How do we create new congregations that really reach and serve new people?
This was the first question asked at the Information Meeting on January 13th. An excellent answer comes from a book by Pastor Dave Daubert titled Living Lutheran Renewing Your Congregation. Here are some quotes from the first chapter of the book: “In the ELCA thousands of hours and millions of dollars were spent on evangelism and yet both membership and worship attendance declined. To find out why this happened, the ELCA Department of Research and Evaluation did a study of all the evangelism work that was done. The study showed that in spite of the overall decline, there were churches with vibrant, relevant, and growing ministries. “What was the difference between these vibrant ministries and the more typical Lutheran congregation? The study showed that declining and growing congregations were doing the same things. Getting a better sign, adding a contemporary worship service, putting ads in the paper showed up in both fast growing and fast shrinking ministries. “While similar techniqu
