Reapers and Keepers: The Church

Needs a Proper Balance

KeepersThe SDA church is very good in

bringing people into the church, which is evangelism.

However, it is very poor in keeping them in the church after they become members of church which is nurturing.

This is true of the SDA church world wide, as well as in PNG.

Therefore, the need for keepers.

The Reasons for Keepers

There are two reasons for keeping and conserving the harvest. These are:1. Ecclesiological - church2. Biblical – teachings of the Bible

In this discussion we are going to look at the ecclesiastical rationale.

The Good News - Church

The church is growing at a rate of 2756 new members per day as per report given at the Annual Council on Oct 9-14 by the Bert Haloviak director of the office of archive and statistic at the General Conference.

13 new congregations are formed every day.

As of October last year (2004) 1,000,000 members were added to the SDA church world wide.

The Challenge of the Church World Wide

While the church world wide added 1 million to the church as of September 2004, the General Secretary of the General Conference reported in the same meeting that 30% of the people who join the church later leave it.

This means for every 100 people we baptized, we loose 30 people, and for every 1000 people we loose 300. Thus for the 1,000,000 souls we baptized last year we would loose 300,000 of them through apostasy. This the biggest challenge of the SDA church world wide.

The South Pacific Division

The General Secretary of the SPD in his year-end report in Wahroonga in 2003 reported that the apostasy rate for the South Pacific Division was 37%

This means for every 100 people we baptized we loose 37 of them.

This is higher than the world church of 30%.

This is a challenge for the SDA church in the South Pacific Division.

Papua New Guinea Union Mission

My Andrews University dissertation growth and apostasy from 1974 to 1994 reveals that for a 20 year period.

1974 the church membership stands as 41,133 1994 the church membership stands as 159,696 The average baptism for the period was 7,695 The average apostasy for the period was 1,543 Loss rate of 21% annually for the period -1974 to

1994 This means for every 100 people we baptized we

lost 21 of them through apostasy.

Papua New Guinea Union Mission

The General Secretary of the SPD reports in SP Record “Problem of Growth in PNG” January 21, 2003, 4.

“The church in PNG is not growing. At as it seems. This is the most surprising aspect of the report presented to the members of the SPD executive committee.”

2002 PNGUM reported 4338 joined the church through baptism.

2002 PNGUM reported 4665 left the church -apostasy

The loss is greater than the accession.

Papua New Guinea Union Mission

Membership and Loss Statistics

January December Bapt. Apost. Miss.

2001 207480 214456 7431 403 841

2002 214456 214129 4338 4665

2003 214129 216282 9032 1635 6520

The loss for 2003 is 8155 which is a loss of 90.29%

Mark Finley Program

How many people did we baptized? How many people are still in the

church? The local churches in the city should

answer these two questions seriously. I suggest that the answer might not

be too encouraging. Why don’t you go back to your

churches and find out the statistics to tell us how we are doing.

The Conclusion Pr James Cress ministerial secretary of the General

Conference says in the annual council (Oct. 9-14), “We need to pray that that the Lord will send keepers. And urges pastors and elders that our work is not completed when people are baptized.”

“The call to outreach and the call to nurture are both vital part of our mission. Ignore either and our mission is distorted and unhealthy. The church in session Oct. 9-14 sought to address the two (reapers and keepers) a balancing act worthy of our support.”

New fundamental (28) “growing in Christ” will be on the agenda of the General Conference this year. Like baptism is one of our fundamentals nurturing will now be one of our fundamentals after the 2005 General Conference. This is how serious the SDA church is taking the nurturing of the new believers.