The
casualty of Church attendance this pandemic season is constant topic of
discussion we hear off late from Pastors and leadership of Churches. It has
raised a serious concern on the commitment of the Church members with
decreasing tithes and offerings. In some cases, Pastors have been forced to
find alternative source of income to function and manage their families. There
are the few fortunate who, enjoying a considerably big congregation, managed to
survive these adverse times.
'What has caused the apathy of the congregation?' is a pertinent question all Church pastors and leaders need to ask. I would like to illustrate this with a child development analogy. Parents complain of their child's tantrums in public and the embarrassment they face. They are determined to reprimand the child at all costs and even consider professional counseling sessions for their child. But the fact of the matter is, the public tantrums of the child is an acquired habit at home, which by and large went unaddressed by the parents. They should have disciplined and trained the child in private of their homes to save their face in public. The unaddressed habit has cost the parents their dignity. Don't we find a similar pattern with our congregation members?
Churches placed a great importance on Church attendance for their success. They instilled in the members’ the conviction that their physical presence in Church and financial commitments are what matters to God and Church, the most. We sadly failed to emphasize on the “engagement” part with strategic approach. The reason being, most of the Churches have superficial or no goals and no definite measurable outcomes. The hype was all about having a Sunday performance and namesake Church activities for their members, which have no connection to a specific goal. Eventually, instead of Church services creating revolution in the community, it pathetically ends up as a grand show.
What is engagement? Early Christians didn’t attend Church. They were the Church. Each individual had the enthusiasm to attract a new believer to his/her fellowship. They were completely engaged. However, even with Jesus, many left Him after their needs were met, which led Him to question His team, “Are you also going to leave?”.
Many Churches (even growing Churches) are still counting on getting people to attend, hoping it drives engagement. Cary Nieuwhof on Church growth comments, “The shelf life on attendance strategy is limited because the number of people who want to attend Church drops every year. Consequently, in the future Church attendance won’t drive engagement; engagement will drive attendance.” It's important the Church defines their mission and educate the congregation of its connection to Christ's mission. A live Church is one with active Holistic Mission. It reflects the early Church model - active Church movement, vibrant evangelism work and structured social intervention for their community. It has direct connection to discipleship.
More than 90% of Church congregations are not active disciples. The job of a disciple is to make disciples. Is this true of your congregation? Have your members shared Gospel and have led someone to Christ in the past one or two years? Sadly, in a Christian’s lifetime, majority of them are not able to share the gospel even to one non-Christian friend. This is reality. The truth is people were never engaged with Christ's mission in the first place. Churches today survive either with no definite mission and goals or with ambiguous goals to ensure the security of the Church and its leaders. The member’s engagement is confined to their spiritual belief of attending Sunday Church or attracted to the worship in the Church or to a person, but hardly to the mission. Isn't this a glaring gap? Are we convinced of the problem of engagement over attendance?
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