In Figure 5, a higher number is better because as the number of attendees becomes closer to 1, the church loses more members. The emerging pattern of churches’ death rate by attendance size is that the rate of death decreases as a church grows larger in attendance size.
Figure 6 – Attendees per Outflow

Figure 6 demonstrates the effective reduction of membership per year. For example, churches with more than 550+ attendees lose one member to every 34 attendees. The best range is Group 1-32, as they lose an average one member per 42 attendees. Furthermore, the worst range is Group 425-549. In relation to outflows and inflows, Group 70-94 has the largest decrease in the conference at or 1% of the group’s total members. As they are, on average, …show more content…
The graph illustrates a decrease in Christian groups attendance of almost 8,000 from 2013. Even still, this is potentially due to a change in membership, rather than the success of those attending CF groups. The above trend line takes into account the decline of attendance by creating a relative percentage of CF groups to total attendees. The graph shows that the total number of weekly attendees who went to a Christian formation class increased, on average, by 4.7% every year. However, even in relation to attendance decline, CF participation has decreased from 2013. Figure 7 – Percent of Christian Formation by Age Group

Figure 7 displays the percentages of each age group that makes up the total attendees of Christian Formation groups. Overall, Virginia’s CF participants are over the age of 30, with a 52% participation rate in “Other Adult” groups. A better breakdown is through the average weekly attendance size of the church:
Figure 8 – Percent of CF Groups by Attendance …show more content…
As the church increases in attendance, so will its children as a percentage of CF participation. Churches in groups with more than 230weekly attendees contain, on average, more children than the conference average. Furthermore, in relation to their attendance size, child participation in CF groups increases in relation to church size. For example, Group 1-32 has 3% out of all the children in the conference and 8% of all the conference’s attendees. Conversely, Group 550+ has 20% of all the conference’s children and 10% of the conference’s attendees. Moreover, Group 230-304 has 6% more children than its attendance size. This trend runs parallel with youth in the conference; however, youth are just as likely to attendee Group 425-549 churches as they are to attendee churches in Group