This blog serves as a journal of sorts for my ministry in Mongolia. As such I want to record some thoughts on the attendance records from the last four weeks. I'm not usually big on numbers; for one thing, I have nothing to be excited about when it comes to church attendance. On the other hand, church attendance must have some bearing on my influence in Mongolia.
Looking purely at ministry opportunities, we have had a rough fall and early winter. Attendance has been down during a time when it is normally higher. Those who have been attending don't seem to be growing as quickly as I would like. And it definitely seems as if there is a slackening of fervor in the church.
So I have been fascinated to watch the attendance grow the last four weeks. Four weeks ago, we hit an all-time low: only nine Mongolians in attendance. The next Sunday we had 25 (of those only five had attended the previous week). The next Sunday was Christmas Sunday. Unlike in the United States we do not normally experience a spike in attendance on Christmas Sunday since most Mongolians don't give any significance to Christmas. We had a combined service with both Mongolian & English speakers attending. The total attendance that Sunday was 51. I don't know the breakdown of Mongolians and expatriates but it seemed evenly balanced to me. This past Sunday was New Year's Day. I expected decreased attendance among the Mongolians because many of them spent the previous day celebrating. Still, we had 31 in attendance.
I can only rejoice that God has blessed us with increased attendance and am eager to see what He will do in 2012.
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