Parish Heartbeat Monitor

Dear Friends,

Some of you will remember that years ago we used to print six numbers in the bulletin each week. In fact, here is the little data box from the bulletin 10 years ago, March 9, 2024:

The weekly printing of these little boxes was a bit like the rhythmic beat of a heart monitor, letting all in the room know each week that the parish was still alive and kicking.

There are several reasons why we don’t do this anymore. The most straightforward reason is practical: online worship, online giving, and increased use of more complicated giving options (minimum distributions, stock gifts, charitable directed trusts) mean that week-to-week data is more variable and less helpful. The weekly numbers simply mean less than it seems like they do, and so they invite unwarranted excitement or worry.

That said, the rationale isn’t to keep secrets or hide things. Here is the data for this week:

Attendance Last Week: 273 (in-person only)
Year to Date Average: 260 (in-person only)

Offerings:

Last Week - (no longer keep this)
Last Month - $63,548 (January 2024)
2024 YTD Total - (financial data only finalized through 1/31)

Though we don’t print these numbers anymore, you can get a sense about attendance just from being here. But giving is invisible. You can’t get a sense by peeking in the offering plate as it comes by to see how full it is; most of our giving is online.

And so one of the things I miss about these weekly updates is the way it made the invisible – i.e. giving – visible, and then linked it with attendance. There wasn’t even a blank line in the little table that was cut-and-pasted each week; in fact, the emphasized, bolded word was “Offerings”!

Generous giving is just as important to the health of a congregation as worship attendance. It’s obviously important practically, but it’s important spiritually too. In worship we open our hearts to God in praise, and in giving we opening our hands to share the blessings God has given us. Both of those actions of opening prepare our hearts and hands to receive God’s grace in our lives.

We don’t print the heart monitor results each week anymore, but I want you to know St. Andrew’s heart is healthy. God’s people are showing up for worship. They are giving.

It takes all of us. Thank you for being a part of keeping us alive and kicking — and, better than that, alive in Christ and serving the world in His name.

In Christ,
Fr. Andrew