Both prideful churches and Christians who put sports before worship are to blame for the “vast gap” some churches see between membership and attendance, said a North Carolina pastor.
Kevin DeYoung, senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, wrote in The Gospel Coalition on Tuesday that he is seeing a “vast gulf” emerge in churches between membership and the worship attendance. While there can be good explanations for why the numbers don’t always match, the gap should roughly be no more than 10 to 20 percent, he noted.
“Your church may have shut-ins, college students, snow birds, missionaries, and helping professions (like doctors, nurses, police officers, and firefighters) who, understandably, are missing from worship (at their home church) on many Sundays. You may also have volunteers in the nursery and kids scattered across various classes (if you count covenant children as members). Add that all up and you have a legitimate gap,” he wrote.
“But not a massive gap. In most churches, those categories don’t add up to a large percentage of the church.”
DeYoung argued that when it comes down to it, both churches and congregants share the blame for these gaps.
He argued that some churches simply fail to mark when members have left, and keep them on…
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