Testing the attendance gap in a conservative church

This paper examines the overreporting of attendance at a large evangelical church using a poll of church members conducted during the seven days follo wing a specific Sunday morning worship service. It provides a direct (tempo ral and individual) test of the connection between self-reported church att endance and actual, observed attendance. Overreporting was found for worshi p attendance even when the attendance rate was adjusted by removing non-wor ship events. More importantly, by comparing poll responses to attendance re cords kept by the church, it was possible to determine both the rate of Sun day school attendance overreporting and which adult members misreported the ir attendance. Most of those who said they attended Sunday school, but who in fact did not, were active church members who claim to attend church "eve ry week.".