BY MONTE SAHLIN
Return to Keeping New Members
Y MOST CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATES 25,000 to
30,000 new members have joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America
over the past five years through major evangelism initiatives—NET ’95, NET ’96,
and NET ’98. Where are they today? Are they still with us?
It is a widely held opinion that converts from public evangelism
soon leave the church. In fact, every study on this topic has revealed that
the opposite is true. Most people who join the Adventist Church through public
evangelism stay active in the church.1
Because the NET evangelism initiatives used new technology
and are the largest evangelism projects ever undertaken by the Adventist Church,
careful follow-up studies are being done. This is the most definitive research
on this topic of any available.
About 18 to 24 months following NET ’95 and again with NET
’96, a random sample of participating pastors was interviewed. The same study
will be completed for NET ’98 by the end of this year.
The interviewer in each case had information at hand regarding
the number of baptisms and professions of faith reported by the pastor or his
or her predecessor at the close of the campaign. The respondent was asked to
review the list of new members and report on the current status of each.
We found that about 85 percent of those baptized during
these evangelistic events were still attending church regularly. Another 3 percent
had transferred their membership to a different Adventist congregation. Only
10 percent were not attending or had ended their church membership.
That is an excellent retention rate! We can praise the Lord
for how well these pastors and local churches are doing at nurturing these new
believers and involving them in ministry.
Why People Stay
I have personally interviewed about 650 church members over
the past two decades, including nearly 400 who had dropped out of the church.
During each in-depth interview, I explored with them how they first heard of
the Adventist Church, how they came to join it, and the factors related to their
continued relationship with the church, including the journeys of some who have
dropped out and returned.2
Several important elements are clear from these interviews:
1. Bonding. If the new member finds at least six
friends among the congregation during their first year, he is likely to stay
in the church. The definition is very precise here: “friends” means church members
who spend time with the new member outside any structured church activity. Recreation,
concerts, and leisurely conversations over lunch are just as important to the
mission of the church as evangelists who persuasively present Christ to large
crowds.
2. Involvement. If the new member is asked to take
a role in the activities of the church, she is likely to stay active. Again,
the definition is very precise: the responsibilities given to a new member must
be given early on and be appropriate to a newcomer. The key is to find things
that a new member can easily succeed at. This builds their confidence and encourages
them to do more.
3. Spiritual growth. If the new member is given the
opportunity to continue to grow in Christ, ask questions, and explore practical
topics, she is likely to remain a church member. One of the mistakes that is
often made that results in losing a new member is the termination of weekly
Bible studies. “It was great,” one former member recalled to me. “I was getting
all this attention. The pastor or one of the elders came to my home every week
to study the Bible with me, then when I was baptized, immediately they quit
coming.”
A way to avoid this problem is to do Bible studies in the
context of an ongoing small group ministry instead of one-on-one. Many of the
pastors who participated in the NET initiatives took this approach.
4. Grace. If the new member experiences understanding,
acceptance, and forgiveness during his halting steps as a “babe in Christ,”
he is more likely to remain a member. In fact, many of the dropouts that I have
interviewed report that observing someone else in the congregation treated in
a judgmental way led them to quit attending because “I was not as good as that
person, and I was afraid they would say the same things about me when they found
out.”
Whom Are We Winning?
What kinds of people are responding to evangelism linked
to multiple sites by satellite?
For much of the past two decades, the majority of new members
in North America have been people who are immigrants, not born in the United
States or Canada. That changed in 1995 and 1996, largely because of the NET
evangelism initiatives. But the trend—new members mostly from immigrant groups—seems
to have returned in 1999.
Half of the people who joined the church during NET ’95
were under 43 years of age. About 17 percent were not yet 18, and another 13
percent were young adults 18 through 30 years of age. The largest share (32
percent) are from the baby boom generation, which is the largest generational
segment in North America today.3
NET ’98 and Generation X
One of the original goals set by the planners of NET ’98
was to target young adults born during the years 1965 through 1976, now 24 to
35 years of age and often called Generation X or “Gen X.” The use of two young
adults to host the preliminaries, the integration of music and performances
by Gen X musicians, and the selection of a younger evangelist—Dwight Nelson,
whose ministry was based on a university campus—were all parts of the strategy
to make NET ’98 more appealing to young adults.
It appears that most of the participating churches did not
buy into this goal. Three in five participating pastors (60 percent) say they
did not make an attempt to reach out to Gen X young adults during NET ’98. Pastors
of large churches and younger pastors are more likely to indicate they tried
to reach young adults.4
Nearly a third of the pastors (30 percent) report that no
nonmember young adult attended the meetings at their site. Where Gen X nonmembers
did attend, no pastor reports more than 50. The most frequent response was in
the range of three to five such individuals.
More than two thirds (69 percent) report that no young adult
from Generation X joined the church after attending NET ’98 at their site. Pastors
in Hispanic congregations are more likely to have baptized a number of Gen X
candidates, with pastors of White, non-Hispanic congregations reporting the
least number of baptisms among this generation.
About one in four of the new members who joined as a result
of NET ’98 are Gen X young adults. That is an estimated total of 1,814 individuals.
This happened in about 615 of the participating churches, an average of three
Gen X new members in each congregation.
In fact, the effort to reach this new generation has proved
to be very difficult. The baptismal rate among Gen X nonmembers who attended
NET ’98 is lower than among other generations.
The report available from the Center for Creative Ministry,
one of the resource centers affiliated with the North American Division Church
Resources Consortium, goes into more detail about the specific things these
successful churches did to reach young adults. A copy of the complete report
can be obtained by calling 1-800-272-4664.
Former Adventists
A third of the converts who joined the church through NET
’95 were raised in an Adventist home, and 29 percent have previously been a
member of the Adventist Church. Only about one baptism per church during all
three NET evangelism initiatives has been among children in the homes of currently
active church members.
This underlines a big problem. Large numbers of people left
the church while they were young adults, and now some of those people are returning.
Will we now be able to make them feel at home and engage them in the mission
of the church so they do not become alienated again?
Although the clergy seem slow to provide leadership on this
front, poll after poll shows that four out of five Adventists want something
more done about the large numbers of former and inactive church members. This
remains one of the most painful issues for the church in North America.
Church Attenders
Two thirds of these converts were regularly going to church
somewhere at the time they started attending the NET ’95 meetings. Only 15 percent
report that they grew up in a family that did not belong to any church.
About 17 percent come from a Catholic background. Another
16 percent grew up in a conservative Protestant or Fundamentalist faith such
as Baptist, Assemblies of God, or Mennonite, and 13 percent have a background
in mainstream Protestant denominations such as Methodist, Lutheran, or Presbyterian.
Preferences and Tastes
A few questions were asked soliciting input for future NET
evangelistic meetings. The answers give some insight into the tastes and preferences
of these new members.
What kind of music do they like at church? Three in five
(59 percent) prefer traditional hymns, while almost as many (55 percent) also
like gospel music that is “moderately upbeat.” More than a third (37 percent)
enjoy contemporary Christian music, while one in four (23 percent) likes classical
music. Only one in 10 suggests “Jesus rock.”
Asked which Bible translation they would recommend be used
in future NET events, nearly two thirds (62 percent) say King James (KJV). More
than two in five (43 percent) prefer the New International Version (NIV). About
15 percent suggested Today’s English Version (TEV), 11 percent the Revised Standard
Version (RSV), and 2 percent the Jerusalem Translation (JB).
Both of these lists reveal the wide range of tastes among
those who come to evangelistic meetings. Obviously a mixture of music styles
and Bible translations must be used to meet the needs of all who attend.
Would they like to have more time in the meetings for “free-flowing
question-and-answer time” instead of just preaching? Two thirds said “Yes.”
Only 28 percent said “No.” Obviously there is a real need for evangelistic meetings
to include more interactive features than they have traditionally.
This reveals an even more important need among new members.
A “discussion” or small group Sabbath school class may be a very key element
in holding on to new members.
What Churches Do to Retain New Members
There does not seem to be much professional consensus among
pastors on this topic. Few church board members report spending time talking
about plans for new-member retention.
An official curriculum for a new member class was published
by the North American Division in 1988.5 Surprisingly it is not widely used,
although it was uplinked immediately following NET ’95, and many churches have
the entire set of seven presentations on video.
The most common approach to retaining new members seems
to be recycling the new member back through the basic doctrines of the church.
This, in spite of the fact that most new members have studied Adventist teachings
for some time before the evangelistic series began.
Several churches in pilot projects initiated in 1993 place
their emphasis on relational ministry. The Arlington church near Dallas, the
Mountain View church in Las Vegas, and the Open Door church in Abbotsford, British
Columbia, are all pilot congregations with exceptional track records in retaining
new members and reclaiming dropouts.
Small group ministries are a significant part of each congregation’s
outreach strategy. New Sabbath school classes and midweek groups begin regularly,
making room for newcomers. The groups are participatory in style and lay-led.
Friendship evangelism is something the members believe in
and many practice. Most new members already have a close friend or two in the
congregation the first time they come.
There is an intentional plan to help new members find their
spiritual gifts—identify their “passion” and a role appropriate to their personality
style. “We try to move people into ministry as quickly as possible,” says Mike
Tucker, senior pastor at Arlington. Most of these pilot-project congregations
are already using the new curriculum for every-member ministry, “Connections.”6
Each of these congregations has an active team of trained
lay pastors for visitation. They do not leave all of this work to the pastor,
even when there is a multiple-member staff. Volunteers who have learned to listen
and care get in contact with missing members soon after they are absent from
church four times in succession.
This is the bottom line with retaining church members, new
or long-term. It is personal. It is about a relationship with Christ and relationships
with fellow believers.
More and more members of the church in North America know
this. It is labor-intensive ministry. Too labor-intensive for some with burgeoning
businesses and demanding careers. “It is what Christ demands of us,” others
say.
Where this reality is taken seriously, retention of new
members is high. Where it is ignored, retention is low.
_________________________
1Why Do Adventists Quit Coming to Church? by Monte
Sahlin and Norman Yergen (Center for Creative Ministry; 1-800-272-4664). The
most recent study of youth retention is Why Our Teenagers Leave the Church
by Roger Dudley (Review and Herald; 1-800-765-6955).
2Similar stories have been published in the books Ten
Who Left by Fred Cornforth and Tim Lale, and Ten Who Came Back by
Tim Lale and Pat Habada. Both published by Pacific Press.
3Data specifically about NET ’95 participants is based on
a random sample of 201 individuals who joined the Adventist Church through baptism
or profession of faith during the NET ’95 evangelism initiative. As a standard
allowance for sampling error, results may vary 5 to 9 percentage points (plus
or minus) at the 95 percent level of reliability. Data collection and computer
analysis were supervised by José Chavanz.
4Data specifically about NET ’98 is from “A Survey of Participating
Churches: NET ’98,” a report prepared for the North American Division by the
Center for Creative Ministry.
5“Welcome to the Family” includes a textbook, leader’s guide,
documentary video, and video lectures. You can get these materials from AdventSource,
the NAD distribution center, at 1-800-328-0525.
6“Connections” materials and consultants to assist churches
in establishing this new approach to network ministries are available at 1-800-272-4664.
_________________________
Monte Sahlin is vice president for creative ministries in
the Columbia Union Conference. Prior to this he served as assistant to the president
of the North American Division for research and development.
Return to Keeping New Members
