World Church: Membership Growth, Retention Focus of Sunday Afternoon Session
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While membership in the Seventh-day Adventist Church is growing -- 2,996 people joined the church daily in the year ending June 30 -- the question of keeping members in the movement also was considered during the Sunday afternoon (Oct. 9) session of the church's Annual Council. |
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Nurture of new members to keep them in the church is vital, said Pastor Thomas Davai, Adventist Church president in Papua New Guinea. [Photos: Reger C. Smith]
Pastor Jan Paulsen, Adventist world church president, raises a point during the Sunday afternoon session about the issue of membership retention.
While membership in the Seventh-day Adventist Church is growing -- 2,996 people joined the church daily in the year ending June 30 -- the question of keeping members in the movement also was considered during the Sunday afternoon (Oct. 9) session of the church's Annual Council.
At the end of June 2005, baptized church membership was 14.25 million, according to the statistical report presented to delegates. Where there was only one Seventh-day Adventist per 647 people in the world in 1995, today the ratio is one Adventist to every 454 people, said Bert B. Haloviak, director of the world church's archives and statistics department.
"Indeed, if current projections hold, a decade from now, there will be a ratio of 295 [in the] general population for every Seventh-day Adventist," Haloviak told delegates.
However, combinations of better record-keeping and apparent apostasy are dampening those membership numbers. Worldwide, the church lost 35 members for every 100 baptized in the past five years. In some world church areas, the numbers are even less encouraging, Haloviak reported, with reports of 61, 65 and even 104 members being removed from membership lists for every 100 joining.
Much of this was attributed to increased attention to local church membership in many regions. Audits of local congregations revealed members who had been dead for years, or who had relocated to other areas, leaders such as Pastor August de Clerk Mwamba Ngalamuluyme of the West Congo church area, said. These audits have resulted in some membership losses, but many of those who may be "lost" at one congregation have apparently moved to others without making a formal transfer.
Still, the matter drew a series of questions from world church president Pastor Jan Paulsen, who asked if part of the reason for membership loss was that congregations were not ministering effectively: "Are there too many [members] who are suffering and find no help? Are we too hard on our youth that we lose so many of them?"
Thomas Davai, president of the Adventist Church in Papua New Guinea, said that while evangelism is important, attention must be paid to activities which keep new members in church: "Our members can raise a lot of money for evangelism, but when it comes to nurture, there is little money for pastors and workers to go out and take care of them. We need to balance, when it comes to budgeting, finance and care for new people coming into the church."
Responding to these comments and others, Pastor Paulsen agreed with calls for more church nurture.
"I think it would be good if the [church] unions, with their local conferences, carefully examine how they can set up a fruitful ministry that would look after their membership," he said.
"Life in the church is a social life also. You need friends in the church. By having a network of friends as you are preparing to come in and afterwards ... I would encourage the union leaderships and laity and pastors to take back a burden to examine, in your community, your conference, your union how this can be done more effectively," Paulsen added.
Following the discussions, Pastor Harold Lee, president of the church's Columbia Union in the United States, brought a motion for formal retention studies before the council.
The motion called for church "divisions to request their respective unions, conferences [and] missions conduct a parallel study of membership growth and retention with guidelines provided by the General Conference secretariat and reports its findings to their division with measures to be taken to strengthen the retention of members," Lee said.
"Divisions shall submit a cumulative report to the General Conference Executive Committee by Annual Council 2007, which in turn shall create a study commission on ways and means to address the matter of member retention," he added. The motion passed by a majority vote.
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