MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Where Did All The Church Members Go?

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Wed, July 27, 2005
Viewed 94
(21) comments so far

Remember Encyclopedia Brown? He was cool. Solving all those complicated cases with quick thinking. Maybe the Southern Baptist Convention should call Encyclopedia. You see, they're missing 10 million members.

Of the SBC's 16,287,494 members, only 6,024,289 show up on the average Sunday for their church's primary service. That means only 37% of church members actually go to church. So if your church has 200 people on Sunday morning, you likely have 500 to 600 people on the membership roll. Yikes.

So where'd everybody go? Some are probably sick or out of town. Or perhaps they're in the military or are elderly shut-ins. But that hardly accounts for 63% of a church's membership not showing up. Where'd all the churchgoers go?

I suspect they went to a different church. My hunch is that the membership rolls aren't kept up to date and they may be packed with people who long ago left the church or have since died. That might just account for 10 million missing church members, especially if they left one Southern Baptist church for another and were double counted.

I'm no Encyclopedia Brown, but if I'm right you really have to wonder about the point of those membership rolls. If more than half your list is bad data, you don't have a very good list. That means 63% of every mailing is money down the drain.

And I could be wrong. But whatever the reason, somebody's got to account for 10 million empty seats in pews across the country. Maybe we should call Encyclopedia Brown.

One could look at this and say... 'what's the big deal'? But these aren't just names... these are 'souls' we are talking about. How does one lose track of people/souls so easily?

FOR DISCUSSION: How are your membership roles? Is church membership a thing of the past? Does your church place much emphasis on membership? Just wondering what's really happening out there...

The guys over at ChurchMarketingSucks.com had a great post yesterday about church membership. I remember one of the churches I was at had a church membership role that confused everyone. There were people’s names on there that nobody could ever remember. How does this happen? Take a look at this…

Comments

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William Blair on Thu, July 28, 2005

I pastor in New York. In that state and probably most others, the church, a non-profit organization, is usually incorporated under a state law. Accordingly, it must also have some sort of constitution and a set of bylaws under which it conducts its business. Such business for a congregationally constructed church might include the purchase and sale of properties, etc. If a church doesn’t keep its membership current, difficulties can arise when attempting to gather a legal quarum for voting purposes. This, of course depends upon the how the bylaws are written.
Nathan Diehl on Thu, July 28, 2005

Anthony, good points!

We don’t publicize our membership much at all—it sits at about 40% of our weekend attendance (which is the number we use). our database, however, contains 1160% of our weekend attendance average…so i guess if we use that, we’re a megachurch (with about 1/4 the population of our counnty)!

legally, you’d only be bound by the membership requirements set forth in your organizational bylaws. We have the option to remove anyone who is absent 90 consecutive calendar days. don’t fully know what you are referring to by ‘rolls’.
A.B. Simpson on Tue, August 02, 2005

I am a pastor’s wife in CA, and I have a few thoughts about where all those people went. We don’t have membership at our church. But since we are small, I notice that a lot of people don’t show up for services. It’s partly the worship band—too loud for anyone over 60. But I believe it is mainly the teaching of the Word of God—“For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God” (2 Cor. 2:15-17). It may also be due to the fact that we are exposing false teaching that has crept into the evangelical churches of our day, like wolves in sheep’s clothing. The enemy doesn’t like it, and neither do those who are ardent followers of false teachers and false prophets. Those are the reasons, I believe, why we find people “missing”. They’ve moved on to a church where they can have their “ears tickled” by promises of health, wealth, and giddy happiness.
David S. on Mon, August 15, 2005

I’ve been on vacation, so I didn’t read this until a couple weeks after it was posted.

I was in a SBC church for a few years and I learned something about their membership that I didn’t like. Once you became a member, you were a member for life. You are never removed unless you request it, or you die.

Also, membership in a SBC church is not granted solely by inquiry (coming to the pastor and requesting it…). If a person is baptized in a SBC church, they automatically become a member. So, if “Jack” is 11 years old and comes forward one Sunday and prays at the prompting of his parents, and is then baptized a few weeks later, he becomes a member of the church.

Then, as he becomes a young adult and he wanders away, he remains a church member, even though he’s not seen anywhere in the vicinity of the church for the next 60 years until he dies.

Our little SBC church that we were a part of before entering the ministry had about 50 such people on it. When I heard some of the names on the membership list I was appalled to find that about half of the people still lived in town, but would be considered “unchurched” people.

Sometimes waaayyyy too much emphasis is put on membership and waaaayyyy too little emphasis is put on discipleship. From having been there, I think that’s the main problem of the SBC’s “ghost” membership.
Chris on Tue, November 01, 2005

Church membership is a sticky wicket in the church I serve. There is definiately an old school mentality as it relates to important of “membership.” We presently have a conflict over allowing people to serve in our church who are not technically members, but they are, in fact, among the most committed (to Jesus Christ), hard-working and trusted people in our fellowship. Those who are casting dubious glances at these folk, for the most part, are not presently serving in any capacity - other than to be critics. I don’t have all the answers about how to deal with the issue of membership in today’s church. I only know that this is not a generation of “joiners” as we once knew them. I can understand the need to guard the gate - but I’m not about to ask these hard-working, trusted people to step aside until they decide to formally join. The critics here have threatened to leave the church if this matter is not rectified to their satisfaction. But I learned long ago that there are some things worse than people leaving - it’s people staying!
LeVaN on Thu, November 02, 2006

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