While evangelism and church growth are not the only measures of Christian faithfulness, they are important ones. We live in a time of deep spiritual hunger, which can only be truly met by the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am convinced that God intends for the Presbyterian Church to be a growing church. I believe strongly that we are being called as a church to a fresh commitment to be “Christ's faithful evangelists” ( Book of Order , G-3.0300). Last year at the 216th General Assembly, I shared six imperatives for being Christ's faithful evangelists, to which our statistical results for 2003 pointed. I believe our statistics for 2004 reinforce this call. I want to use this essay to share them with you again in light of the specific statistics for the PC(USA) for 2004. I urge you to take them to heart!

First, a word about the figures themselves. At the end of 2004, there were 2,362,136 active, confirmed members in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a net loss of 43,175 from 2003. The total membership of the PC(USA) is 3,189,573. This includes 346,873 baptized, but not confirmed, members (mostly children) and 480,564 inactive members. The 2005 edition of the Yearbook of American Churches indicates that we are the ninth largest church body in the United States.

These members are found in 11,019 congregations, which are related to 173 presbyteries and sixteen synods. There are 21,287 ministers (including 334 who were ordained in 2004), 98,933 elders, and 67,424 deacons. Total contributions and income for these churches totaled $2,926,762,293, an increase of $3,377,713 over 2003. Two thirds of this revenue was spent on the local program of our churches; fifteen percent on capital expenditures for churches; twelve percent on mission; and 1.5 percent on presbytery, synod, and General Assembly per capita.

While these figures in general point to areas where we need to change, there are some numbers we can celebrate:

• Twenty-six of our presbyteries and a third of our congregations are growing.
• The percentage of racial-ethnic Presbyterians is growing, and we may well reach our goal of having ten-percent racial ethnic membership by 2005.
• We continue to gain 25% more members than we lose by letter of transfer from other churches.
• We had a slight gain (285) in the number of adult baptisms over 2003.
• We had a gain of 200 (from 885 to 1085) in the number of new candidates for ministry approved by our presbyteries—a sign that new efforts to encourage our young people to consider God's call to ministry are bearing fruit!

Let us give thanks to God for all of these positive developments.

However, the fact that we are continuing to lose members has deeper implications for the faithful ministry of Presbyterian congregations. The deepest and most profound implication is that we as a church are being called by God to prayer for repentance and renewal. We know that coming to faith is possible only through the power of the Holy Spirit. We as Presbyterians will only become a growing church if we begin on our knees, praying for forgiveness for our timidity in evangelism and seeking God's renewal, so that we lose our image as God's “frozen chosen” and become, instead, joyful evangelists who actively share the good news of the gospel and invite others into the fellowship of our churches.

Empowered by prayer and the Holy Spirit, six specific imperatives for Presbyterians arise again from the 2004 statistics:

1. We need to realize that our most important evangelistic outreach begins at home.
In 2004, as in recent years, we have gained more new members through profession of faith and transfer of certificate of membership than we lost by those who transferred from the PC(USA) to other churches or who died. Our gain in these categories was 110,664; our losses, 66,353—a net gain of 44,311. Our problem is that we had “other losses” of 108,871—mainly through people who were moved to the inactive list and, usually a few years later, out the “back door” to nowhere. Statistically, we are not losing people to other churches. Our problem is that we are losing our people to the secular world—to no active church affiliation. All of us—pastors, elders, and deacons—need to give special attention to nurturing our members, supporting them in meaningful ministry, and reaching out to them when they begin to fall away from active membership.

2. We need to follow the wisdom of the Book of Order concerning inactive members.
A significant number of congregations showed very large losses. These were usually not the result of large numbers of people leaving a church at once; rather, it was the result of sessions cleaning membership rolls only after years of neglect to regularly review the rolls and move members to the inactive roll only after they have “made diligent effort to discover the cause of members' nonparticipation and to restore the member to activity in the church's work and worship” ( Book of Order , G-10.0302). Not giving regular attention to members whose active involvement is waning, and seeking to restore their participation at an early stage, means it is often too late to re-engage them after several years have passed. This failure is a major cause of our overall membership loss. Every session needs to actively review its rolls at least annually and make a plan for pastoral visitation for those moving toward inactivity in the church's life.

3. Jesus was quite clear in the Great Commission that we as followers of Christ are called to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them (Matthew 28:19).
Presbyterians are not doing a very good job of bringing new disciples into the church through baptism. While it is good news that the number of adult baptisms in 2004 increased over 2003 by 285, we still recorded a total of only 10,459 adult baptisms. This represents less than one adult baptism per congregation. We had a higher number of child baptisms (33,616) than adult, but on the average, still about three per congregation. These figures are in marked contrast to those of Presbyterians twenty and forty years ago—and from Presbyterian churches in many other nations today. In 1984, the total number of baptisms for adults was 16,535; for children, 50,507. For 1964, the figures were 34,545 and 90,909. It has often been said that Presbyterians are better at nurturing the faithful than inviting those who have never believed into a life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ. These figures seem to bear that out. We need to develop the gift of sharing the gospel with those who have never heard the good news and welcoming them into our churches through baptism.

4. We need to learn from our growing churches and imitate them!
While we are losing members as a denomination, we do have many growing churches. All of our congregations need to learn from them. We are aided in this task by two excellent publications by Deborah Bruce and Cynthia Woolever, Beyond the Ordinary: 10 Strengths in U.S. Congregations and Fastest-Growing Presbyterian Congregations . In the latter publication, the authors sought data from 400 of our fastest-growing congregations (forty-two percent average growth over the last five years) and compared them with a sample of all of our congregations. Some of the strengths of these growing churches are:

• Vital programs for children and youth
• Widespread use of prayer groups and other small-group ministries
• New forms and times for worship, with an emphasis on spontaneity, inspiration, and joy
• Strong connections electronically
• A cultural norm of inviting friends to worship and sharing faith stories
• Excitement about the future of the church