It seems like I see this all the time. Today I’m at a church in the northwestern metropolitan Detroit area and I see this again: active members are defined by those who have worshiped once in the past year. Inactive members are those who are not in the army or college and have not worshipped once in the last year. Are you kidding me? Here’s the problem: people are disengaged and re-engaged in other activities after ten weeks. If a church waits for a whole year and suddenly says, “Hey, Joe hasn’t been here for a year. We better follow up and see what is going on.” It’s way too late! It’s likely that Joe is long gone. Maybe he has gone to another church, or maybe never to be in a church again.

This is not new news. Years ago, a guy named John Savage wrote a book called Apathetic and Bored Church Members. He talked about the “drop out track.” By the looks of things, in our consulting work, not many people have read this book. He simply says that after ten weeks, people are doing something else. They have phased away from their “holy habit” of going to church. Make it seven weeks. Monitor people in church regularly so you know who is not there. When someone is missing, after seven weeks, pull the trigger—not shoot them, but to follow up. Not to nag them, but to ask them if something is wrong, if they are sick, if there are problems in the family, etc. Not to be nose, but to show you care. It’s not rocket science, but you better do it sooner than what most churches practice in follow up.