14,000,000 +

[Gregory Matthews]

See:

https://spectrummagazine.org/news/2019/fourteen-million-and-counting

Since 1965, over 14 million people, 14,521,088 to be exact, have left the Seventh-day Adventist Church, according to the program for the Nurture and Retention Summit held at the General Conference, April 5-7, 2019. Make that 15,132,555 people. After the program went to press, the 2018 statistics were finalized, and the number increased, Archivist David Trim told the 120 church leaders who gathered for the weekend Summit.

Well, Brian Litzenberger is one of those 15 million. The son of a pastor, he began questioning what he was hearing at church when he was 15. He left, joined the army, enjoyed the party scene, and became an alcoholic. So, when he started his personal testimony to the church leaders at the Retention Summit, it was by saying, “Hello, my name is Brian and I am an alcoholic and a sinner.”

His dramatic story of his journey out of the church and back included his analysis of the problem of why people leave. “We have this idea that we have to portray perfect Christianity.