Encore Post: The data is out there. The trends are known. We know before we go about our duties. We know who is likely to remain in the church. We know who is likely to return to the church. We already know.
Will the married couple remain in the church after their wedding in our building? Will the family bring their baptized child into the Lord’s house regularly? Will the catechumens remain in the church after they’re admitted to the altar? Will the new visitors become a permanent fixture here after transfer or conversion? Will the family newly invigorated by the death of a closely related blessèd saint of the Lord lose their zeal or keep it? Will the children keep coming when the duties, passions, and hormones of adolescence drag them around wildly in their own minds?
Your pastors pray the data is more dire than reality.
In each case, it boils down to habit and patterns.
Newlyweds: what is their family background? A couple from a similar upbringing: LCMS, regularly attended as a child and adolescent, and both parents brought them to church. In the same way that similar ideas about money, number of children, and chiefly if Moms and Dads were married and remain married improve the chances of a successful marriage. Those commonalities also improve the chances that these kids will be and remain in the church.
Your pastor will coach you concerning the difficulties in your future when the odds are not stacked in your favor. Only in extremely rare circumstances will he refuse marriage. He prays that the Lord will deliver you from misfortune and strife, even the foreseeable kind.
Baptized child: what’s the deal with Mom and Dad? If they are or become regular attenders, the kids will likely follow suit. If they are not, their kids will still likely follow suit. Your pastor will often baptize a child, whose future in the church is uncertain. He prays that foreseeable apostasy does not befall your house.
Catechumens: Again, what’s the deal with Mom and Dad? Here, there’s more data readily available. Did y’all attend regularly before confirmation was on the horizon? If not, there’s a mighty high chance the catechumens will peter out quickly following confirmation.
Your pastors will desperately attempt to instill new habits in the kids. He’ll impose strict attendance standards or require seemingly endless piles of sermon reports. He’s seen parents drop children off for required church attendance, while driving off themselves. He’s grieved to know the child may be lost already. He prays he’s wrong, keeps up with his efforts, and prays the Holy Spirit defeats those odds. Rarely would he withhold confirmation.
Transfers/Converts/Those motivated by a close death: Where were you before? Are you returning to lifelong patters of attendance to the Lord’s house? Or are these attempts to develop a new pattern? Those who attended before are more likely to attend again. Those who did not, are not.
Adolescents: This group gets the most attention, the most ink spilt over them, and even individualistic ministerial attention. How often have you heard of a church with a minister of newlywed Christianization, baptismal life, catechetical instruction, or newly returned Christian life instruction? Prob’ly never. But, we’ve all seen churches with a youth minster or a youth ministry team.
Sadly, that’s also an example of the poor return on those efforts. Again, data indicates that strong youth programs don’t predict strong Christian adults from within them. Worse, when those programs look distinctively different than the churches from which they spring, they serve as an offramp directly out of the church.
Can’t we beat the odds? Yes, we can. Your pastor prays that you do. He preaches, teaches, and conducts himself towards you assuming the data is wrong in your case.
As a body of believers, we have data to help direct our efforts. Children follow the patterns established by their fathers regarding church. As we discussed before, the data is stark in this regard. If we want baptized babies in church, children in church following along and learning, catechumens attending to the Lord’s house, youth who remain in or return to church, newlyweds who attend regularly and bring their babies to the font, we must have fathers to build those patterns into their children.
Your pastors already know. We pray every day that the data is wrong in your case.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
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I’m so thankful that our daughter and our daughter-in-law guide our grandchildren to attend church and confirmation. Our children were brought up attending church, Sunday School and confirmation and we always stressed the presence of Christ in our lives. Thankfully they found Christian spouses and are raising Christian children. God is taking care of them.
Thanks be to God!
Data is fascinating, but let’s remember God looks at the heart of individual souls not at church attendance. Pastors know odds of church attendance, but not odds of salvation. Alternately, I understand that Pastors are often blamed for waning participation in churches when they shouldn’t be. A very good read.
Melissa,
I’m glad you enjoyed the post.
Data is not just fascinating. It is the truth in numerical form. St. James teaches us, “Faith without works is dead.” Works merit us nothing. Less than nothing, if that were possible. The faith living in us cannot be kept from loving and serving our neighbor, but that unbelief rules at that moment.
Similarly, faith cannot be kept from the gathering of the faithful in the Lord’s house. The Psalms teach, “Lord I love the habitation of your house, the place where your glory dwells.” I teach my catechumens with this weak metaphor: Can a fish live out of the water? [various answers including the lungfish, but eventually “no.”] The fish doesn’t die as soon as it’s out of the water. Ever heard of catch an release fishing? The fish can’t live a protracted time out of the water.
Faith can exist outside the hearing of the Word, the gathering of the faithful, and the sustenance of Christ’s Body and Blood. But, for how long? Faith can’t exist forever, while despising God’s gifts. Like a fish needs water, Christians need the house of the Lord.
That’s call to action outside the Lord’s house. Our friends and family members who have strayed or willfully absent themselves from the Lord’s house need encouragement to return. That doesn’t only have to be positive. For men in particular cajoling, badgering, friendly insults, and the like are how we encourage self-improvement. Strict attendance policies attached to member tuition breaks/scholarships are effectively a bribe. And, it’s a good exchange. We pay families to attend, teach their children the Christian faith with their parents consent.
All those things and the data around what will likely happen in persistent non-attendance fuel the direction of our individual work as Christians. Get them and ourselves into the Lord’s house often. We are not non-corporeal souls trapped in a physical world awaiting release. We are physical beings, created by God in Body and Soul. The habits of our body do effect the condition of our souls. Simply being habitually in church puts our ears in contact with Word and bodies in place to receive His Body & Body, means through which He promises to work.