Like it or lump it, the headcount at your youth program matters to your church. And the problem with that is that youth pastors count terribly – it is a proven fact. I think it might even be a ressive gene found universally in pastors? When faced with any size crowd, a pastor quickly assess the room with a margin of error of plus or minus about 150. Actually, I’ve never met a pastor who counted less, so it would be +150. Either way, here’s 7 ways to know if you count like a senior pastor:
7. You count the any band members, student leaders, staff, and volunteers that are there for multiple services.
6. You count empty seats instead of filled ones, and minus that number from the room’s fire capacity.
5. You don’t even bother to count, you close your eyes and optimistically ask God to speak to you the grand total.
4. If someone enters the room for a few minutes then leaves, you still add them to your count. If it is the senior pastor/elder/deacon, you are in such shock and awe that you forget your count and you have to start all over again. You immediately mentally begin to prepare statements defending the attendance.
3. If a pregnant woman or someone enters carrying an infant, they totally count as two. You secretly pray for triplets inside the womb of an expectant mother on your volunteer team.
2. You vigorously disagree with the actual count when someone else does the counting. There’s no way it could possibly have been that low – the room was packed … er, right?
1. If a student goes to the bathroom and comes back, bingo! Add them in again without thinking twice.
JG
Josh Griffin has been in youth ministry for 15+ years and serves as the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church. [
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Geoff Stewart serves the Jr / Sr High School Pastor at Peace Portal Alliance Church in Surrey B.C.
Dude, my old senior pastor was like that! He totally counted the praise band, ushers, etc., twice AND when it was just us, he would actually erase the total attendance and then write in a number that was 20 higher because “that feels better” (it also put the total over 300 which was the magic number he had been selling the leadership as being the minimum needed for some big addition).
Hee. I love #4.
I don’t know if I should admit this but I know I have used #s 1, 3, 4 and 5. But I also had to do Algebra twice–that’s MY excuse!!!
To add to your list:
-You add an extra 50 because you ‘probably missed some people’
-You count facilities staff
-You add an additional 100 because people kept coming in while you were praying.
in our adult services, i’m always amazed at how our ushers can come up with numbers radically different from my counts. remarkable. must be a spiritual gift.
…and speaking of counting, you gave us 7 reasons, but the last line of your lead-in says…
“Either way, here’s 6 ways to know if you count like a senior pastor:”
so, 6. or 7. whatever count you want to go with.
I love it, great list… I always thought church math was a little off, somehow I knew 4+4=10.
My former senior pastor did this every week!
See. This is why every week we had the students check-in with the adult staff. This is where the signed in and the new visitors filled out their informational cards and we handed the Snapshot interactive CD in a DV case filled with goodies.
Keeping attendance like that also helped us track any trends, spikes, or deficits in attendance. It also enabled us to send cards to students who weren’t there. We also usually got an accurate count as we had that spot staffed all night.
don’t forget if someone is not there because they are visiting another church or “doing ministry” at another church – you count them too because they totally would have been there if they weren’t ministering at that church or on a “church trip”
Hey, in the early days of Coast… I even counted chins….
I wish we had this problem. Our ushers do the the counting and refuse to count in the balcony or in the childrens room. I started having one of the teens count (mainly to keep him from sleeping) and every week he comes up with a number 20% – 35% higher. I am amazed!! My senior pastor and I sometimes think they do it just to keep us humble. I hope it is working!
Wow. That’s all I can say. Right on the money. It’s sad but true!