Church growth is determined not only by how many new souls are baptized into the church, but also how many members remain in the church and how many missing members can be reclaimed. Therefore, retention and reclamation really matter.
The Korean Union Conference (KUC) conducted their second Retention and Reclamation seminar, after the first one in November 2016. More than a hundred delegates from different churches attended the meeting from March 18 to 19, 2017. They came from Middlewest Korean Conference, Southwest Korean Conference, and Southeast Korean Conference.
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According to a report by Pastor Lee ByeongJu, director of KUC Sabbath School and Personal Ministries (SS/PM), the retention rate in KUC is below 30%. This is a great challenge. He also introduced an application designed by a church member that can take record, make reports, and connect people for retention and reclamation purposes. This application works on the small-group basis. It is now being translated into English.
Other speakers included Pastor Kang SoonGi, Pastor Joo MinHo, and Pastor Richard Sabuin. They emphasized the importance of small groups in the church, the power of preparing accurate membership reports, and the idea of total member involvement for retention and reclamation. The participants were also reminded of the three special Sabbaths of Retention and Reclamation during the year of 2017: April 1, July 1, and October 7.
The Youth Training Center of Madalpy was where the participants were challenged to consider retention as a major agenda of each local church board. Each church is expected to have a regular program cycle every year to reclaim missing members and to celebrate their return to the church.
Richard Sabuin, NSD SS/PM Director