Leaderboard

I was once on the board of a congregation where the head elder opposed any and all "clean-ups" of the membership rolls because of the concomitant loss of representation at the conference session where delegates were apportioned according to the congregations' registered members. The pastor went along with it, since no pastor wants to preside over a church with declining membership. Membership statistics are part of their performance review.

I agree that membership roles around the world are exaggerated to a greater or lesser extent. While the world church claims over 20 million members, the number of active members ( I'll loosely define that as those who attend church at least once a month or send tithes and offerings to the church whether or not they actually attend) at more like 7 to 10 million. That's only a guess based on my experience in the many churches I have attended; not any actual data. So yes - the church should adjust it's membership. Probably so should most other denominations. But should the number of active SDA's define how we're doing in our missionary efforts? In my experience, every person baptized in an SDA church or evangelistic outreach is baptized into the membership of a specific SDA congregation or conference. The great commission commands us to baptize people in the Name of Jesus; not the name of the Adventist Church. I know many former SDA's who were baptized through evangelistic outreach. The reason many of them leave is that the church isn't what it was "advertised" to be (neither is any other church IMHO). Nonetheless, most of them are still believers; they just attend (and give their money) to other churches or mission outreaches. Another reason many leave is that denominational worship as seen in many SDA churches is not relevant to them any more. This is especially true among younger converts who (at least claim to) believe; but are offended by much of what they consider to be irrelevant preaching. So what's more important, gaining membership for the SDA denomination or gaining members for the coming Kingdom? I understand that the two overlap somewhat; but there are probably many former SDA's and people who never considered Adventism who will be in the Kingdom. I would also venture to say that there are some SDA members who won't be there.