Church Math
Thursday, July 17, 2008 Labels: church, religion 6 commentsA church reported it had 28,000 conversions in a year, baptized 9,600 people, and had 123 join the church.
I am not advocating baptism or church membership for salvation, but do you find these numbers a problem?
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When I hear numbers like that, it reminds me of McDonalds... Served 1 billion.
If your like me, you think something like, "yah but how many of those billion are the same person?"
So I always wondered, how many of those people, are "re-saved" from a moving message.
I do think that it is a part of church. Many people like to know the impact the church is having, and so I dont really mind, in fact, I would love to know more about the demographics. It could greatly increase effectiveness.
My problem is that shouldn't the numbers be somewhat equal. Why have such an incredible number of conversions, but so little were baptized and fewer joined the church.
I once did some summer mission work for a para church non profit and the church that was overseeing that ministry turned in some numbers for high attendance Sunday that were ludicrous. It did not happen while I was there but a few years before. I was told this by the pastor and he laughed about it. I did not find it funny.
Basically he had a deacon take count in Sunday School of those present. Well, they had a hole in the roof and pigeons had taken up residence in their attic. He counted the "pigeon" family in with the others present and they had well into the hundreds for sunday school (their church had about 14 regular attenders). They got an award from the Tennessee Baptist Convention for that.
I don't know if you are familiar with Mark Dever, but he wrote a book called 9 Marks of a Healthy Church and now has a ministry called 9 Marks with great articles and publications that I would whole heartedly recommend. Anyway, his book (9 Marks of a Healthy Church) is a free resource online or you can buy the book, but it outlines what constitutes a healthy church according to scriptural guidelines.
When Dever became pastor (one of the elders) of Capital Hill Baptist Church, one of the first things he did was clean the roles. They sought out members who had not come in a while and attempted to find out what was going on and why they were not there. Some had died and some had moved on and some just didn't come or only came on Christmas. They were removed only after being sought out and his attendance now outnumbers his membership instead of the other way around.
A healthy church is a crucial witness to the world that we tend to forsake for number's sake.
j razz
I just write it off as another aspect of mega churches. Maybe I'm just biased here, but I could see having similar results at the church I go to.
What do they do? Take a tally at the end of each service?
Ok, raise your hand if you were saved today. Ok, now how many of you are here for the first time? Ok, now fill out this registration form.