Testing the attendance gap in a conservative church

This paper examines the overreporting of attendance ata large evangelical church using a poU of church members conducted during the seven days following a specific Sunday moming worship service, h provides a d/rect (temlx~a/and individual) test of the connection between self-reported church attendance and actual, observed attendancc. Overreporting was found for worship atterdance even when the attendance tate was adjusted by removing non-worship events. Mor importandy, comparing poU responses to attendance records kept by th church, ir was possible to determine both the tate of Sunday school attendance overreporting and which adult members misreported their attendance. Most of those who said they attended Sunday school, but who in fact did not, were active church members ~oho claim to attend church " ever'y week." Religious activity involves many observable, quantifiable behaviors. People pray, join churches, attend worship services, and give money to religious organ-izations. Much of this behavior is enumerated. Nearly aU churches, synagogues, and other places of worship keep financial records on giving, most have mem-bership rolls, and many count worship attendance. Given the many objective, verifiable ways of measuring religious behavior it may seem odd that so much of what we know about "religiosity " is based on self-reports from polls and social surveys. The dependence on social surveys is not unique to information about religion, of course. As Presser and Traugott (1992: 77) note: "although in prin-ciple there are many different ways to study the social world, in practice the findings of contemporary social science are based to a remarkable degree on the accounts people give of themselves." Part of the problem, at least in measuring religious behavior, is the lack of consistent records. Even though many churches, synagogues, and other religious organizations count attendance at worship, not all do and there is no central clearinghouse that collects all the information that might be available. Ther