Everyone's answers match what all churches say at every level. Need to improve youth groups, need to recruit outside, need immigrants, need to change our message, and all are failing to stop declines in all sects. You know why? YALL ARE MISSING ThE MAJOR ISSUE! WE AREN'T HAVING KIDS! The church has to get back into celebrating families, that having large families is a beautiful thing, that the best way to grow and spread our great church is to create our own through creation of life itself. Just looking at my friends I grew up with, a large number have 1 or no kids at all. A few more have 2, and a very small minority has 3 or more. I feel like a pariah in society because I have a large family, that I choose to bring gods little blessings into this world but we constantly hear everywhere "are you a glutton for punishment?" "You know how that happens right?" "Man you got your hands full." It's like having a actual family is a hassle, a black mark. Our pastors have to start preaching the greatness of having large families, that it's how god meant us to grow our church by having our own kids, to bring life and children to this world. We can and should bring in , try to evangelize as many cultures as we can to the LCMS but what is wrong with doing something that no other Churches in North America does, try to grow our own culture too. Celebrate when our own members have more than 2 children, not frown on it, feel a sense of shame as I and my family has, as have all large families I know have. That parents who have 1 kid that gets to spend a month in Tahiti is Oh'd and Awe'd , because they choose to spend money on travel instead of family in most cases. Yes I have friends who have 1 kid or none because of medical issues, they would die for a large family, but to celebrate families that knowingly add to our decline, that chose monetary reasons or travel over gods blessing (I know and have many friends, MANY friends that have choose the route of self first) is wrong. Address the decline from inside and we will solve our own problem.