While we encourage each church to get as many people as possible to complete the TCAT, we want you to know that 100% participation from members and regular attendees is not necessary. What you do need though is to have enough people to complete it so that you are getting a strong representation of who your church is as a whole and not just a few people (the official statistics term is "sampling error).
Below is a chart that gives you a range (minimum to ideal) of the number of completed TCATs your church will need.
Avg Weekly Weekend Attendance |
Minimum |
Ideal |
| 67 | 33 | 44 |
| 100 | 43 | 63 |
| 200 | 60 | 109 |
| 250 | 65 | 130 |
| 250-499 | 75 | 175 |
| 500-999 | 88 | 250 |
| 1000+ | 100 | 390 |
For the results to reflect the entire church, the entire church should be invited to participate and given the opportunity to complete the assessment.
The more people in your church who participate by completing the TCAT (even above the "ideal" threshold), the more your church as a whole will be exposed to the key elements of a transformational church and the areas that you will be celebrating and working on after you have reviewed the reports. We have many churches who have told us that just taking the survey and thinking through the questions helped their churches begin to focus on important priorities.