As Luther said, when people order God around, He denies them their infantile demands. WELS has focused on the Church Growth Movement for 30 years and lost ground the entire time. WELS is not only following ELCA in ideology but in membership losses as well.
Here are the stats:
2005 souls - 398,282
2006 souls - 395,947
net loss of 2,335
2005 communicants - 313,553
2006 communicants - 311,977
net loss of 1,576
[Subtract the teens and shut-ins from the communicant list and the real figure is doubtless much lower. Those would be the people left to support and attend regularly.]
2005 child baptisms - 7,006
2006 child baptisms - 6,836
2005 adult baptisms - 734
2006 adult baptisms - 668
2005 adult confirmations - 3,956
2006 adult confirmations - 3,852
2005 professions of faith - 2,342
2006 professions of faith - 2,294
2005 ave. Sun. att. - 44.3%
2006 ave. Sun. att. - 44.0%
2005 LES students - 23,049
2006 LES students - 21,911
2005 S.S. students - 34,614
2006 S.S. students - 31,789
2005 CMO received - $28,994,971
2006 CMO received - $20,230,919
2005 ave. giving per comm. (all purposes) - $959.47
2006 ave. giving per comm. (all purposes) - $1,011.86
Giving per communicant for all purposes went up in 2006, but synod giving tanked, nosedived, did the Katie-Couric-ratings thing. Another $8 million disappeared.
