What a great song – I didn’t even think about that but it’s so true – “My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty – there’s nothing my God cannot do!”

It’s not about us – but about Jesus Christ and Him crucified! I would love to get that message in mp3 when you’ve delivered it.

-pastor clark

We as Christians have the biggest “cheerleader” if you will in God. Our response to Him should always be YES because He only has our best interest in mind. Instead, we have become a people who don’t even try for fear of failure.

From one of my daughter’s many songs: “My God is so big, so strong and so mighty there’s nothing my God cannot do!”

Thanks for the insight. That’s incredibly gutsy – it’s what Rainer suggests – but I’ve not seen it implemented except in the big news stories.

I can imagine how hard it would be to get established churches to move to this system. While it might take some serious thought to implement, I think you nailed it, “it is necessary to be a good steward of our membership roll as well as responsible governance of the church.”

Again thanks for the conversation – now I’ve got more questions than answers again!

Our system is this…(with a little grace!) we move everyone to inactive who is not in regular attendance for a period of 3 mos or more, (except for medical reasons) or if they have changed to a different church and have not transferred thier membership. They are contacted by letter letting them know that we have made the change in thier status. Once someone is moved to inactive then they can no longer hold a position in the church and their voting rights are suspended. If they then return back to regular attendance and support of the church, then it is up to a decision by the board to reactivate thier membership once again. If the member is on the inactive list for a period of one year, then they may be removed from the list completely.

These guidelines are clearly stated in out bylaws and every new member is informed that attendance is vital to stay on our membership roll.

We started doing this because I heard of churches who had 600+ members on the roll and only 80 in regular attendance! They had no clue if any of the other members were living nearby or if they were even still alive!!

So we keep up with our roll and move people to inactive every year. I wish we didn’t have to do it, but it is necessary to be a good steward of our membership roll as well as responsible governance of the church.

Unfortunatly, there is too much of the numbers game when it comes to church. If we have a positive number of members each year to the church, then we must be doing well. Negative numbers mean we are sinking. The compulsion then is to make everything positive and ignore the negative especially when it comes to numbers of people on the roll. But isn’t it promoting a lie to say we have 600 active members and only 80 show up each week? If it’s not, it is still pretty close!

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When people have come to me and let me know that our church was not a fit for them, I am always glad to refer them as well. Of course, humanly speaking it is a challenge to ego when someone says “we won’t be coming to the church” but I know that different churches reach different people, and if Christ is at the center of a church’s doctrine, I am for them!
Thanks for the thought provoking chat!

From 2 blocks away!
Chad

High Expectations as you mention is an excellent book! It’s been a few years since I read it but looking back at my copy it’s full of dogeared pages and highlighting.

I too have helped churches form new member classes, expectations, etc. But when it actually comes down to it – I’ve not ever seen one enforced with someone who’s obviously coloring far outside the lines of orthopraxy.

So while we have a good system in place theoretically – our implementation has been lacking.

Anyone been been able to employ a system that works?

I read about a church some time ago that wrote members a letter dismissing those that had been inactive for awhile. Wow! That might drop our 12 million SBC members to a more realistic 5 million or so.

I finally wonder about actually telling someone, “You’re just not a good fit for our church. Here’s a list of other churches you might want to try.” How many of us could do that?

I think this issue goes deeper – maybe “staff-centric” would be a better name for the syndrome. Or “Outsource Crazy Churches” – we’re sending everything “out” anymore.

I believe I heard some churches have outsourced prayer-lines to India…

You might be interested in a friend’s blog post on a similar subject:

http://www.theriddlegroup.com/blog/2009/02/staff-member-angst.html