Survey on worship services 2015

ChurchCouncil is always considering the number, style and timing of worship services. It was suggested at the congregational meeting in March that Council again canvas the congregation on the question of reducing the number of services. In response to this request, concil composed a survey. The survey focused on examining the diversity of members' worship style preferences, to see if combining of services is possible. Questions concerning which services to combine and at what times, are not yet being considered.

The survey was available in paper form available at church or here, or on the web using this link.

A somewhat condensed version printed for the Congregational meeting is also available here as a .pdf file.

1. Analysis of numerical answers

The following graphs show the results of the numerical questions. We received 157 surveys, made up of the following attendees. Some people attend more than one time.

38

Eight am

52

Nine fifteen

75

Eleven

11

Seven pm

19

other worship occasions

The first plot shows the average and standard deviation of the various questions."A sense of the holy" is the top performer. There may be different interpretations of what this means, and the spread of values is large, but it is clearly important to many people. Encouragingly, many of the features that are sometimes seen as contentious have mainly positive responses, including organ and choir, use of electronic media, lay leadership, and the inclusion of children.

SurveyMeans.jpg

The 'sense of the holy' histogram shows this. The heights of the bars show the number of surveys that gave each score for this question.

HolyHisto.jpg

It is also apparent from the averages plot that the worship time questions have large spreads. The plot to measure diversity of answers is shown opposite. Each question has a position on the graph, vertically the number of +3 ("only if..") answers, and horizontally the number of -3 ("not if..") answers. The overlapping questions are Modern songs & Lay leadership at 12 +3 answers.
Questions towards the middle of the plot show incompatible opinions. For example, the question about a time of 8am has 28 respondents who will only come at 8, and 31 who will never come at 8. Both 11am and 9am also have significant numbers of both extreme scores, with Band and Children next. Interestingly most of the other characteristics of services appear much less contentious so far.

Extremes.jpg

This is confirmed by looking at the histogram for those questions, for example the 11am time slot shown opposite, with 13 "not if.."s (-3) and 21 "only if.."s(+3).

Time11Histo.jpg

If we restrict this histogram to those who currently attend 9:15 or 11 (127 respondents), we find 20 (16% of the combined 9:15 and 11 congregations or 27% of the 11am congregations) who will only come at 11am (+3 for "Held at 11am") and 4 (3.5%) who will never come at 11 (-3 for the same question).

Time11Histo9or11.jpg

An alternative analysis is to sum the positive and negative scores for each question, shown opposite. Again, worship times dominate the points furthest from the axes, that is, the most contentious questions. Others such as band and modern songs appear more significant, showing a large diversity of opinion, but without the extreme views that the time questions generated.

SumsOfScores.jpg

If this analysis is restricted to those currently attending 9:15 or 11 only, the plot opposite results. Evening, 8am and afternoon are commonly rejected (close to the negative axis), choirs and the organ are commonly accepted (close to the vertical axis) but there are significant positive and negative scores for both 9am and 11am.

SumsOfScores9or11.jpg

Another way to look at diversity is to look at the survey means separated by current attendance. Of particular relevance are the differences between 9:15 and 11. Both value their time highly, but there are differences for the music questions, congregational involvement, children, and "A sense of the holy". These plots also show that most respondents are very happy with the services that they attend, with the peculiar characteristics of each service rating highly with those who attend it.

8am.
SurveyMeans8.jpg
9:15
SurveyMeans9.jpg
11am.
SurveyMeans11.jpg
7pm.
SurveyMeans7.jpg

Analysis by DavidMorgan. Comments and questions welcome.

2. Summary of Qualitative Responses

As presented to Council in CouncilAgenda20150825ChurchSurvey

3. Ministry Team reflection

At Glen Waverley Uniting Church we are able to offer differing expressions of worship, week by week, while providing various opportunities throughout the year for the whole congregation to worship together. This pattern is strongly endorsed through the worship survey.

As the ministry team we desire that each service is a connected reflection of worship for those who attend, week by week.

The ministry team has been intentional in supporting each other in leading weekly worship, and we are fortunate that all services are well supported by lay leadership, including other team members, worship teams, choirs, organists, bands, readers, prayer leaders, communion stewards and technical people.

We look forward to continuing to serve all members of the congregation through a variety of worship expressions and pastoral care.

4. Council comment

At the July meeting Council agreed to:
Given the enthusiasm of the people for each of the current services, Council affirms its support for all the existing service times & styles. Council wishes to celebrate both the diversity of the different services and the unity in the opportunities that we have to come together at various times throughout the year.

ServicesSurvey2015 (last edited 2023-03-06 02:49:45 by DavidMorgan)