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In the larger context of world missions, ours is a minor problem. In many parts of the world, where churches rack up new converts by the thousands, the dropout rate is appalling. This revolving door syndrome was highlighted by sociologist Kurt Bowen in his 1987-93 study of evangelical church growth in Mexico. Titled, Evangelism and Apostasy: The Evolution and Impact of Evangelicals in Modern Mexico, the book reveals social, economic and church factors that contribute to “apostasy.” Bowen defines an apostate as a baptized member who attends an evangelical church less than monthly, or goes to a Catholic church.
His work suggests that it is much easier to gain new converts than it is to keep them. This phenomenon also helps us to look more judiciously at what church growth statistics really mean in the long run. At what point do we judge congregational growth: after an influx of converts from a crusade, or five years down the road? Staying power ought to be the final test of whether a church grows or not. For example, Bowen found one church that lost 310 of its 441 newly baptized members; another kept fewer than one-third of its converts. The revolving door syndrome is not peculiar to our time. Every missionary church planter I’ve ever met has described how difficult it is to retain new converts.
Some churches try to solve the dropout rate by making it hard to join in the first place. They raise innumerable qualifications for membership, hoping to sift out the phonies from the real converts. This step assumes that the major reason for the busy revolving door is that we’ve made it too easy for people to make professions of faith and, consequently, too easy to join the church. I don’t know if this is a significant factor in Mexico or not, but I do know that some US-style evangelists tend to soften or ignore some of the gospel’s claims in an effort to see thousands of people raise their hands. They may be raising their hands to a spurious gospel, not the biblical Jesus. If we sell people a bill of goods at the entry point, we need not be surprised when they leave later.
So, first and most important, we must not overzealously try to get people to make decisions without an adequate understanding of the gospel. Second comes the task of discipleship training, or what the evangelists call follow-up. Who latches on to new converts, not just to get them to join a church, but to see that they persevere in their faith? In some quarters in the Latin American church, the answer to this need is a bundle of church services virtually every night in the week. Keep them coming, keep preaching and they will stick seems to be the theory.
But even highly motivated converts often get tired of this regimen. They also get tired of what appears to be topdown, highly centralized church government. Christians are told what to do, not how to follow Jesus according to their needs and interests. In effect, legalism is a killer. Perhaps churches with this problem need to study Galatians again.
On the US side of the equation, we also face the continuing battle over how to deploy programs and people. Shall they be disciplers or church planters? Shall they work with existing churches or start new ones? Critics of disciplers even called their calling a disease—”the church development syndrome”—and said it was the death of pioneer evangelism.
One never knows when it’s time to move on, and some disciplers have stayed much too long. But with thousands of new converts pouring into churches, and with high percentages of them leaving (in Mexico at least), it could be the right time to rethink some strategies and investments of missionaries and resources.
More study needs to be done about why we lose so many people.
Bowen’s book is a great place to start.
Copyright © 2003 Jim Reapsome