{"id":106857,"date":"2021-11-13T08:14:04","date_gmt":"2021-11-13T13:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=106857"},"modified":"2021-11-13T08:14:32","modified_gmt":"2021-11-13T13:14:32","slug":"lr-how-to-respond-to-a-half-empty-worship-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=106857","title":{"rendered":"(LR) How to Respond to a Half Empty Worship Space"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Where is everybody?<\/p>\n<p>Why are so many from our church not attending like they did before COVID-19?<\/p>\n<p>Why are we having to contact them multiple times, offer food, plan special events just to get them to come in person?<\/p>\n<p>We shouldn\u2019t have to do this!<\/p>\n<p>Thoughts similar to these have likely been going through your head in recent months. Few churches are back to pre-COVID attendance. In fact, the average Protestant church has in-person attendance of 73% of their pre-COVID attendance. While that\u2019s an improvement over early in 2021 when an average of 60% of pre-COVID attendees were coming to church in person, it can still be frustrating for pastors and church leaders.<\/p>\n<p>How should we process this news that so many churchgoers are missing on a typical week? What should we make of this reality?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lifewayresearch.com\/2021\/11\/09\/how-to-respond-to-a-half-empty-sanctuary\/?carid=f021af8e-501c-4f1e-8880-25fe59b9babd\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The average Protestant church&#39;s in-person attendance is 73% of their pre-pandemic attendance. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/fSGtKAbDPX\">https:\/\/t.co\/fSGtKAbDPX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Lifeway Research (@LifewayResearch) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LifewayResearch\/status\/1459507612320423936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 13, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Where is everybody? Why are so many from our church not attending like they did before COVID-19? Why are we having to contact them multiple times, offer food, plan special events just to get them to come in person? We<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=106857\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,184,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-medicine","category-parish-ministry","category-religion-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106857"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106859,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106857\/revisions\/106859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}