Whether it is coming out pandemic or governmental difficulties in church attendance, or pondering the liabilities of having many delinquent members in an age where legal trends are moving against faithfulness in the church. Maybe you just take membership rolls seriously in the care of souls. Because of this, it is helpful for a congregation to regularly keep its rolls up to date. This means an active effort to teach about membership, encourage members to return to church, but also enforcing church discipline to remove members officially who have already bodily and spiritually removed themselves from the body of Christ.
My congregation has developed this program, and even this plan needs adjustment after the last year. I put it before you now so that pastors may consider it for the coming year.
What sorts of adjustments do you think your plan needs after this past year?
Thanks. From what is posted at lcms.org, there is a big disparity regarding individual congregation baptized membership and attendance at Services. Often half or less attend. This was true before COVID.
I’m glad to see someone taking the statistics seriously. I am reminded of a parish I profiled during my undergraduate education. They reported over 600 members and an ASA of ~110. I thought, “What’s the story with that?” Horrible records keeping and ambivalence to the disengaged.