LOOKING
BEYOND NUMBERS

Topics: Children; Church; Church Membership

References: Matthew 11:25–26; 18:1–3; 19:13–15

Forty years ago, a Philadelphia congregation watched as three nine-year-old boys were baptized and joined the church. Not long after, the church sold the building and disbanded.

One of those boys was Dr. Tony Campolo, Christian sociologist at Eastern University, Pennsylvania. Dr. Campolo remembers: “Years later when I was doing research in the archives of our denomination, I decided to look up the church report for the year of my baptism. There was my name and Dick White’s—he is now a missionary—and Bert Newman is a professor of theology at an African seminary.”

Then Campolo read the church report for the year he joined the church. It said, “It has not been a good year for our church. We have lost twenty-seven members. Three joined, and they were only children.”

—Marlene LeFever, Colorado Springs, Colorado