Evaluation Research: Retaining New Converts

By Raymond Williams

In Ezekiel 18:4, the Bible teaches that all souls belong to God. He sent Jesus to pay the debt for the sin of all mankind. God is not willing that any should perish. He wants all souls to be saved, not just some or a certain group of people.

Retaining Christians is important because the soul never dies. It will enjoy the pleasures of heaven for eternity or suffer the pains and agony of hell forever. The beauty of this fact is, we all get to choose our own destiny.

Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father in heaven.” One must come to Christ and remain faithful unto death.

Retaining New Converts: Let’s Think Souls versus Bodies can be used to help set up an “outreach program” for congregations and keep the saved safe. It can also be shared with other church families to enhance the retention of their members and new converts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098086893

Raymond Williams

An academic, and the writer of both non-fiction and fiction, Raymond Williams (1921–88) was one of the most important and influential British thinkers of the twentieth century. Williams wrote about politics, culture, mass media and literature, and his work was key to the development of cultural studies. His best-known books include ‘Culture and Society’, ‘The Long Revolution’ and ‘The Country and the City’.

Book preview

cover.jpg

Retaining New Converts

Let’s Think Souls versus Bodies

Raymond Williams Jr.

ISBN 978-1-0980-8688-6 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-0980-8689-3 (digital)

Copyright © 2021 by Raymond Williams Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

The Problem

Five Interviews

Let the Bible Speak

Corrective Measures

Effects of Interventions and Solutions

Conclusion and Recommendations

Notes

Bibliography

Endnotes

Preface

Many religious organizations have outreach programs designed to bring the lost to Christ. This is good, and perhaps there should be more programs designated for this purpose. Nevertheless, there is a counterproductive event occurring in the church. Numerous people are being brought to Christ; however, many are leaving the church or are not remaining faithful to their Christian deportment. The purpose of this book is to identify some possible causes to this attrition to church growth and give some possible solutions to eradicate this drainage.

Many congregations expend a large portion of their budget on outreach/evangelism programs. These churches have varying degrees of success. Most of these churches bring in new converts year after year. However, the membership size stays virtually the same. Who likes to spend money to acquire more of something, only to have the same amount when all of the money is gone?

This is the type of problem many churches are having today. New members are being brought into the fellowship continually. We know that some members die and others have job transfers. Nevertheless, these factors alone are not enough to negate the continual influx of new converts. Additionally, older members very seldom move their membership. This brings us to the loss of new converts. New converts are coming in the proverbial front door, but a larger percent of them are leaving out the back door. To this end, I want to ascertain the causes that negatively impact new convert retention in the church.

To obtain this objective, I will draw from my own 40-plus years of Christian experience as well as the more than 125 years of 5 of my esteemed colleagues. All 5 have been gospel preachers in the Lord’s church for over 14 years. My interviews with them went extremely well, since they were familiar with this problem. After I interviewed each minister individually and confidentially, I compiled all of their responses. It was interesting that five preachers, born and reared in different states, attended different schools and are not well known to each other have primarily the same responses. All of them (as well as myself) feel that the onus of this problem belongs to the church.

Therefore, my interventions targeted the leadership of the church, the more mature members, the effectiveness of the evangelism and teacher’s program and church fellowship because the assessed findings from the interviews implicated these areas. I was allowed to test the results of my interview from these implicated areas. I was allowed to test my interventions at the congregation where I attend after the leaders evaluated my intervention proposals. They let me do this as long as the leaders assisted in the implementing and evaluation of the collected data. Even though this can be tied in.

The answer to our query can be stated succinctly: When the church functions as Christ designed it, our problem vanishes. However, a more detailed answer is as follows:

The rededication of the leadership sent a powerful statement of resolve to the church, a total display of unity among the elders.

Enhancing the evangelism program increased our evangelism class size by than 50 percent. Visitors being brought to our services increase more than 15 percent.

Memberships related to evangelism are on a pace that will double last year’s statistics.

Implementing the teachers’ workshop benefited the teachers, and it was manifested in the class. The teachers were in their classrooms ten to fifteen minutes prior to class time (previously only one or two teachers did this). Start-and-stop class times were respective for the most part. And Bible class attendance increased by 10 percent on an average.

We implemented the Circle of Fellowship program to improve member relations. The members who participated were closer than they were prior to going through the program. Evidence of this was displayed by more in formal interactions, more social get-togethers. There were also more expressed concerns during crises among members and visitors.

The answer to our problem is a win-win situation for the new convert and the church as a whole. These interventions work because they enhance the programs of the church, which allow us to accomplish the commands of God more effectively and efficiently. Other interventions may work as long as none of God’s principles are violated.

The Problem

An enormous amount of effort is expended trying to reach the lost, and the fruit of this labor is always rewarding. However, retention and steadfastness have been problems for many religious institutions. We will endeavor to ascertain the causes in order to resolve or at least minimize these concerns.

Evangelism is a very important part of the church’s mission. Christians have a directive from God to go teach the Gospel of Christ to the world (Matt. 28:18–29; Mark 16:15–16; Acts 8:4, 12, 25). I’ve been a member of the church for forty-plus years. I’ve been in the ministry for over twenty-five years. I’ve spent twenty-one years in the Air Force, and I’ve been a member of ten different congregations. All of which had an outreach/evangelism program to reach lost souls.

There is no doubt in my mind that the concept of evangelism is well understood in the church. This fact is also supported by the numerous responses to the teaching of God’s word. However, my concern is the high attrition rate of the new converts. I’ve seen twenty-plus and even thirty-plus new converts being added to a congregation in a year’s period. Nevertheless, the size of the congregation through the years remained relatively the same.

Now we know that death and members moving away are continual factors that reduce membership size. Additionally, we also know that these two factors have a minimal impact on the size of the congregation. It is very seldom that older or more mature members change their membership. This brings us to the vulnerability of the new convert. Oftentimes an enormous amount of time, effort, and money are expended in reaching the lost. On the other hand, the same energies are not displayed when it comes to retention. What good is it to help someone to know Christ and then allow him or her to whither on the vine?

This book is designed to focus our attention on rectifying the apparent drainage on church membership. We will take a look at some research data and interviews. We will address some biblical guidelines to ensure the appropriate directions are maintained. To ascertain information to help solve our dilemma, we will utilize various methods and evaluations to verify possible solutions. We will then implement the best solution and make whatever adjustments necessary to obtain the best fit. Once this is done, we will conclude and offer some recommendations. With these things in mind, we will begin our book by discussing the problem.

The problem is this: The new convert mortality rate is entirely too high. People come into the church primarily by three means—they are raised up in it, transfer of membership, and conversion. Our focus will be on the latter. Simply put, the only way for a church to grow via this mean is to bring them in through the proverbial front door and keep them from going out the back door.

There are primarily three ways people leave the church—by death, by transference, and, finally, by reversion. Again, our focus will be on the latter. In simple terms, our discussion will focus on people being brought through the front door and them choosing for some reason to go out the back door, conversion and reversion. A good example is given by author John W. Ellas in his book Measuring Church Growth:

Consider a shepherd who tends 100 sheep. He leads them into a fenced enclosure for safekeeping. A quick count of the sheep reveals that three are missing, so he energetically locates and returns them to the fold. A more thorough tally shows that he is still six short of his total. Now he doubles his efforts and recovers all six. One final count uncovers the frustrating reality that twelve more have disappeared. By this time he recognizes the problem-and it is not his inability to count accurately. From a perimeter fence check, he discovers that the back gate is wide open. This story reflects real church conditions and offers insight for leaders. Most congregations have back doors that are wide open. Each year they receive new members [front door gains] and other members leave [back door losses]. Unfortunately, the membership losses are equal to and often greater than the gains because the back door problem goes undiscovered and unaddressed. The best way to address the problem begins with an accurate people flow analysis. This involves tracking the numbers and sources of membership gains and losses on a regular basis. (Ellas 1997)¹

People slowly drift away from the church without uniting with another one. In North America, reversion accounts for 2–6 percent of a church’s losses in worship attendance. For example, a church with two hundred in worship attendance will likely lose four people through death, six people through transfer, and up to twelve people through reversion, for a total of twenty-two