Numbers in the church are dropping.

The General Council on Finance and Administration recently reported that membership in The United Methodist Church dropped by more than 65,000 people from 2002 to 2003. The number of local churches declined as well, dropping by 186 in the same period.

This is no great shock in a way, because numbers in the church have been dropping for more than a quarter century. Just like other mainline Protestant denominations, The United Methodist Church has experienced a long, slow decline in its membership since the 1960s.

The GCFA's report is a bit of a surprise, though, because of the period it covers. The year 2002 to 2003 is the most recent data available on national church membership. It is also a year that comes well into the national church's Igniting Ministry campaign — the very campaign that is designed to arrest the membership decline and start growing the church again.

Igniting Ministry is a campaign that pursues "aggressive goals, including raising awareness and first-time and total attendance in test congregations," according to its Web site, www.ignitingministry.org. It includes a national advertising campaign, training for congregations in the effective use of media advertising, and matching grants to local churches to utilize Igniting Ministry resources.

Ain't gonna happen
The national church is spending millions of dollars each year in the hopes that Igniting Ministry will be the solution to our membership woes.

I've got news for the church: It ain't gonna happen.

Our problems are not with getting people into the doors of our churches. Our problems are with what we do once they are there. And these problems go by some specific names: Biblical illiteracy, poor discipleship, weak stewardship.

Our culture is obsessed with numbers. We believe that greater numbers equal greater success. Look at that mega-church! It must be successful. Look at all the cars in its parking lot!

This mindset is dangerous. Cheap grace may attract crowds of people, but it does not make disciples out of them. The faithfulness of the church should be judged not by the quantity of people in the pews but by the quality of their discipleship to Jesus.

The key to solving our membership woes is to stop worrying about all those numbers and statistics. Instead, we should focus our attention on how we are nurturing and shaping the people God has given to us. That takes guts, because growth is hard. It is much easier to say, "We need to get more people in the church," than it is to say, "We need to change to become better disciples ourselves."

Clearly, the Igniting Ministry campaign is a powerful tool for evangelism. It raises the awareness of the church in local communities. It might just make the difference for a lost person who is trying to decide whether to go to church on a Sunday morning or not.

Use media age
And in the media age, the church must retool its evangelism efforts to use avenues that are more likely to reach people. That means more than just the marquee in front of the local church! It means radio, television and the Internet. It means creatively using any means necessary, so long as the invitation to Jesus Christ is heard through it.

But Igniting Ministry will ultimately be a hollow effort if it is not supported by faithful, Gospel-centered ministries within the church. Those lost and unchurched folks whom Igniting Ministry is trying to attract need to have something of substance waiting for them when they finally walk in the church doors. They need to have a community of committed disciples waiting to receive them with joy.

Numbers are a poor measuring stick of success in the church. A better one is the measure of sacrifice. How committed are we as Christians? How dedicated are we to the church? How far are we willing to follow Jesus as he makes his way to the cross?

The Rev. Andrew C. Thompson is associate pastor of First United Methodist Church in Searcy, Ark. He can be contacted by e-mail at andrew@searcyfumc.com.

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