What to do with membership statistics. . .

In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.  Or at least, so says the Gallup poll.  Now, do not diminish the significance of this poll for how Americans identify is not without its importance.  But there is another statistic that is worth even more consideration.  That statistic is the number of those who say they belong in comparison to the numbers counted on parish membership records in congregations.  This has always been a smaller number than those who think they are members.  In some cases, it is dramatic.  Perhaps only a third or so of those who self-identify as members are counted on records.  And then there is the most important statistic.  That is those who actually attend.  Again, this drops the numbers down to less than half of those who actually are listed as members.

The problems we face in counting the sheep are not few.  We have sheep who claim to be part of the flock but who have not even bothered to be counted.  We have sheep who have been counted who do not bother to attend.  And then we have the faithful who are not perfect and not blameless in everything but who are in church around the Word and Table of the Lord.  What do you do with all of this?  How do the statistics pan out in daily life?

I do not pretend to have all the answers.  I am encouraged by those who still identify as Lutheran, for example, but who are not counted as members of any Lutheran congregation and whose presence in the Lord's House on the Lord's Day is an anomaly rather than a norm.  It is a starting place.  Many times over the course of my ministry something has happened to call those uncounted but self-identifying Lutherans into God's House and into a life of active faith and worship.  God bless them.  I am also encouraged that somewhere along the way the catechesis they experienced infused them with an identity -- even if they have not lived out the fullness of that identity as God's baptized child within the tradition we call Lutheran.  God bless those parents and pastors who did their job.  These are people who have something to return to -- a life that accompanies a faith and it is a wonderful thing to reclaim these for the active life of worship and faith.  God bless them!

I am encouraged by those who wish to have their names on the list even though they seldom come to the Lord's House, perhaps limited to the traditional high and holy days of Christmas and Easter and the occasional sacraments of baptism and confirmation and a funeral or wedding or two.  Apparently they have some idea that membership is important even if they do not understand the full consequences of that membership.  In my parish, I know most of them by first name and have spoken to them often over the years about coming back into the fuller life of the parish.  I do not resent them and am not angry with them but I am sad over them.  They have their assurance not in a life around the Word and Sacraments of the Lord but in an act or event when they became formal members so long ago.  Sometimes they come back for a while and though their have good intentions, it seems too easy for life to come and complicate those intentions.  God bless them!

In my ministry as a pastor I am daily encouraged by the regular and faithful people of God gathered around the Word and Table of the Lord more often than they are not.  I rejoice to count on their prayers, on their witness of word and life, and in their financial support of God's kingdom.  They do not need me to laud them.  They are sinners, nothing more and nothing less.  But they are absolved sinners, who claim the refuge of God's mercy according to His promise.  They are not alike and they lives are perfect.  They are not a people aloof from pain or sorrow, struggle or doubt.  Indeed, these push them into the arms of their Savior every time their burden proves heavy.  They are the folks who make sure that those who have a name on a list or who self-identify as Lutheran have a place and a home to return when the call of God in His Word and the prompting of the Spirit encourage them.  These are those who make sacrifices to support missionaries far away and church planters nearer.  God bless them!

So I have no quick answers to the circles that revolve around the Lord's Word and Table.  But as much as it can be a discouragement to pastors, to parish leaders, and to the folks in the pews, there is another side that ought to give us pause.