As we work on our 2021 Congregational Report forms, and continue to engage people online, we present two resources on counting online worship attendance.

In this post, we share thoughts from Rev. Kent Mueller, Assistant to the Bishop for Administration and Communication at the Rocky Mountain Synod.

We also share Pacifica Synod’s “Tracking Online Worship Attendance,” which is ELCA Churchwide is offering as the guidance on calculating online attendance for Form A.

Confused about how to count worship attendance?

by Rev. Kent Mueller, Assistant to the Bishop for Administration and Communication at the Rocky Mountain Synod

You're not alone.

We have received several inquiries about guidance on how to count worship attendance with the variables and ambiguity of online worship. Our foundational guidance is that congregations should count "engagements" in a worship service whether it is in-person or online.

Most important is that you are using a consistent metric so that the statistics for your congregation will provide consistent data from year to year. Regarding streaming or online viewing, some congregations are using only those who participated in real time. Others are adding to that views of the recording. Ambiguity is introduced with no way of knowing if more than one person viewed one stream or if a stream is counted even though only a small portion was viewed.

 Adam DeHoek is the Congregation Statistics Analyst in the ELCA Office of the Secretary, and he has provided some additional information. 

He explained that the cover letter being sent to congregations (with the annual parochial report) will ask that congregations "provide numbers that make the most sense for their context and streaming platform."

He further explained that measurement of online attendance has been discussed among denominational representatives with the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), with no agreed-upon direction on best practice or language. Representatives from different denominations indicated they would be using language of participation, attendance, and engagement. Additionally, some indicated they would be measuring online attendance by total number of views, or by following the guidance of the platform they are using.

Tracking Online Worship Attendance

from Pacifica Synod, view as PDF

This period of “social distancing” has demanded that congregations come up with creative online solutions for gathering the community in worship, whether through livestreaming, posting of recorded services, or both. This has led to many questions about how to track and report attendance when it comes time to fill out Form A next year. Following are the recommended guidelines:

1. Determine the number of live connections. If you livestream your service, the application you are using should give you a count or a list of all devices that connected to the broadcast. (If that number is not stored by the application, you might assign one of your regular ushers/greeters to write down the count, or to take a screenshot of the participant list a few minutes into the broadcast.) Your application may also provide a detailed analysis of how many clicked in to join, how long they stayed, etc. For tracking purposes, though, simply count how many devices were connected. Don’t worry about how long individual viewers stayed connected.

2. Determine the number of views or downloads of any recorded service for one week. If you post a recording of your service, keep a count of how many views or downloads it receives for the seven days following the service.

3. Add together the number of connections to any livestream of the service and the number of views/downloads of any recording of the service, then multiply by 2. We recognize it’s difficult to know how many people are watching from a given household, but we feel this multiplier will give a good average in most cases.

4. Record that figure as your weekly online attendance.

Here’s what Form A for 2020 will look like:

7. Average Weekly Worship Attendance in 2020

1. On-site (in-person attendance at worship)

2. Online (e.g. attendance via streaming or by watching or downloading posted video)

Form A General Instructions

7. Average weekly worship attendance in 2020: Do not include attendance at Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Good Friday, or special services such as weddings or funerals or midweek Lenten or Advent services (unless you hold midweek services throughout the year). Estimate if necessary. Report whole numbers only.

1. On-site worship: Total number of people, including children and non-members, physically present for

   regularly scheduled on-site Sunday and regularly recurring weekday services (e.g., Saturday, Monday), ÷ by the number of weeks during which services were held on-site this year

2. Online worship: Total number of devices connected to each livestreamed service, + number of views or downloads of recorded services during a seven-day period following the service; multiply that sum x 2, then ÷ by the number of weeks during which online services were held this year