By the Numbers

We mentioned in the Epic, Pt. 73 that after the executive committee’s recommendations had been accepted by the Takoma Park Church the Group decided to sit back and see how Pastor DeSilva would do in growing the church. As it has now been a little over a year since that happened this post will take a quick look at some stats of the church over the past year, with a view toward assessing whether things have improved in any measurable way. In doing so we will be getting a little ahead of ourselves in terms of the Epic, but it seems worthwhile to connect these particular dots while they are fresh. Rest assured, we aren’t abandoning a systematic telling of events; we just want to compare a few numbers now.

On August 8, 2009 70 people attended First Service and 340 people attended Second Service at Takoma Park, for a total of 410 people in attendance at worship services that Sabbath. The financial statistics in that week’s bulletin (up to date through the previous week, August 1, 2009) reported $254,701 in offerings and $620,131 in tithe year-to-date.

Last Sabbath (August 7, 2010) 48 people attended First Service and 193 people attended Second Service at Takoma Park, for a total of 241 people in attendance at worship services that Sabbath. The financial statistics in last week’s bulletin (up to date through July 31, 2010) reported $241,602 in offerings and $567,778 in tithe year-to-date.

Let’s unpack these numbers, starting with the financial reports. The first excuse likely to be offered for the decline in this area is the economy. Yes, it’s down. However, it hasn’t had so big an impact as is seen in Takoma Park’s numbers.

Those who were paying close attention to the events of the recent General Conference Session in Atlanta will have noticed that they included a report from the General Conference treasurer, Robert Lemon. This report was reproduced by the Review, and can be found both online and in print. This report included statistics on just what impact the economy had had on the Church’s revenue. Elder Lemon made note both of the worldwide numbers and those specific to the North American Division (NAD).

Here’s how the comparison works out. Over the past year Takoma Park has seen an 8.4% decline in tithe; tithe across NAD declined only 1.7% for calendar year 2009. Takoma Park’s offerings declined 5.2% over the last year while NAD saw only a 2.1% drop in mission offerings (the only kind of offering that would be tracked at the division level) for calendar year 2009. Suffice it to say, Takoma Park can blame only a portion of its declines on the economy.

The attendance numbers, which cannot be blamed in any portion on the economy, paint an even starker picture. For our sample week there was a 41.3% drop from 2009 to 2010. Since both numbers were taken from the same time of year this plummeting figure cannot be explained away by seasonal variation, either.

What does require explanation is how the attendance drop can be so much greater than the financial drop. The answer is that Takoma Park has on its roles a substantial number of individuals who like having their membership officially located at “the historic Takoma Park Church” and support it financially even though they don’t live anywhere near it. They constitute a consistent and sizable source of income not affected (or perhaps even aware) of the goings-on at Takoma Park. Therefore, the attendance number becomes the more reliable indicator of the state of the active congregation.

For this past year Pastor DeSilva has had full sway in the congregation and the measurable indicators of congregational health aren't even holding steady, they're dropping. We leave it to you, our readers, to come to your own conclusions about the cause of this decline.