If you can't get people to come to church on Sunday, it may not be the fault of your communications is my conclusion after reading Thursday Is the New Sunday a thought-provoking article that underscores something I've encouraged churches to do for a long time and that is to have a service on a day other than Sunday. From the article, here are some of his statistical reasons for doing this:
A third of the American workforce works on the weekend. At least 60% of families with children between the ages of 6 – 17 take part in organized sports, with many of those having weekend events. We are in an area where a large number of people have camps/vacation homes that affect their attendance during the summer. Throw in both parents working and chores to be done, lawns to be mowed and families just wanting to spend time together, and church on the weekend wasn’t always making it on the calendar.
Not only statistically, but personally this resonates with me
My husband and I have served in churches in bi-vocational roles for many years and now, to support our ministry habits, my husband sells manufactured homes. A majority of his work (and I help) takes place on weekends and Sunday afternoons. With all we do at church I sometimes find myself dreading having to put in the hours at church on Sunday before continuing to work the rest of the day. Though we do it, we don't have to juggle children at home or in activities into the mix. If we had that, church on Sunday would most likely be impossible.
Work schedules are not choice for many people today. Unlike when I was in high school and I was able to take Sundays off because Tasty House (the family cafe I worked at) allowed me to, most employers today don't consider wanting to go to church a valid reason to take the day off.
Application to church communicators
Before I make some other suggestions (and I urge you to read the article above for their great ideas), an important thing for church communicators to realize is that no matter how hard you work to communicate about an event or program at your church, no matter how complete the social media campaign or how compelling the graphic design of your marketing materials, if the only time your ministry is offered is on Sunday morning, many of your target audience simply cannot attend.
I recently heard a church leader talking about how one program on Sunday morning was had very low attendance and his solution to this was to have the Pastor announce it more often and more forcefully. I didn't even bother to comment as I knew the church he referred to give the announcements before the service started and most people were still walking in and didn't hear any of the verbal announcements, no matter how important they might be. In addition, pastoral authority to motivate people is not what it used to be—people may like and admire their pastor, but authority figures in any area of life have little influence on behavior today.
Beyond these reasons, even if people did listen to the announcements and do what the pastor suggested most of the time, if their child has a game or they have to work, attendance simply isn't an option. Following are some ideas that might be options in our world today. . . . .
