personal space

Joe Meyers, in The Search to Belong, discusses four kinds of space: public, social, personal and intimate. The former three are appropriate for some element of a ministry, and we talk a lot about how to make sure your church is providing for and allowing people to find belonging in each of those three spaces. On the other hand, as David Zimmerman illustrates in entry six of nine on A Visitor's Perspective, you want to allow people to protect their own intimate space as well.

David has been talking about your church from a visitor's perspective, and today he's talking about the awkward moment wherein one has to find a seat. He brings up the 80% rule.

The 80% rule states that when a building has reached 80% of capacity it is full.

It's because we all have personal (or "intimate" if you're sticking with Meyers-vernacular) space and we want to keep it - especially if we're strangers somewhere.

Church growth presents all kinds of blessings and challenges, but it's good to remember that when your worship space gets to be about 75% full, you really need to start making plans for expanding your space or adding another service. Ministry leaders like to see a packed sanctuary every weekend - it makes us feel like we're doing something right - but your visitors will be uncomfortable and may not come back.

So monitor. Assign someone to count heads. If you have 250 seats, 187 people is all it takes to start making people feel uncomfortable. If you have 500 seats, it's 375 people.