Stan Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 Another thread talked about re-Baptizing people, giving extra numbers for events.. Here is another situation... It is well known that some Churches do not take off names of people who are rebaptized... one Pastor told me that one person was on his books 4 times. Variation of names, remarried etc.. WHY? One segment of our Church gets bonus bucks from the Mother Ship in Silver Springs, every year based on membership. Seems like there is a simple solution, right? Care to guess what the problem is with fixing it? Quote If you receive benefit to being here please help out with expenses. https://www.paypal.me/clubadventist Administrator of a few websites like https://adventistdating.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cricket Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 Post deleted by Cricket Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stan Posted January 21, 2006 Author Share Posted January 21, 2006 <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> This issue is addressing those who have their name on the books more than one time... sometimes even in the same Church... Example, some one being baptized 4 times, each in a different Church... Quote If you receive benefit to being here please help out with expenses. https://www.paypal.me/clubadventist Administrator of a few websites like https://adventistdating.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Shane Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 This is interesting. I was rebaptised and my name was already on the books. Later, my wife and I moved to Texas and had our membership transferred. About three years later I recieved a very nice letter from the current pastor of where I had been baptised. He was cleaning up the books. He told me that since I no longer lived there he would like to either transfer my membership or remove it. He did kindly add that if I didn't wish for either it could remain with that church if I so desired. I checked with the pastor and secretary of the church we were attending to verify our membership had been transferred. Sure enough, it had been. They even had the date it came in. So I wrote a nice letter back, telling him my membership had already been transfered and he could remove my name from their church's membership. Now I wonder if I wasn't on their books twice and only one of my memberships was transferred. Now that is odd. If I had known that before maybe I would have insisted on two votes at board meetings One benefit to removing extra memberships is it will reflect better on the amount of tithe being collected. $6,000/week from 100 members looks better than $6,000/week from 125 people. Quote Pastoral Family Counselor... Find me at www.PostumCafe.com Author of Peculiar Christianity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darlene Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 I have some experience in church membership because I used to look after our BC Conference Church membership and the over all conference membership data base for about five years. I know that we tried many times to contact those on the conference church list to find them and we would send a card asking what they wanted to do with their membership. Many of them we had lost contact with and the practise is that if you have a paper trail showing you had tried to contact them at a given address for from 4-5 times over several years with no success, they can be dropped as missing. We did that for several people on the list. So it is possible to clean up the books to a certain extent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators lazarus Posted January 22, 2006 Moderators Share Posted January 22, 2006 Book membership has effects in all kinds of areas. For large churches it may affect the amount of pastors they can have or admin staff. It can affect the amount of delegates sent to a session. It is in the political interest of the pastor to maintain the highest membership or course it may not be what Jesus would do!!!! My guess is that in the developed world that book membership in many churches is often one third larger than the actual attendance. Quote Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence. Einstein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Jeannieb43 Posted January 30, 2006 Moderators Share Posted January 30, 2006 But on the other hand (at least in our conference), the book membership dictates the amount of our church's school subsidy to the local academy. It's better for us to keep an actual membership count, rather than a fictitiously high number, so we aren't required to pay more than our share of the school subsidy. Quote Jeannie<br /><br /><br />...Change is inevitable; growth is optional.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicodema Posted January 31, 2006 Share Posted January 31, 2006 I had a church transfer my membership to their church without my consent. So now I'm officially the member of a church I visit occasionally but do not attend regularly. When I started going back to church in 2004 I felt I should be rebaptized because I'd been so long away from God and indeed should have been considered to have apostasized since I had been in the occult & all that. But they don't seem to care, as long as my name is on the books. I bet they'd start caring if I had an M.Div. and was sniffing out ordination, though ... they'd start caring REAL QUICK what I'd been up to 10 years ago ... and I'd be all like, "hey, that's the past -- over dead & gone, right?" Quote "After such knowledge, what forgiveness?" -- T.S. Eliot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Shane Posted February 1, 2006 Share Posted February 1, 2006 The NAD seems very relaxed about membership. In the IAD they stay on top of it better and disfellowship members often. Yet they still manage to grow faster than they can build churches. Quote Pastoral Family Counselor... Find me at www.PostumCafe.com Author of Peculiar Christianity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicodema Posted February 1, 2006 Share Posted February 1, 2006 What does IAD stand for again? I've recently started going to this new church and I really like it. It's a more traditional service which I prefer, but not uber-formal "high church". People there are friendly so far and have already been very welcoming. I might discuss the possibility of rebaptism with the pastor there and see what he thinks. If the church thinks some type of formal discipline is in order for the life I've left behind, that's fine with me. Better now than at some indeterminate point in the future. My trust is in the Lord, and my life is in His hands. Whatever will glorify Him most is what I care about. Quote "After such knowledge, what forgiveness?" -- T.S. Eliot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Nan Posted February 1, 2006 Moderators Share Posted February 1, 2006 IAD is the Inter American Division. And I am so glad you have found a church where you feel at home, Nico. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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