For the first time in decades, attendance is ticking up — are we set up to receive the people who'll walk in looking to belong, or are we still set up to count them and move on?
Ask it. Watch where the room goes quiet.
Lifeway Research (May 1) — in-person worship attendance at the median U.S. congregation rose for the first time in decades. The median church welcomed 70 attendees in 2025, up from 65 in 2020. Modest. But a turn. See the data →
Christianity Today (May) — "Join a Church Before It's an Emergency." A pastor's argument that formal membership is an advance directive — naming who's allowed to move toward you when you're not spiritually healthy enough to ask. Read it →
Pastors' calling is up. Satisfaction is lagging. — Barna's 2026 State of the Church (with Gloo) finds confidence in calling has climbed back to 58%, and feelings of inadequacy are the lowest in years. But "very satisfied" with vocation has fallen from 72% in 2015 to 52% today. Steadier. Not sweeter. See the report →
Mother's Day surfaced a lot of quiet weight yesterday — grief, longing, complicated mothers, complicated children. May is also Mental Health Awareness Month. Your people are carrying both into this week. A short, named acknowledgment in staff meeting goes further than a sermon series.
The people who showed up curious in March are gone by June, and we still don't know their names.
The teammate for this:
New Member Class tracks the people who keep showing up, drafts the right invitation in the right voice, walks them through a real on-ramp into belonging, and surfaces the ones who need a pastor's hand before they drift. Module 02 of Exec Pastor OS.
See it →Free tools live at churchops.ai/on-the-house.
"For just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another." — Romans 12:4–5
This issue went out to subscribers on Monday, May 11, 2026. The Brief is free, weekly, and short.
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