Thank you to the 82 people who responded to our survey about upcoming worship formats and the ministries of the church! Thank you also for your kind words of encouragement; they mean a lot to us.
Click here to view a PDF of the different charts and graphs that show the results of the polls.
Here are some of the takeaways from the results.
Comfort levels with onsite events:
On the whole, it looks like a little over half of us are comfortable coming to worship and events onsite this summer, with over 75% who predict they will be comfortable attending onsite events this autumn. Of folks who are still worshiping from home, a few are waiting for contemporary worship to be offered onsite, some are waiting to be personally vaccinated, some are waiting for the CDC to declare that we’ve reached herd immunity, and others are waiting for mask mandates to be lifted.
Worship style and resources:
We’re all over the board when it comes to preferred worship style! 33% prefer contemporary, 47% prefer traditional, and 20% prefer blended/either type. Information about the worship style and schedule for the coming months is elsewhere in this newsletter. One frequent comment was that folks hope that we will continue to provide online worship resources. Our plan is to continue to livestream onsite services and to keep up the sermon podcast. The YouTube channel might slow down in the coming months as our musicians spend their time preparing for onsite services, but the currently existing videos will remain available!
Ministry priorities:
70-90% of respondents indicated “about right” amounts of attention dedicated to communication, prayer, pastoral care, visitation, worship, sermons, devotionals, building, property, and debt reduction. Lots of people indicated that they “don’t know” what amount of attention and resources are given to serving vulnerable populations and supporting public health efforts. Please see the latest newsletter (which will be available online here next week) for some reports about the ministries that we support and we will be highlighting those efforts in the coming months. Click here to view a document about how the ELCA uses the offerings that we give to the churchwide organization.