matter, for churches still include members “who have joined the church primarily to have a church to stay away from.”
- Establish and enforce consistent and honest standards for metrics and collection. If a conference has a statistical dashboard, require churches regularly update data or stop using it. Establish consistent policies on how “online” worshippers are counted and what quantifies the difference between a worshipper and a ‘lookie lew.” Seek the most accurate count for attendance but if one must be slightly off, let it be the mistake of undercounting rather than the subtle hubris of overcounting.
- Be real. The UMC as of 2021 has 5.7 million US members, and an attendance that is under 25% of that total. At an extreme, the now-independent Glide Church in San Francisco last claimed over 13,000 members and a last attendance count of roughly 970, or 7.5% of members in weekly attendance. NO organization has a healthy future if no more than 25% of its members-employees-troops-nurses show up for duty. Monitor and pay attention to professions of faith and financial giving by individuals as a metric of growing or receding discipleship. The GMC in late July claims 3100 churches…with membership of what and attendance percentage of what?
- Use stats for gospel ends. A healthy process includes such key metrics in a dashboard of effectiveness in outreach, growth, and spiritual depth. When a church is tempted to ask as though “It’s all about the numbers,” let wise heads offer the reminder, “It’s all about the Lord…with numbers helpful in measuring Gospel progress in specific ways.”
In scripture one finds occasions where God commanded a census and other occasions where God forbade a census, especially in settings where the ego of numbers threatened to displace the rigorous dependency of faith. Using statistics as an ally, and resisting the temptation to spin stats that make one looks good while misplacing stats that point to problems, move forward. For pastors and churches firmly committed to ministry arising from the center of God’s will, numbers will find a gracious and challenging supporting role in achieving Kingdom ends.
Chair WCA, Illinois Great Rivers Conference
Degrees from University of Illinois, Asbury and Princeton Seminaries, University of St. Andrews
Graduate of Senior Executive Seminar on Morality, Ethics and Public Policy, Brookings Institution
Captain, Chaplain Corps, US Navy (ret)
See Bob’s work on Methodist Mitosis in Methodist Review.
People Need Jesus 
Excellent article! I was wondering about what all we should be tracking as Global Methodists. Professions of Faith (apart from Membership) for sure. I think of a number of markers of discipleship (small groups, attendance, giving).
The UMC is the “Hotel California” of churches. The only way to leave is to ask to be withdrawn or die (and have someone report that information!) I was stunned to learn that one of the problems in contacting “members” for our disaffiliation vote was the number of people for whom we had zero contact information. The GMC should have an expiration date on membership. No recorded attendance or giving for a year and you are no longer a member. Not hard to re-join a congregation.
You bring up a good point. I couldn’t vote at our UMC disaffiliation vote as we were out of the country, but members who hadn’t attended or given for years could and did. Thankfully, our vote to disaffiliate passed, although only with slightly more tan 70% of the vote. Might I add one caveat to your membership criteria that seniors or shut-ins be excluded from that requirement of giving or attendance? I would hate the thought of family members losing their church membership in their old age.