Your congregation is not random and it is not a reward for building a nicer church. It is the lower of two numbers you already have: your happiness, and the quality of the room.
Whichever of the two is smaller is how many people walk through the door, and the sermon then spends that many smiles. That last part is why the second ceremony of a week is always emptier than the first.
Visitors are the lower of happiness and church quality
The game states this once, in a tutorial most players click past, and then never mentions it again. The cross in that line is church quality and the smile is happiness.
Sermons spend [happiness] and require [cross]. The lower of the two determines how many parishioners attend.
The sermon tutorial, in full
So a church rated forty with twelve smiles in the bank seats twelve, and forty smiles in a church rated twelve also seats twelve. Pouring marble into a church while your happiness sits at ten changes nothing at all, which is the trap.
| 10 | 40 | 10 | Happiness. The room is already ahead of you |
| 40 | 10 | 10 | The church. Your smiles have nowhere to sit |
| 25 | 25 | 25 | Either, they are balanced |
| 60 | 55 | 55 | The church, by five |
| 0 | 80 | 0 | Happiness. No sermon can start at all |
The number that decides success is not the one on the tin
Every sermon lists a minimum congregation, and that minimum only decides whether the option can be picked. What decides whether it works is a second, higher number, and the game shows it to you only as a percentage once you have chosen.
The chance is your attendance measured against that hidden difficulty, capped at a hundred. Turn up with half of it and you have a fifty percent sermon, which on a failure pays the base reward and drops every bonus.
| Basic prayer I | 4 | 8 |
| Prayer of Faith I | 7 | 15 |
| Combat Prayer I | 15 | 40 |
| Prayer for Repose I | 20 | 50 |
| Combo Prayer I | 30 | 60 |
| Prayer for Likes I | 40 | 90 |
| Prayer for Music | 80 | 80 |
| Prayer for Old God | 180 | 180 |
| Hypno Prayer III | 160 | 220 |
A sermon you can start is not a sermon you should start. Basic prayer I opens at four and is only certain at eight, so the first ceremony of a run is usually a coin toss nobody knows they are flipping.
Two sermons are the exception. Prayer for Music and Prayer for Old God ask the same number twice, so if you can begin them at all they cannot fail.
A sermon spends the congregation
Holding the ceremony subtracts happiness equal to the number who attended. Fifty parishioners costs fifty smiles, and they are gone the moment the sermon starts rather than being a cost you pay from a separate pool.
This is why attendance falls off a cliff if you preach twice in short order, and why the Astrologer asks what he asks after a thin week.
So, you know why fewer people showed up last time at [Wrath] service?
Gunter, who has noticed
Plan it as a weekly budget. Everything you collect between one ceremony and the next is what sits in the pews, so a week spent ignoring the town shows up as an empty church rather than as a smaller pile of coins.
Every way to put smiles in the bank
Happiness has four taps and one of them is much larger than the others. town orders are the main source, which the game says outright, and the other three are useful for topping up before a big ceremony.
| Town orders | The largest share by far | Accepted only on Pride day, so one missed day costs a week |
| Selling goods a shop wants | 2 to 7 per batch, per vendor | Each shop has a weekly allowance that resets on Pride day |
| Burial Certificates | 5 smiles for 5 certificates | The Head of the Village takes them at every tier |
| Town Gratitude | 5 each | Not craftable, so it is a reward rather than a source |
| Quests | Varies | One off, and worth saving the big ones for a hard sermon |
The certificate trade is the one people miss. 
Burial Certificates pile up from ordinary burials and the Head of the Village takes five of any tier for five smiles, which makes the graveyard a happiness source as well as a 
Faith one.
Raising the ceiling, and the prayer that removes it
Happiness has a maximum and it starts low. Repairing houses produces 
Green Scrolls, and handing those to Linda on Lust day raises the citizens standing and your happiness cap with it. That is the main ladder and it runs the whole game.
Two more things move it. The Happy Book perk raises the cap directly, and the Prayer for Likes carries a buff that removes the cap outright while it is running, which is the one way to bank enough for the sermons at the top of the list.
The Like Master perk returns a share of the happiness a ceremony spends. On a congregation of a hundred that is the difference between preaching weekly and preaching fortnightly.
It is worth more than it looks precisely because attendance is capped by the smaller of two numbers. Recovering smiles keeps the happiness side above the church side, which is where you want it.
What the congregation is worth once it is in the room
Faith comes out per head, and so does the coin. Each parishioner pays the sermon’s base rate, and a successful sermon adds a bonus per head on top of it, so doubling the turnout doubles both halves.
The bonus coin is the part that surprises people, because it does not come from the church. It is drawn from your graveyard rating instead, which means a tidy graveyard pays for a ceremony held in a plain room.
Church quality earns nothing directly. Its whole job is the cap on attendance, which is worth doing because attendance multiplies everything, but a point of church quality pays no Faith and no coin on its own.
Questions about church visitors in Graveyard Keeper 2
How do I get more visitors to my sermons?
Raise whichever of the two is lower. Visitors are the smaller of your happiness and your church quality, so if your happiness is ten there is no point decorating, and if your church is rated ten there is no point banking smiles.
Why did fewer people come to my second sermon?
Because the first one spent them. A ceremony subtracts happiness equal to the number who attended, so preaching twice in quick succession empties the pews.
What is the minimum number of parishioners for?
Only for starting the sermon. The number that decides whether it succeeds is the difficulty, which is higher and is shown to you as the success percentage.
Does a better church give more faith?
No. Church quality only caps how many people attend. The success bonus on the coins comes from the graveyard rating instead, and the faith bonus comes from the attendance itself.
How do I raise my maximum happiness?
Repair houses for Green Scrolls and hand them to Linda on Lust day, which raises the citizens standing and the cap with it. The Happy Book perk raises it too, and the Prayer for Likes removes the cap entirely while it runs.
What is the biggest source of happiness?
Town orders, which the game says outright. They can only be accepted on Pride day, so missing that one day costs a week of smiles.
Can a sermon fail?
Yes. Below a hundred percent it rolls, and a failure still pays the base rate per head but drops every bonus, including the buff the sermon was for.
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