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    Dear Members and Friends of Salem Lutheran Church,

    As you may or may not know, as part of our congregation’s efforts to meet our goal for Discipleship this year we have set a goal of raising our average attendance by 5% from last year’s figures.  First of all, why is this part of Discipleship you may ask.  
    It might sound obvious, but regular worship attendance is important for our spiritual growth.  On one hand, Sunday worship is the primary program of most of our individual ministries.  For example, Sunday worship is our most important fellowship program, our most important outreach program, our most important Christian education program, our most important stewardship program, and so on.  Thus the more people who attend worship, the more people who are involved in the primary program of so many of our ministries within the congregation.
    On the other hand, regular worship attendance is also vitally important for personal spiritual growth.  It is the place where we are nourished at the Lord’s Table, it is the place where we hear the Word of God read, and it is where we hear God’s Word applied to our daily lives through preaching.  It is where we connect and reconnect to the rest of the Body of Christ.  It is where we exercise our personal discipline of making God a priority of our time, talents, and treasures through the giving of ourselves in the offering.
    Thus worship attendance is a vital part of discipleship, of growing in our understanding of God’s ways and of our ability to make His ways our ways.  With that in mind, we set that goal of a 5% increase in worship attendance, realizing that such an increase would be a concrete way that we would know that our congregation is growing in discipleship.
    This begs the question: how are we doing then in terms of worship attendance so far this year?  Well, there’s good news and bad news, and if you remember my sermon from a couple of months ago, I prefer to hear the bad news first.  So here it is.
    Last month, our attendance took a big hit.  The second Sunday of March, which was March 11th, saw only 172 people in attendance for worship that day.  Of course, the vast majority of congregations in the ELCA would love to have 172 in worship on a non-holiday weekend, but for us that just wasn’t good.  We did have two things going against us that weekend.  First was the time change, making 8:00, 9:15, and 10:30 an hour earlier than the week before.  Second, it was the first weekend of Spring Break for Orange County schools.  The next Sunday, March 18th, was a little better at 182 in worship, but that’s still way down from previous weeks.  This two low-attendance Sundays means that for March we had a 20-25% decrease in average attendance from March of last year.  This is certainly far from our goal of a 5% increase in worship attendance.  (As I write this, we still have one more Sunday in March, so maybe we’ll have a large enough attendance to bring our average up considerably.)  So maybe it was the time change, maybe it was Spring Break, and maybe it was a combination of these two issues or perhaps even others, but the bottom line is that it just wasn’t the level of worship attendance that this congregation is capable of.
    Of course, the reason I like to hear the bad news first is that there’s always the good news still to come.  So here it is.  For January and February, our average attendance was up 10% and 1% respectively over last year’s attendance.  This is the mark of a congregation growing in mission and ministry, and in discipleship.  So while those two weeks in March may have set us back a bit in our efforts to continue growing in average attendance, I believe that this congregation will continue to grow spiritually and numerically.
    Of course, success in continued growth in attendance rests with a large number of individual decisions each and every week about how you are going to spend your Sunday mornings.  I can understand that because of a holiday that you and your family had left town for a vacation, but I hope that you were able to take advantage of that opportunity to visit another congregation while away from us.  As I’ve always wanted to say in an ad for our congregation in The Lutheran magazine before summer break, just because you’re on vacation, your faith doesn’t have to be as well!  If you were on vacation and attended worship elsewhere, I commend you on your faithfulness.  If all the ELCA Lutherans vacationing in our area on a Sunday morning were to visit us, our sanctuary would be overflowing every service, every week.
    On the other hand, I have noticed that there are quite a number of members who simply haven’t made it to worship in a while, or only sporadically, for this reason and that.  It’s amazing how easy it is to get out of the habit of attending worship, and it sometime takes a deliberate decision with a fair amount of planning ahead to make regular worship attendance a part of your weekly routine once again.  But it is absolutely worth the effort, I promise you.  You can also rest assured that upon your return you will be greeted with joy, not condemnation.  We’ve missed you and we will be thrilled with your return.
    I hope that those of you who have missed worship recently sense in this letter a profound desire to see you among us again.  Reaching our full potential for the mission and ministry of the Gospel depends on every member of the community fulfilling their role in the life of the congregation, including worship attendance.  Together we can make a difference in our hurting world.  Welcome back!

In Christ,
Pastor Jeff

3-27-07 Addendum: The numbers are in, and for this past Sunday (March 25th) the attendance was excellent!  At the 8:00 am service, 66 people came together to worship, including the 6 people who joined the congregation at that time.  At the 9:15 am service, we had 64 people in attendance (including 2 who joined), which may be an all-time record for the Contemporary Service.  At the 10:30 am service we had a solid 119 in worship (including 1 who joined as an associate member).  The total for the 25th therefore was 249, which brought our average attendance for the month to 201.  Not too bad, but still it represents about a 20% decrease from March of last year.  The bottom line, though, is that those two weeks in the middle of March were the exception, and there is no reason why this active and growing congregation can’t meet its attendance goal for this year!