As the United Methodist Church went through a schism that resulted in more than half of all churches in Alabama leaving in the past three years, weekly attendance reports to the North Alabama Conference kept meticulous track of the precipitous decline.
Now, conference leaders have asked churches to stop sending in the weekly attendance counts. They will still ask for the annual year-end statistical Local Church Report.
The last full weekly report was made for Sunday attendance on June 29. Of 287 congregations eligible to report, 169 sent in numbers.
They reported 10,524 combined attendance on that Sunday, out of 34,448 total members.
That’s down from the high point of the year, Jan. 12, when 242 congregations out of 287 reported combined attendance of 13,559 from a total membership of 49,781.
Other conferences nationwide are also reviewing their metrics.
“It’s important to note that UMC conferences across the nation are examining their own metrics in today’s modern ministry landscape,” the North Alabama Conference said.
Those trends were discussed at a denominational meeting in Nashville earlier this year that included representatives from United Methodist conferences nationwide. The national Metrics Missional Cohort Gathering at the United Methodist Discipleship Ministries office was held in April in Nashville.
“Conferences across the connection are asking the right questions about metrics and how they can be more effective in fulfilling our mission,” said the Rev. Suzanne Katschke, executive director of the New and Renewing Churches ministry for the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. “The Metrics Missional Cohort Gathering was just the beginning. At the three-day gathering, the mega questions were these — ‘What does church vitality look like, and how can it be effectively measured?’”
Former North Alabama Bishop Will Willimon instituted the weekly reporting dashboard in 2009 to track attendance, membership and other metrics on a church-by-church basis. “Conference leaders believed that having more up-to-date data could help congregations self-evaluate and enable Conference leaders to understand trends, celebrate disciple-making efforts, identify new outreach opportunities and allocate resources more efficiently,” the conference said in a statement on its website announcing the end of weekly reporting.
“Metrics play a crucial role in our life together as United Methodists,” the conference said. “Local churches take attendance in Sunday school, count the offering, celebrate the number of students in confirmation class, announce the number of volunteers heading out on a mission trip, and determine how many neighbors the congregation assisted in feeding each month. We recognize that data helps tell the story of our ministry.”
Methodists have historically kept detailed records.
“This report is a part of our United Methodist heritage of meticulous record-keeping and data collection,” the conference said.
But the conference said the reports are time-consuming and not always useful.
“Sometimes, by the time the metrics are available, the ministry story and context have already changed,” the conference said.
“Over the past 15 years, the Weekly Dashboard has highlighted trends in North Alabama and provided snapshots of key moments in time within the Conference.”
The conference thanked churches for 15 years of faithfully reporting data, but said it was time to change.
“As the Dashboard was a step toward enhancing North Alabama’s collective ministry, this year, Bishop Jonathan Holston and the Extended Cabinet have decided to take another step,” the conference said. “Recognizing that both culture and ministries have changed in the post-COVID world—and that the data collected through the Dashboard may no longer be the leading benchmarks to assess ministry impact in real time—the Weekly Benchmark Report and Weekly Benchmark Dashboard will conclude on June 30, 2025.”
Conference leaders will be looking for other ways to track progress, they said.
“This closure does not mean the end of metrics in North Alabama,” the conference said. “Congregations will still complete the denomination’s year-end report, and Conference leaders are actively exploring new metrics and tools to help evaluate and celebrate ministry successes while identifying trends and new ministry opportunities.”
Representatives from more than 40 United Methodist conferences attended the Metrics Missional Cohort Gathering in Nashville. Katschke and others on her team represented North Alabama.
“Our team quickly resonated with other UMC conferences who desire metrics to assess church vitality more accurately,” Katschke said. “Church leaders desire metrics for local churches that measure community impact, leadership development, operational health and spiritual formation.”
While those seem like measures that are more subjective than actual attendance or membership, conferences are looking for ways to track them.
“Experiments will be tested across the connection, including ours,” Katschke said. “If you are interested or have input related to metrics, please reach out. The North Alabama Conference team will expand to include leaders and churches, as our experiment is implemented this fall and into 2026.”
Meanwhile, looking at the statistics already on the books this year reveals that some congregations are healthy in both attendance and membership.
The 3,737-member Trinity United Methodist Church in Homewood had average attendance of 1,322, according to the dashboard, with a high of 4,450 on Easter, a low of 428 on Memorial Day weekend, and 1,001 on June 29, the last Sunday in the report.
The 4,397-member Canterbury United Methodist Church in Mountain Brook had average attendance of 585, with a high of 2,380 on Easter, a low of 213 on Memorial Day weekend and 320 in the last weekly report for June 29.
The 2,672-member Asbury United Methodist Church near the intersection of U.S. 280 and Highway 119 had average attendance of 668, with a high of 1,940 on Easter and 590 on its last report, June 15.
The 1,602-member Tuscaloosa First United Methodist Church had average attendance of 395, with a high of 1,188 on Easter, a low of 428 on Memorial Day weekend, and 288 in its last report for June 22.
The 662-member Birmingham First United Methodist Church had average attendance of 296, with a high of 652 on Easter and 288 on its report for June 22.
The 495-member Highlands United Methodist Church at Five Points South in Birmingham had average attendance of 184, with a high of 644 on Easter and 162 on its last report for June 29.
The statistics also showed a number of churches barely hanging on.
The historic Village Falls United Methodist Church in Mulga, founded in 1871, reported attendance of only six or seven every Sunday this year, as did the Vincent United Methodist Church in Shelby County.
This year, the North Alabama Conference closed 20 churches, including the 253-member Discovery United Methodist Church in Hoover, which had an average attendance of 43 and a high of 101 on Easter Sunday, April 20, its last service before closing.
The Discovery property has been given to Trinity United Methodist Church in Homewood, which plans to re-launch it as a Hoover branch of Trinity next year.
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