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Evangelism in a Society that Moves a Lot

Introduction To say people in our society “move a lot” refers to “internal migration.” Internal migration is a change in residence without a change of country. In the main, internal migration does not alter WELS evangelism efforts. No matter who lives where for how long, the gospel will not change. Nor will anything replace the gospel as evangelism’s sole tool. However, in two ways, internal migration does externally affect evangelism efforts. First, congregations are subject to space and time. Because of that, congregations confine their evangelism efforts to limited geographical areas. They evangelize those living in their limited geographical area. Migration determines who lives there and for how long. Second, evangelism includes follow-up. If possible, congregations apply the powerful gospel to their prospects over and over again. But follow-up requires keeping track of where the prospects live. Migration makes this keeping track a never-ending task. How great are the effects of internal migration on evangelism? Do pastors notice these effects? How can the congregation respond to these effects? The statistics in this paper came especially from data gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau. Other observations herein were gathered from twenty-eight WELS pastors. They all were responding to an e-mail survey. The paper will follow the same outline as the survey: (1) statistics about internal migration; (2) effects of internal migration; (3) efforts to reach recent movers; (4) logistics of such efforts; and (5) the pastors’ concerns about this topic.