Information on this page may shed some light on why things end up the way they do, how to approach common problems, what to look for
to improve things, or what to look for to make a planned idea work or work
better.
Also, there are trends that are common to business and other functioning entities
that show up in the local church that may not be recognized for what are.
Keep in mind this page isn't a cure-all for everything, but is a guide to help
us understand, recognize, and approach the ministry of Royal Ambassadors with
awareness of what's going on.
If you have some trends or information that is unique to your Royal Ambassador
Program that you have found a way to correct or have recognized and understood
and have dealt with, e-mail us at:
the webmaster
.
We try to plan activities, short-term goals, and a normal scheduled teaching
plan and the attendance falls. What is going on?
On the average, the church experiences attendance fluctuations that don't change.
The graph below will illustrate the typical pattern of an average church
attendance fluctuation during a given year. This will help you see when to
schedule a planned event at the right time and give you an idea of how long to
plan an event.
It's thought that deciduous plants are the only plants that go dormant during
the winter. That's why they loose their leaves. That's true, but there is an
exception to every rule. Your evergreen trees don't loose their leaves when they
go dormant. Plus, some of your evergreens go dormant more than once during the year.
Now, churches that grow and honor God have dormant periods, also. Like God's nature
needing a rest period, sometimes the church does, too. These dormant are characterized
when the attendance has leveled off and there is no growth for a period of time.
This catches most leaders in the church off guard because they wander why their
the membership isn't actively growing, the promotions from one department to
another is sporadic and the receipts have leveled off. This may not be a fault of
the church but a mechanism God put in there for the church's own good.
It's easy to recognize in one area. The area is in the Children's Sunday School
Department. When there are few children promoting from one to grade to another
and there is no show of new couples as first time members, then that tells you
the church is in a dormant state. But, discernment is going have to be careful.
It could be a church problem.
You've heard problems come in three's. Growth spurts are the same way. But, they don't
have numbers attached as a "Tale Tell Sign". These growth spurts come and go in
cycles. They are easily seen from pre-school up to high school in age with an
average of a six year span with the third and fourth years being the highest attendance and the
median group. This is a typical pattern is found in an established church with regular
attendance all the time.
Usually, these growth spurts come in after two to three years of low attendance in
an organization of the church. The attendance starts picking up slowly for about three
years with the third and fourth years as the median years with the highest attendance. That third
and fourth years is the year attendance levels off. The fifth and sixth years are the
years where the attendance starts going back down. This is illustrated in the table
below.
Growth Spurt Table
Grade 1
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
Grade 5
Grade 6
To get an overall idea when to expect this "Growth Spurt", ask the workers that
have the younger age group what their attendance is so you can see it coming.
Those that have been around a while have seen it happen and aren't surprised. They
know when to expect it and how many to expect.
There is always going to be a be a set plan in program package to go by. If
there are offers to buy everything in order for the program to work, then it's
"Buyer Beware".
The Royal Ambassador Program has a lot of material, periodicals, and outside vendors
at our disposal to buy from. Everything that says or suggests "Royal Ambassadors"
doesn't mean you have to purchase it and use. All of us don't and can't use
everything that's in the catalog in a given year. Some of use the Eight part
Chapter Meeting
Method. Some of use the Easy R.A. method, and some of us use the Sunday School
type approach.
Most of the time, what we pick is based on the needs of the church Royal Ambassadors)
That is what we should base it on and nothing else. If we go beyond that, the
thing that, the thing that will suffer first is our budget we operate.
In turn, the program will suffer
in the end.
So, there is nothing in the Royal Ambassador Program that's etched in granite or
set in stone that says we have to run R.A.'s this and you have to use this
product. Everything that's for Royal Ambassadors is
"Suggested Material"
.
