Churches should make intentional effort to reclaim inactive members

Churches should make intentional effort to reclaim inactive members

By Grace Thornton
The Alabama Baptist

If every person who has dropped out of church in the past 10 years came back, most churches would triple in size, according to Thom S. Rainer.

“The most challenging problem is church dropouts rarely return,” said Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources. “Reclamation ministry is exceedingly difficult.”

Daniel Edmonds, state missionary and director of the office of Sunday School and discipleship for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, agreed.

Reaching the inactive

“Reclaiming inactive members is usually one of the more difficult things a church attempts,” Edmonds said.
People can go missing from church for a variety of reasons from illness to a life situation to a change in job, he said. Sometimes they don’t even really mean to fade out.

But then if weeks go by and no one from the church contacts them, they often become another name unchecked on the roll, he said.

“If you missed a week, you wouldn’t think anything of it if no one called,” Edmonds said. “If a second Sunday came and went and nobody called, nobody sent a card, text or whatever, at that point you might begin to think, ‘Well, that’s kind of odd.’”

If a third week passes, you begin to think no one cares, he said.

Taking note

“Even the most faithful members would even be somewhat irritated that they are missing and no one is taking note,” Edmonds said. “You can imagine how others might feel who are not always the most faithful in the first place. They’ve begun to assess that people just don’t care one way or another.”

If you’ve allowed someone to go multiple weeks — or even multiple months — without a contact, your best opportunity as a church to reconnect with him or her is simply to call and apologize, Edmonds said.

“First take responsibility for having allowed this to go on unabated,” he said. “Begin to take actions to show them that they are important, that you do care about them. Then begin the process of loving them back into the church.”

And then determine as a church to be proactive in making sure members don’t fall away without being contacted, Edmonds said.

Rainer said in a blog post at thomrainer.com that there are six common early warning signs that members might fall away — and that other church members can be intentional about noticing.

1. Decreased frequency in attendance.

Keeping attendance records isn’t about the numbers, Rainer said — it’s about having a tool to help you notice how often someone is missing.

“If your small group or Sunday School class does not keep attendance records, please begin doing so,” he said. Small groups can keep track of members and leaders can check in with missing members to see how they can help.

2. No longer attending a group.

If someone stops coming to church, don’t wait to contact them — there’s an urgent need there that needs to be addressed, Rainer said. People who stop attending small groups usually leave church altogether within three months, he said.

3. Decreased giving patterns.

Most pastors and church staff don’t have access to the giving records of church members, Rainer said, but when he was a pastor he asked the financial secretary to let him know if someone had a sudden, drastic change in giving.

When she did, Rainer would reach out to them, often taking them to lunch to see how they were.

“In every case I did not bring up the giving issue. But in every case I discovered the ministry need that precipitated the decline in giving,” he said.

4. Major participant in a church conflict.

Some church members are frequent offenders when it comes to starting conflict, but if you see church members get involved in a conflict for the first time, pay attention, Rainer said. If they are peacemakers, they may decide to leave church rather than stay involved in the problem.

5. Family problems.

“Too many church members are embarrassed when family problems occur,” Rainer said. “They fear the church will be judgmental rather than redemptive.”

Resolve as a church to be a safe place for people with problems, he said.

6. Moral failure.

Church members who fall into a place of moral failure are the most likely to leave church, Rainer said. This may be because they don’t want to change or it could be because they don’t see the church as a place to heal.
“Too many churches do not know how to deal with members involved in moral failure.”

___________________________

Things church members can do to help bring back, reach out to inactive members

By Grace Thornton
The Alabama Baptist

Every person who has walked away from the Church has a story. And almost every time, helping them starts with simply being willing to listen, said Lisa Keane, clinical director at Pathways Professional Counseling.

“Whether they feel that they were not reached out to when in despair or hurtful words were said or even felt alone within their church family, right or wrong, they may leave their church feeling hurt,” she said.

Their stories of hurt can look a thousand different ways, but there are a few things churches can keep in mind across the board when reaching out to those who have walked away, Keane said.

1. Listen well.

“First and foremost, the Church should approach these people with grace and with the goal of reconciliation,” Keane said.

Attitude of humility

It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong, she said — rather it’s an attitude of humility that asks, “What can we do to bring people back into the local fellowship in a way that honors God?”

Ask to hear the person’s story and then really listen to him or her, Keane said.

And keep in mind that though a surface hurt may have driven them away, there is likely a deeper hurt going on that was brought up by the event that occurred.

“Listening without trying to fix or blame will help decipher what is really going on and will help determine what the church can do to help reconcile this person back to the faith family,” she said.

2. Meet needs.

If in the process of hearing a person out you discover a need, work as a church to meet that need, Keane said.

That could be a spiritual need but it also could be a physical one.

In an article written by Thom S. Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources, he noted that one of the most underestimated reasons that someone came back to a church is because someone simply extended a hand and invited him or her back.

More than 40 percent said they would return to the local church if a friend or acquaintance invited them, he said. That number jumped to about 60 percent for young adults.

Couple that invitation with meeting their needs without strings attached and see what that commitment to love may do in their life, Keane said.

3. Don’t give up on loving them.

If the person is still resistant to reconciliation, keep pursuing them and keep trying to meet their needs, Keane said. Sometimes people feel the Church is an extension of their representation of God and so the hurt they feel affects their faith, she said.

“They might shut down, quit attending regular services or even question their own faith in the Lord,” she said. “The hurt they experience becomes a foothold to keep them from connecting to a local congregation and can even push them away from a denomination all together.”

Russ Robbins, education minister at First Baptist Church, Eufaula, said he felt that rub recently when his church did a month-long “Take Two” campaign to invite people back to church.

“I met with our Sunday School outreach leaders and asked them to look at their rolls and identify the people that have not been to Sunday School in the past three months,” Robbins said. “They were asked to pray specifically for these people and develop a strategy to attempt to love them back into the church.”

The results numerically, he said, were not great.

Personal connections

But a few classes worked hard and made meaningful contacts through personal connections, he said.

“The ones who saw progress were really excited about it,” Robbins said. “It just took some hard work over time.”

That’s why it’s important to keep ministering to those who have fallen away from your church, Keane said.

“We do not minister because we get something back but rather because we are called to minister to those who are hurting. It will be through these counter-cultural acts that they may truly see who Christ really is and what He has called His people to do.”