Taking Roll

[corinthpastorbob]

Interesting that I should read this chapter the morning after taking some time to look through the attendance charts of our congregation for 2007. Members and guests in our congregation sign "the friendship pad," and a staff member enters their attendance on Monday morning. We began this practice when we were a much smaller congregation, and I'm sure sometimes it feels like a thankless, useless piece of administrative trivia. But that information comes in handy at key points. For example, it's not uncommon during the late summer nominating process for a name to be mentioned for a key leadership position. Then we check and realize that person everyone seems to look up to as a godly leader only comes to church 1/3 of Sundays. That's not the only measurement of a leader, of course, but we all realize that we need our leaders in the pews. Since we have three worship services, few people know who's attending regularly in another service.

But that's not why I was looking at the list yesterday. A couple of times a year I look at the attendance records of our 900 members to see who's dropped out and wondering if anyone noticed or cared. This is not a responsibility I can delegate. After 15 years, I "know each sheep by name," and I may be the only person who does. It's not a responsibility I want to delegate. I'm not sure how I'd handle it if we had 5,000 members, but we don't. Our congregation is small enough for me to know each one, but large enough to need a little help to track those who come and go. I always see the names of the hard core inactives or those out of town. But I'm looking for that one or two (or 10) who have just stopped coming. I want to be sure they know we care - and God cares.