Reasons why the average church congregation is only 89

[Particular]

I tend to like numbers and statistics. So here is an old rule of thumb ...

Remember the 80/20 rule? ... 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

It tends towards a truism for any organization or group. I will leave it to active or former pastors to comment on whether or not 20% of the givers give 80% of the offering, but just for conversation let us assume that it is so. That means that 1 Pastor needs 10 "Tithers" just to bring in his salary so he can be a full-time pastor. However, from other commercial endeavors (and like it or not, a Church has bills to pay) SALARIES are only about 1/3 of total expenses. That means our hypothetical full-time pastor actually needs 30 tithers to support his full-time salary and the expenses of the sanctuary and administrative costs like taxes and fees (some things are exempt and some things are not). Since there are 4 non-tithers for every tither (based on the simple 80/20 assumption), the 30 tithers that support the pastor and sanctuary are hidden in a congregation of 150 giving units (households). The average household has about 3 people, so assuming that just 2 people per average household attend, that places the congregation at 300 people with about 150 to 200 at any given Sunday service.

Four full time staff members require 40 tithers (120 people in 40 typical families) just to cover salaries.

Your church is either ...

• VERY GOOD tithers.
• Has a wealthy benefactor.
• Your Pastors are on Foodstamps.

I, of course, have no idea which and am rooting for "Good Tithers".

The numbers do suggest why there are so many small churches with Pastors that work a second Job (or collect an income from some outside source).

One thing that has made giving more consistent is we have an electronic system where people can set up their tithe to be taken from their bank account at regular intervals. This has stabilized the funding (I have talked with my pastor's about this). It has been beneficial for me so now I may miss some time from church, but my funding remains consistent.
My church is very healthy with members from all age groups. People take membership seriously. I love being with my church family.

 

[Shoostie]

One thing that has made giving more consistent is we have an electronic system where people can set up their tithe to be taken from their bank account at regular intervals. This has stabilized the funding (I have talked with my pastor's about this). It has been beneficial for me so now I may miss some time from church, but my funding remains consistent.

I'm the treasurer at my church. And, man, I would love everyone to use electronic payment methods. And, I'd like to tell the members to stop giving coins in the offering, counting coins isn't worth my time. I've also realized some things. Stealing is so easy, so I'm sure it's very common at churches, which is another reason for electronic payments (which wouldn't stop fraudulent spending, but would stop grabbing cash out of the offering). And, I can't imagine most churches having anyone competent enough to produce accurate accounting.

My church is very healthy with members from all age groups. People take membership seriously. I love being with my church family.

Yes, but how many non-religious people is your church turning into churched people? And, how many disciples of Christ is your church making, rather than just enrolling people into a deistic community club?

 

[Particular]

Yes, but how many non-religious people is your church turning into churched people? And, how many disciples of Christ is your church making, rather than just enrolling people into a deistic community club?

We do not subscribe to therapeutic moral deism.
God is bringing people to us and we preach the gospel. We generally baptize about 4-8 people per year.
Being a church who recognizes that God chooses whom He will save. We preach the gospel and we act as ambassadors of reconciliation, calling people to repentance. We feel no compelling reason to "win" anyone. That's not the task of the church. It's God's task to save the rebel soul. It's our task to tell the rebel that there is reconciliation with God by God's grace, through faith.
No church is perfect, but my church is healthy. We members keep each other accountable. We address sin with our members and we encourage our members to live righteous lives in this life of exile. We pray for the peace of the city. I am grateful to God for my church. Last year we provided 4000 lbs of food for our local food shelf. We have wonderful servants.