A common question during the ALEX annual reporting period was: How do I count the church’s streaming as attendance? It can be confounding because online viewing of worship and in-person attendance cannot be included in the same count. This article should clarify the distinction between worship attendance and streaming views.
The annual ALEX reporting for 2023 included the opportunity to participate in a supplemental survey. From those survey responses we hope to gain a baseline understanding of the online ministry of Disciple congregations. We will be publishing results from the survey later.
Of those that responded, more than two-thirds livestream their worship services. This is an important part of a congregation’s worship and outreach ministry, so it is important that we collect data and build an understanding of this vital ministry.
Meanwhile, the annual ALEX report specifically requested in-person worship attendance. That is, the annual reporting asks each congregation to count people.
When analyzing and interpreting data, though, it is critical to know that the counts represent the same thing. While in-person attendance represents people, the views of a livestream represent devices. A device, like a computer, phone, or tablet, connects to the stream for viewing. We don’t know from that count how many people viewed, how long they viewed, or if the same person or group viewed more than once.
When recording in-person attendance for a service, the count is available once the service ends. On the other hand, a livestream can be viewed the same day or up to a week or more later. Because the stream count and in-person attendance represent two different data sources, we have to count these separately.
Stream views can happen anytime, but in-person attendance is real-time. Survey responses indicated that some congregations use Zoom to welcome people into worship remotely. A live video conference, like Zoom, is real-time, and it allows for counting the people in attendance on the call. This would be included in in-person attendance. If, however, the Zoom meeting is recorded and uploaded for later viewing, those later views would be counted as stream views.
Up to this point, the annual reporting for neither ALEX nor the Yearbook has asked for streaming information. Using information gathered from the supplemental survey, we plan to start asking for streaming data alongside in-person attendance in the reporting period that will begin in January 2025.