13 Reasons Churches Have Plateaued Or Declining Attendance

Approximately four out of five American churches are plateaued or declining in weekly attendance.  This has been a trend for so long it is no longer debatable.  What is a debatable is what pastors and church leaders can do to reverse this negative momentum.

In a search for answers, I took at look at another industry suffering from declining attendance – NASCAR.  In its July 1st edition, USA Today writer Jeff Gluck took an in-depth look at the attendance issues the sport is facing and what they are attempting to do about it.  I found several significant applications to churches who also have declining attendance.

The following are just 13 Reasons Churches Have Plateaued Or Declining Attendance I gleaned from the article:

1. Attendance Is No Longer Being Reported Or Discussed – When a church tells you its membership rather than its attendance, you are in trouble.  Bristol Motor Speedway has a seating capacity of 146,000.  This venue once had 55 consecutive sellouts.  In 2016, the stadium appeared to be at half-capacity.  To hide the true impact of its declining numbers, in 2012 NASCAR stopped posting attendance figures.
2. People Are Less Engaged – Are you tracking and discussing your attendance numbers?  According to MediaWatch.com, seven of the first eight races in 2016 had lower ratings than the previous year.  Four of those races had their lowest ratings yet since Fox began broadcasting NASCAR events in 2001.
3. Key Leaders Are Leaving – Top leaders will not be reduced to a level of mediocrity.  Sprint, NASCAR’s top sponsor since 2004, is leaving at the end of this current season.  A replacement has not been identified.
4. Money Is No Longer Coming In – International Speedway Corp. and Speedway Motorsports Inc which run 20 of the sport’s 23 racing tracks,  has reported event attendance revenue is down 49% from its peak in 2007-2008.  Much like a church, attendance revenue is the sport’s primary economic engine.
5. Young People Are Not Attending And Not Giving – Today’s young people have multiple opportunities to watch racing other than onsite attendance.  However, NASCAR is struggling how to monetize online viewership.  This is a similar problem churches now face.  Driver Brad Keselowski said, “It is easier than ever to get access to different platforms without attending.  That is a lot of how the sport is monetized, through actual attendance.”
6. Your Core Audience Feels Neglected – Constant changes in your ministry focus causes a loss of trust.  Similarly, NASCAR fan Lanette Williams said, “The constant changes NASCAR does, it doesn’t have the same good feeling it used to have.  We lost interest in NACAR.  NASCAR has lost interest in us.”
7. Your Audience Has Grown Old – Successful organizations are green and growing.  In other words, there is a continual pipeline of young talent being groomed for future leadership.  Fox Sports 1 had the highest cable rating for adults 50 and over for a recent race at Michigan International Speedway.  Conversely, the same race was tied for fourth in the age 18-49 category.  NASCAR is not green and growing.  It is brown and declining.
8. Your Audience Has No Sense Of Expectation – Your people are bored.  You see it in their eyes during church services.  They are glassed over.  Their body language is lifeless.  And worse, they do not invite their friends to church.  But people who have a great worship experience will likely return and bring others.  NASCAR COO Brent Dewar said, “A fan that attends a live event is an absolute keystone of the sport for us.  If the experience is awesome and they have all the amenities they want, all of our research points to the fact you have a chance to make a fan for life.”
9. You Are Losing Key Staff – Some NASCAR official are pointing to the loss of Jeff Gordon to retirement and Tony Stewart to injury as a cause for the sport’s attendance decline.
10. You Have A Weak Leadership Team – John Maxwell said, “Those closest to the leader determine the success of the leader.”  Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage says, “No one driver is going to sell you tickets, and no one driver is going to put you out of business.  Each driver represents a slice of the pie that makes up the whole.”  It takes a team.
11.  You Are Trying To Redefine Success – Instead of making the hard choices to make your ministry relevant again, you talk about how deep your people are and your grand vision for the future.  You take the easy way out by praying for “revival”.  Then after unsuccessfully praying for revival, you blame a lukewarm age and say, “Well, God just didn’t bless.”  Instead of NASCAR talking about how to increase raceway attendance, merchandise sales, and television viewers, some executives are now attempting to change the conversation to social engagement, followers, exposures and impressions.  But Just Marketing International’s Zak Brown brings a word of caution.  He says, “Digital is how the world is consuming everything but digital is still new.  I don’t think anyone has figured out how to quantify digital exposure yet.”
12. You Have Started Forming Committees – NASCAR calls it collaboration.  But in an attempt to garner young viewers, they have formed a driver’s council, a manufacturers council, an owners alliance, and now a track council.  Sound like your church?
13. You No Longer Focus On The Bottom Line – You do not count what counts.  The article concludes with Brown bringing everyone back to the bottom line.  He says, “As long as the needle is moving on their (sponsors’) business, that’s ultimately their No. 1 measurement.  Measuring eyeballs and attendance is less than, ‘Did I sell more cans of Coke?  Did I sell more Subway sandwiches?’  As long as those metrics say, ‘I sold more because of my NASCAR sponsorship,’ that becomes priority No. 1.”  Your church’s No. 1 priority should be glorifying Jesus and delivering the type of ministry needed to reach as many people for Him as possible.  To begin seeing growth in your church, keep the conversation there.

Pastors and church leaders, we can learn a lot from NASCAR’s declining attendance numbers.  Let’s don’t make the same mistakes.  The message of the church is far more important than machines making continual left turns.

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