Stewardship by the Numbers
The following article appeared in the September 2004 issue of The Church News and summarized a conference by The Rev. Keith Brown developed for 16 of our transitional churches. It's a new/different way to look at numbers and their relationship to both Stewardship and Evangelism. The following chart of Key Attendance and Stewardship Statistics (5 Year Projection Based Upon Last 5 Years) is for all congregations in the Diocese of West Texas and forcasts into 2008. This type analysis was used throughout the conference.
From the Church News, September 2004 Issue
Stewardship by the Numbers
The Rev. Keith Brown has a theory. If you ask a church rector, “How is it going?” and he or she immediately responds with average Sunday attendance figures, numbers of children in Sunday school, activities of the youth group, you probably are talking to the cleric of a healthy congregation.
But, says Brown, if the rector crosses his or her arms, leans back, and starts talking about the importance of quality versus quantity, perhaps all is not well.
Brown, who is a consultant for the Church Pension Group specializing in congregational development and church growth trends, was in San Antonio in August to lead a stewardship conference for rectors and lay leaders of 16 transitional congregations — those with an average Sunday attendance of 140 to 225 — of the diocese.
He contends that evangelism and stewardship
are inextricably tied together...
Brown is a numbers man. He contends that evangelism and stewardship are inextricably tied together and that quantifiable measurements of evangelism, stewardship, and church growth are a way to assess progress and to avoid obstacles before we smash into them. Churches that can accurately project what their growth will be over the next three to five years become forward looking rather than backward thinking, says Brown. They are able to assess where they are headed, change course where needed, and identify potential bottlenecks and obstacles in a timely manner.
While most church statisticians count people in terms of baptized members or communicants and count income in terms of average pledge, Brown prefers the ASA and the AAG. ASA is a church’s average Sunday attendance, arrived at by taking the total attendance figure for the year and dividing by 52 (53 in the rare case of a year with 53 Sundays). The figure has been recorded on annual church parochial reports for as long as church secretaries can remember. Brown believes it is a better measure of evangelism efforts than “membership list” or “communicants in good standing” or any other figure. ASA, contends Brown and most other church-growth experts, measures the volume of people actually coming through our doors rather than the pool of people who might come.
Likewise, Brown prefers to measure average annual giving – the AAG – rather than the more traditional “pledges,” “pledging units,” or “average pledge.” Looking at pledged amounts counts income before the fact, what parishioners promise to contribute; average annual giving measures actual behavior for both pledge payments and plate collections. The average pledge figure does not take into account the people in the pew who do not pledge but who partake of church resources. AAG is computed by taking the total pledge income plus total plate income for a period of time and dividing by average Sunday attendance for the same period. The average annual giving figure is typically several hundred dollars less than the average annual pledge, because more people actually attend church than pledge.
Using the ASA and AAG then, Brown urges churches to predict their future performance based on their past behavior. In the Diocese of West Texas, for example, average Sunday attendance for the past five years has gone from 11,153 in 1999 to 10,493 in 2003, while average annual giving has gone from $1,430 to $1,870. (The average pledge for the diocese was $2,427 in 2003.) So while the number of people in church on Sunday morning is declining, the amount of their giving is increasing. Projecting into the future, if nothing changes, our diocesan ASA will be 9,933 in 2008, while our AAG will be $2,400 (see the charts on page 1). If we are measuring our growth only in terms of our giving, we will fail to see that we are not fulfilling the Great Commission to “Go and make disciples . . .”
By applying such an analysis in our congregations, says Brown, “We can be clear about where our evangelism and stewardship programs are taking us.” If giving is already high, for example, with many tithers and a high giving rate, we will want to affirm and praise our key stewardship leaders. “If, at the same time, attendance has been static or even falling,” says Brown, “then evangelism must be addressed.” That would include looking at all aspects of how we “do church”: who we target, how we design our worship, how we do our music, our youth work, our outreach.
Churches that grow, maintains Brown,
budget for growth and not merely for maintenance.
Churches that grow, maintains Brown, budget for growth and not merely for maintenance. Brown uses what he calls “the parable of the car” about a man who bought a beautiful car and polished it every day. The man spared no expense for the finest wax and polish but never had enough money left for gas. So the beautifully-polished car never got out of the garage. “For a church to grow,” says Brown, “a church budget must not only provide for the car, but also for gas money.” For this reason, says Brown, evangelism and stewardship are two sides of the same coin. “If our stewardship is declining, the answer is not to cut costs. The answer is to examine our evangelism efforts.”
Left to their own devices, transitional congregations are especially poised to either grow or decline. Those that grow concentrate on evangelism and “act like” larger churches in their worship, their music, their youth programs, their outreach, and their Christian education programs. Church members must be willing to provide the money not just for the polish but for the gas to get the car out of the garage and on the road.
Stewardship, adds Brown, has as much to do with how we spend and manage the time, talent, and treasure of our members in our evangelism efforts as it does with asking members for contributions. Most members will contribute significantly more when they have the confidence that there is both vision and the leadership capable of achieving it and when they understand that evangelism – bringing the world to Christ – is our primary reason for existence.
— Marjorie George
Communications Officer
Episcopal Diocese of West Texas
marjorie.george@dwtx.org
