What is a statistical return?
Statistical return
A statistical return is the report a congregation sends to the level above it, usually quarterly or annually, giving its membership by category, attendance, baptisms, marriages, deaths and income by type.
Every denomination has one under some name: the Methodist quarterly return to the circuit, the Presbyterian congregational return, the Adventist church clerk's report, the Baptist association return. It is the single document that makes a register worth keeping properly, because every figure on it is a count of something the register already holds.
Prepared from a book it takes an evening. Prepared from a register kept up to date it takes a click, because it is only arithmetic.
