What Does This Mean?

Do you remember our Lutheran churches teeming with life? Do you remember infants, children, young people, young families, and folks of all ages? To some degree or another most of us remember the better times that preceded our current season in the church.  From our demographic peak in the LCMS around 1970 and right now, each year has been less populous than the one before.  Now that I’ve turned the corner of 50, I remember very well the church in about the middle of that decline, which was far better than today.

In order to look clearly at the individual partial causes, we need to look clearly at the broad demographic change.  Someone will certainly look at this data and its analysis, finding offense.  I intend no offense, nor personal criticism.  However, we cannot hide our heads in the sand in the face of evidence which must be acknowledged.

Around 1970, the LCMS consisted of about 2.79 million members, dispersed among around 5,745 congregations, at an average of 485 per congregation, with Sunday attendance around 180.  These congregations had 1,400 parochial elementary schools distributed among them, with 156,000 pupils, averaging 111 per school.

Around 2025, the LCMS consisted of about 1.67 million members (-40%), dispersed among around 5,794 congregations (+1%), at an average of 288 per congregation (-40%), with Sunday attendance around 95 (-47%).  These congregations had 660 parochial elementary schools distributed among them (-47%).  The number of pupils for parochial elementary schools isn’t readily available since that current data has been mingled with early childcare center (ECC) data.  But, we can extrapolate in the most generous way.  Using the 111 per school average, which is certainly higher than the current average, there are no more than 74,000 pupils among our parochial elementary schools (consistent with the 47% decline).

While that’s dire data, it’s common among American Christian churches.  In particular, our neighbors in the ELCA have seen a 49% drop between 1988 & 2024, compared to our 40% drop from 1970-2025.  The exception here is the sudden growth within the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches.

(Data sourced by Grok AI using: concordiatheology.org, thearda.com, adcrucem.news.org, christiancyclopedia.org, & 2026 convention lcms.org)

We are recipients of a perfect storm: a birth rate problem, interfaith marriage, parochial elementary school closures, urbanization, and sheep poaching.

The same problem we are observing nationally also affects the LCMS, the Texas District, Circuit 23, and our own congregation.  The replacement birth rate is 2.1 children per woman.  That means family sizes of 1 to 3 kids, calculated together with all of the zeros, like my family, put our synodical birth rate below 2.1.  That has caused, and will continue to cause, our churches to shrink.  Church population increases primarily by birth rate, not by conversion.  Now, combine that with the known retention rate of 67% when Dad brings kids to church by himself, and 39% when Mom brings children to church by herself, and we get a colony collapse level of reduction.

Interfaith marriage was once loosely forbidden among us Lutherans in the LCMS.  I’ve even heard anecdotal reports of parents forbidding dating outside the Wendish community in central Texas.  That devolved into requiring a suitor to convert to the LCMS.  Then, commending the kids to find a faithful Christian, someone who goes to church, someone who’s at least Christian, someone who “believes,” and so forth.  We have raised up at least two generations of Christian families without attendance habits in the better examples.  In worse cases, kids are left to decide for themselves whether to follow Mom’s, Dad’s, or no faith tradition.  Spoiler: most of those kids choose apostasy (falling away from the faith), agnosticism, or atheism.

During this same timeframe, we’ve closed 47% of our parochial elementary schools.  Parochial education is the forward-facing loss to the church.  We’ve also lost the community impact of professional church workers.  Even a tiny school with two teachers could easily inject ten or more committed Lutherans into a church and a town.  That impact is especially strong in rural and small-town communities.

The quality of education is another concealed loss.  Propagandists question the quality of parochial and homeschool education.  Another spoiler: parochial and homeschool students consistently outperform public school students.  For the families that can access it, private school is a far better option.

For a time, Sunday School became a standard feature of our churches.  (We borrowed the concept of Sunday School from the Methodists, who had no parochial elementary school tradition).  While it’s a laudable side item, Sunday school doesn’t begin to fill the void left by closing a parochial elementary school.

What about preschools?  ECCs are a good service for us to provide.  But they do not have an effect on the vitality of a congregation like that of a parochial elementary school.  It’s also unfair of us to expect a similar effect from such a narrow span of time and such a distant memory for the kids involved.

We also suffer from urbanization.  Humans tend to follow employment opportunities, which often revolve around cities.  For rural and small-town churches and their communities, the migration depletes our stock of young families.  It’s an unstoppable force.  Outside of industry setting up shop in our area, there’s very little that can be done in that fight.

Even in these massive urban centers, sheep poaching is still a problem.  You may have noticed that Lutheran mega-churches are practically non-existent in rural and small-town areas.  In urban metro areas (Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Denver, Chicago, et al.), large congregations can and have grown to enormous size by directly or indirectly, deliberately or accidentally, poaching members from competing congregations.

These churches will often cite the “unchurched” in their membership numbers.  That’s not entirely accurate.  For the most part, these unchurched folks are members/former members of local neighborhood congregations, who’ve been drawn in by the big show.  The megachurch has a well-documented membership life cycle: discovery, membership, involvement, volunteerism, burnout, and departure.  The sad aspects of that cycle are these: most new members come from recent activity at an existing congregation.  The average span of membership is about five years.  And, worst of all, people departing tend to leave Christianity altogether.  The megachurch system is largely a vacuum, sucking people from neighborhood churches into apostasy.

What can we do?  Start evangelism programs, youth groups, or outreach events?  Those external activities came into Lutheranism amid the steady decline.  They changed nothing at that time, when they were the “bigger, better” new deal.

Is this a hopeless situation?  Certainly not.  We have good metrics to help us reverse some trends.  There aren’t enough children.  We need to encourage marrying young, remaining faithful, and having lots of babies.  Consider this: informally adopt a young family in your church.  Buy them some groceries.  Give them some gas money.  Help mothers caring for their children.  Encourage and chastise fathers to lead their families to church.  Establish and fund a parochial elementary school, with a generous active-member family discount.  Use that as a “bribe” to bring in and retain families in church attendance during the elementary years.  Focus on the central part of Christianity: Sunday morning worship.  That’s the actual prize, the unique feature of the faith.  That’s where the Lord gathers us in His presence, delivers the forgiveness of sins, and strengthens us in the faith.  The house of the Lord is where Christianity dwells.

The times are tough, but not hopeless,

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

©2026 Jason M. Kaspar. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@msn.com

In the wilderness, most likely Western Arabia, the Hebrews are heading towards the promised land. Avoiding the land of Edom, the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s (Israel’s) brother, they travel West towards the Red Sea. Along the way, we hear a common refrain: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” (Exodus 21:5b) The people constantly grumble against Moses and Aaron, but chiefly against the Lord, who sent them.

In response to their First Commandment sin, God sends fiery serpents among them. The snakes bite and kill people. The people repent and ask that Moses pray that the serpents be removed. God does not take them away. He commands Moses to set up a bronze serpent on a pole (a carved, formed, or graven image). If anyone sees it, he will live.

Two very important details stand out here. First, the serpents remain, presumably biting and even killing. The temporal consequence of sin can and often does remain with us. Jail sentences remain, even in the face of forgiveness before God. The physical damage from chemical abuse doesn’t easily go away.

Second, seeing is not the same as looking. The “seeing” here is a passive reception of God’s forgiveness and setting aside the punishment. The Hebrews were given a gift to see and from which to receive. Jesus recalls this too, prefiguring His crucifixion in one of the least well-known passages of Scripture. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15)

The Bronze Serpent God commanded Moses to form and place for the Hebrews to see is the image of the punishment for sin. Our sin against God, like theirs, demands a price. For the Hebrews, their deliverance came from seeing the serpent. The image God gave them of their punishment, taking away their punishment, prefigures Jesus being raised up in punishment for our sin.

By faith, we see a dead thing on a tree. The death of Jesus is the moment of our salvation. It was finished when sin’s price was paid for you. In the same way, the congregation of Israel saw that serpent’s image, we should also revel in the image of the crucifix, Jesus on a pole for our salvation.

Let us never recoil at the image of our salvation,

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

©2026 Jason M. Kaspar. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@msn.com

[Eighty-Fifth in a series of posts on Bible Stories]

Encore Post:

In Jesus’ day, the high priestly family allowed businessmen to sell sacrificial animals in the Court of the Gentiles, just outside the temple proper. They would, of course, do this for very high prices and pay the family for the privilege. Another business, money changing, also took place in this area. Roman money bore images of the Emperor and pagan gods. These could not be carried into the temple proper, the High Priests ruled, since they broke the first commandment. Naturally, these moneychangers would charge a fee to change money into temple money.

When Jesus visited the temple and saw what was going on, he saw it for what it was—stealing from God’s people as they came to worship. He knocked over the tables and threw these merchants out of the temple, chasing them with a whip made of cords. The saddest part was where these businesses operated. They filled the Court of the Gentiles, the one place in the temple where non-Jews could come to pray and learn about the true God. Instead of finding a house of prayer, they found a noisy marketplace. No wonder Jesus said they had turned His Father’s house into a den of robbers.

Jesus’ disciples remembered two passages of Scripture that the Lord fulfilled when he did this. The Prophet Malachi predicted that the Messiah — “the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.” (3:1-4) He would “purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver.” John the Baptist, the messenger to come before the Messiah, had come and identified Jesus as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Soon, the animals would no longer be needed. The Lamb whom God provides would soon be the once-and-for-all sacrifice for sin. They also remembered Psalm 69:9, “Zeal for your house has consumed me.” The Lord, whose house the temple was, was engaging in spring cleaning.

Some uncertainty remains about when Jesus did this. The Gospel of John tells the story at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell it at the end of his ministry. Since none of the gospels are strictly chronological (they sometimes tell stories out of order), Jesus may have done this once at a particular time or twice.

Either way, the meaning is the same: Jesus was cleansing the temple. Soon, the leaders of the people were to destroy the true temple — his body — and in three days, God would raise him up again. Then the earthly temple would be no longer needed. God’s son, his only son, whom he loves, would be the sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. With payment in full, there is no need for the blood of earthly lambs anymore.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2021-2026 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share, and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@msn.com

[Eighty-First in a series of posts on Bible Stories]

Encore Post:

The town of Bethany was a bedroom community for priests and Levites, just over the Mount of Olives along the road to Bethlehem. Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus were well off. They owned a home and probably a few slaves. Scripture does not tell us what they did for a living, but they had enough resources to afford expensive perfume and likely donated to the ministry of Jesus and his disciples. Outside the small circle of the apostles, they were Jesus’ closest friends during his earthly ministry. It seems likely that Jesus and his entourage stayed with them every time they came to the Holy City.

On one trip to Jerusalem, Martha was preparing a banquet for her favorite rabbi. Nothing was too good for him. Mary helped her sister, but when Jesus began to teach, she sat down at his feet; in Jesus’ day, rabbis normally trained male disciples. By inviting Mary to sit at His feet and learn, Jesus showed that God’s Word is for women as well as men. Mary was not neglecting something unimportant. She was receiving the most important gift Jesus had to give.

Martha was angry that her sister was lounging around while many things needed doing. She complained to Jesus, who told her affectionately not to worry so much. Jesus did not criticize Martha for serving. He criticized her anxiety. Service is good. Being so worried that we miss the Savior standing in front of us is not. Hospitality is a form of loving service God calls us to do. Some in the early church, in fact, looked to Martha as a model for the work of a deaconess. Listening to God’s word was more important than all the details that concerned her.

The week before Palm Sunday, the family was grieving. Lazarus had died and had been in the tomb for four days when Jesus arrived. Both Martha and Mary expressed strong faith in Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. Jesus called Lazarus back from the dead.

To celebrate their brother’s resurrection, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus held a banquet. Once again, Martha was preparing the feast. This time, Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with a perfume worth $24,000. Judas made a scene about how it could be sold to feed the poor. The disciples later questioned his motives, since he was the treasurer of the group, and a week later, he would betray Jesus for coins worth $3200. Jesus told him to leave well enough alone. Mary had learned from Jesus well — she was preparing him for his burial. Two weeks later, Jesus would serve them — and us. He suffered for their sins and ours, died to pay their debt and ours, and rose again that we might all rise on the last day. Now we can serve like Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, showing our love for Jesus by caring for others.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2019 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share, and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@msn.com

[Seventy-eighth in a series of posts on Bible Stories]

Encore Post:

Leprosy was a dreaded skin condition during Biblical times. It was caused by several diseases, from bad rashes to sicknesses that caused the loss of fingers, toes, and other parts of the body. Lepers were made to live apart from everyday people and to shout “unclean” if anyone came close. They were not allowed to go to the synagogue or the temple and were cut off from the public worship and fellowship of God’s people and the care of family and friends. Often they lived together with other lepers. If a person touched a leper, they were called unclean, too, and couldn’t enter the temple or synagogue.

Sometimes, lepers would get well. To be recognized as no longer a leper, a person would go to the priests to be declared clean again. One sign of the Messiah’s coming was that he would heal lepers. Jesus showed God’s love for everyone, including lepers, by healing them.

One day, when Jesus was walking down the road, ten lepers shouted to Him from a distance: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. He told them to see the priests in Jerusalem. Jesus did not heal the men immediately. They were healed “as they went.” In other words, they obeyed before they saw the miracle. Faith trusted Jesus’ promise, and then God’s mercy was revealed. As they went, they were healed. When one of them, a Samaritan, saw that He was well, he went back to Jesus, loudly praising God. The man lay down at Jesus’ feet to worship Him and thank Him. Jesus asked where the other nine were. Jesus told the man to get up because his faith had made him well.

All ten men were healed. All ten must have been overjoyed to reunite with family and friends and return to normal life. Yet only one came back to thank Jesus. The Samaritan recognized that more than his health had been restored. God Himself had shown him mercy. The other nine enjoyed the gift, but only one stopped to thank the Giver.

Even though the Jews of Jesus’ time despised Samaritans and treated them poorly, Jesus once again makes the point that God does not discriminate against people because of sickness, race, or religion. All people are his children, and he shows mercy to us all. After all, he was about to bear the sins of all the sons and daughters of Adam on the cross. On the last day, people from all nations, races, and times, redeemed by his blood, will gather as one to praise him. So now, we join the former lepers in praying, “Lord, have mercy,” and reach out to care for all his children in need.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Pastor Emeritus
Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2021 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share, and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@msn.com