Statistical Reporting Guidelines

The following Statistical Reporting guidelines are offered as we make our way through this pandemic experience.

Continue to track ALL statistical items as you normally would.

Continue to enter your monthly/weekly data here.

Please only record “In-Person” numbers on the weekly report.

Online numbers will be reported at the end of the year. (See line numbers 7 and 7a on last year’s Table 1)
 

In-Person Worship

The weekly data portal is for “in-person” numbers only and does not calculate zeros in the monthly average worship total. Closed Sundays will not affect your average attendance before or after the stay at home order.

For year-end statistics, follow this same procedure for calculating average worship attendance. That is, do not count the Sundays your church was not open for “in-person” worship.

For example, in a normal year, to get your yearly average you would add every Sunday’s “in-person” attendance then divide that number by 52. In our current situation, you would add the attendance for every in-person attendance then divide by the number of Sundays your building was actually “open.”
 

Online Worship
 

Track your online worship as best you can. Though there is not a space on the monthly data portal for online worship, there is on the year-end reporting.

Because there is not a universal, meaningful, method of tracking online “presence” across all platforms, we simply encourage internal consistency. That is, count the same way every week, whether your building is open or closed.

Keep in mind that hits on your website are not the same as an online worship presence. With as much integrity as you can, count: those actually online live for more than a few minutes; downloads; engagements; etc.

It is important that you decide what is most critical for you to notice about the reach of your online presence in this time of diaspora.

Remember

Remember all data is as much, or more, for your own strategic thinking as it is the Conference’s or General Church’s.  Stats are never evaluated for punitive purposes.

Just like certain “records” in sports history books, 2020 Statistics will have an asterisk beside them.

They do not affect apportionments in any year and in those instances when stats may be considered as markers of vitality and effectiveness for appointive purposes, that asterisk will loom large and everybody's stats will be taking a hit this year.