In some churches, 50% of those in attendance might not be official members of the church. In some evangelical mega-churches, and in many cases in large church, there are many attendees who are not members. What could this mean? …that some go church-hopping and never become an official member of that church? …that there’s a lot of seekers in attendance?… or that the pastors do not stress on the importance of membership.
In some other churches (e.g., mainline churches (e.g., Lutheran, Anglican, Roman Catholic, etc.; and even the Southern Baptist Convention), it’s quite the opposite. The church membership roster might be twice or 3x greater than the actual attendance. What could this mean? that people have just stopped coming to church, period? Or that they switched to different churches or denominations? Or that they stopped coming to church the day after they got baptized or became a member?
In either case, church membership doesn’t seem very important to more and more people today, especially to the Millennial generation. Why isn’t it important anymore?
New Epistles 