I disagree. I think it would be important to know who really is a member of your church. I think it would be important to know who has stopped coming to your church because they no longer reside in the area, and who is still in the area but no longer attends for one reason or another. It would very likely be worthwhile to talk to some of those people and find out why they stopped attending. Maybe you could find a way to get them to come back!
You beat me to it. Perhaps this guy needs to find another line of work. When a sheep disappears from the fold, a good shepherd will at least look for it. I'm not sure what this guy thinks is more important that keeping track of the spiritual well being of his flock, but with under 100 active members - 40 or so families - he ought to be able to personally touch base with each one at least once a month.
IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH? Please tell me you were kidding?
I left a Church after being left-handedly insulted from the pulpit by the new Rector who wanted to get the point across that "we", the congregation should not continue to invite the former Rector back. I had not. I had merely requested that he do something "else", like Commission the Communion Rail Kneelers in memory of my Mom who actually knew him and not the new guy.
I did not know at the time that the "new" guy had already given the former Rector the pulpit because he thought HE was going to do the Commissioning!
My Mom died before he ever showed up and she loved the former Rector dearly. But apparently, without telling me that he was insulted, he (new guy) was HIGHLY insulted.
But that didn't stop the new guy from getting all huffy and few people didn't get the inference since the Commissioning service had been the previous Sunday.
I never went back. I had just given a 5-digit gift in memory of my Mom, and I didn't even get the chance to see them at the Communion Rail for more than 2 Sundays.
I had been a member at that Church for 13 years. My Mom had been a member with me, for 8 of those years.
NOT ONE person called me. Not one.
OTOH, I left a small parish, to go back to a previous Church (which "previous" 2000-person Church had also never wanted to find out why I left) and someone called me to find out if I was all right. I nearly fainted when I asked her to repeat her question because I was positive I was hallucinating! Note, it was NOT the Rector but a loving, caring parishioner who I had worked with on many Alpha classes, who wanted to make sure I wasn't ill or something.
Shoot, they don't do "Every Member Canvass" where every member on the roster was visited, with the idea of adding/deleting/correcting the roster for the family, as well as being a visible hint for a weekly/monthly/annual donation to the Church.
If ever there was a time when the "official roster" could have been corrected, it was when they did those. But to my knowledge they gave up on them some time in the late 70's.