A strategy to enhance church membership retention in Kabusunzu Seventh-day Adventist Church, East-Central Rwanda Conference

Abstract

While the church is committed to baptize and bring as many persons to Jesus as possible to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus (Matt 28:19, 20), the church has issues with retention and making believers disciples. This has become a great challenge which needs to be focused on. Different researchers have shown that the issue of membership loss is an increasing challenge. This hinders the effort of evangelism and the growth of the church. It is often hidden in unreal figures found in implausible statistical reports. When the new converts are baptized they live as they did before. If they do not feel warmly welcomed into a loving church, they tend to backslide or drift here and there, instead of being a dynamic force in the church. After studying the issue of loss and retention throughout the Bible and God’s intention to save all who want to be saved, I performed a literature review to discover how the retention problem is understood and treated by different writers. Then I investigated Kabusunzu Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kigali to assess the situation. The lifestyle of believers appears to be problematic; if they are not true disciples, they are therefore not prepared to make other disciples. Only regular evangelistic campaigns are organized. The atmosphere is quite warm during the campaigns. People come to attend out of curiosity and are baptized, only to be left alone afterwards. The new church members suffer loneliness. Small groups exist formally, but a large percentage of newly baptized members can disappear within two months without the notice of either church members or leaders, giving the impression that they do not care. The strategy implemented was based on effective methods to retain members. Evangelistic strategies must provide a personal encounter with Christ. After that, caring leadership ought to find ways to avoid loneliness and inactivity of new members through active small groups. Church members who are brought to understand the process well and are committed to be disciples of their Master Jesus will then come to understand how accountable they are to each other and to God. The nine steps of the program implemented in Kabusunzu Church are based on what has been pointed out by other authors and my own research. The implementation of a strategy based on loving and keeping one another has led to the good results reported in this study. Believers have been led to understand the real reason for the existence of church, their part to play as Jesus’ disciples in church mission, and their accountability to one another. It is hoped that this project will contribute to the efforts of local churches to overcome the issue of member loss.