Easter Sunday was glorious. I love Easter, for obvious reasons – likely the same reasons you do – and I knew that I missed Easter the way it used to be. I don’t think I realized how much I missed it until we were in a full church again, with the smell of the flowers, the sun shining, and the organ and choir leading us through “He is Risen”. Easter is a holiday that carries deep and lasting memories from my childhood that all revolve around family and church. This Easter was able to hit all those notes once again, and it made my year. Yes, Christmas was lovely, but Easter has a different effect on me.
The energy was through the roof, almost literally, this year. I suspect I was not the only one feeling it or expressing it. The smiles, the robust responses, the hearty singing, and of course, the children, all added up to a physical embodiment of the joy the Church’s principal feast day seeks to convey. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was to hear several people who have the same tradition we had in my family when I was a child; the tradition of greeting one another on Easter morning with “The Lord is risen!”. I could hear by grandfather say it every time as I replied, “He is risen indeed – Alleluia!”
As we are programmed to do, those of us in church leadership anyway, we diligently filled out the parish register at the end of the morning. That’s the historical record that we keep about all services held in the church, including how many were in attendance. This was, by far, the most people we’ve had together at one time since the pandemic began, as well as the most people present in a single day, in that same time frame. We estimate we welcomed approximately 560 persons across five services on Sunday. I say estimated because it's notoriously difficult to get an exact headcount, especially when there are a lot of little ones in the mix. That’s a lot of people, especially by comparison with 2020, 2021, and the first part of 2022.
But I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to recall how many we had before the pandemic. It was right there in the register; all I had to do was flip back through two years of services, and I saw it: 768. I can’t even fathom how we did that, since the 9:15 services alone had about 150 more, when factoring in the Parish Hall. For a moment, I was disappointed, but only briefly. I quickly realized that I was still amazed at how it felt to have a church full to bursting again. More than half of our Easter attendance was crammed into Christ Church this year, so much so that we actually had more in the building than in 2018 or 2019, when folks would have shifted to the overflow service, over sitting in the Winn Building. That feeling was wonderful, not because of the numbers, but because so many people were praying and praising together. The number didn’t really matter.
And yet. For many, the numbers do matter. A few weeks ago, the folks at Pew Research published an update on church attendance. They have the most consistent polling over time about such things, and it’s always interesting. As expected, people are not returning to in-person church yet, at least not at pre-pandemic rates. In-person attendance has plateaued along with online worship participation. It seems we’re sorting ourselves out a bit, and online worship is here to stay for many. We expected that. I did learn that Christ Church is in the minority, with only 43% of churches reporting in March that they are worshipping the same way (read: without restrictions) as before the pandemic. 47% of churches are worshipping with restrictions in place.
We know we have faithful online worshippers at Christ Church. We also know some of them will still eventually come back to in-person worship when the pandemic is finally over. We expect some will remain “virtual”. And that’s ok. We’ve been streaming our services for at least seven years. We will continue to stream for at-home worshippers, and we may continue to gradually improve our offerings. We have learned that persons can have meaningful connections to the congregation, even if we don’t see them. For those who can or feel safe doing so, in-person worship is still the “norm” and the recommendation, but we can’t look down on the role that online worship is playing and will continue to play in the future.
Our bishop checked in this week to do a little anecdotal investigating about how things went for Easter in our parishes. He wanted to know about numbers and energy, and I so appreciate that he asked about the energy aspect. Because the numbers don’t tell the whole story anymore, not that they ever did. We’ve been relying too much on “average Sunday attendance” as though it means the same thing that it did twenty years ago (spoiler alert: it doesn’t!). We’ve known that church attendance was becoming less frequent, meaning average Sunday attendance could drop, even while engagement and ministry participation rose. That’s the energy side of the equation.
I rejoice that the energy of Easter Sunday matches the energy of the parish as a whole, as we celebrate what feels like a post-pandemic resurrection. I know, the experts haven’t called it yet on the pandemic, yet it feels close at hand, regardless. We are seeing engagement grow at a rapid clip, as we restart so many ministries that lay dormant (as though in a tomb) during the worst of the pandemic. It’s exciting to watch and to be a part of, and it feels good and right.
This Easter was a big deal for many of us, because it felt normal and special all over again. I rejoice for the experience of being in the midst of the life of a congregation that was celebrating being in the midst of the life of God’s love this past weekend. We are a resurrection story unfolding as we go along in more ways than one. That’s worth another round of Alleluias, to be sure!
Tom+
If you want to see the Pew Report you can find it here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/22/more-houses-of-worship-are-returning-to-normal-operations-but-in-person-attendance-is-unchanged-since-fall/
Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.