"Noting that he is “amazed” by the “Synod rumor mill” to the effect that he finds “the answer to our decline of numbers in the LCMS is to have more babies,” Harrison responds in the March Journal."

I'm not sure what the "rumor mill" is but I was at the district convention two years ago where the second vice president of our synod told our convention that our decline is due to less births in our synod. My congregational leader and I looked at each other in wonder. I then said to him, as his first child had just been baptized, that he "needed to share this dilemma with his wife and tell her that the future of our synod depended upon them." lol, this brave sole did exactly that and she just stared at him.

Somewhere in the past 50 years, we stopped making disciples of Christ and instead focused on building members. Instead of focusing on growing numerically, we need to build deeper relationships with God, one another in the Body of Christ, and our communities. Numerical growth comes naturally as people experience Christ's love and forgiving grace in the lives of every day faithful Christians. Sounds simple and in all honesty, it is. I fear our problem is we're so busy trying to prove we're right that we've lost sight of the God who has chosen imperfect people throughout history to forward the Gospel of His perfect saving grace and eternal life.