We have just completed a very encouraging Passover and first Holy Day service in Pasadena. We had a record attendance for both the Passover and first Sabbath — 2,545 took the Passover while 3,535 were in attendance for the first Holy Day service. Both the Passover and the first Holy Day had more in attendance than we had anticipated. Actually, there were 500 more than expected at the Holy Day service. Every meeting place was totally filled; we had to place people in the Student Center at the last minute as there wag no other seating available. We hurriedly set up audio from the Auditorium so these people could participate in the services.
This additional attendance of 500 people over the normal Sabbath service attendance (14% increase) is very encouraging to all of us here in Pasadena. But the reason for this type of increase is unknown to me at this point. Obviously, we had some visitors from other areas; but this couldn't account for all the increase. I highly suspect we are seeing at Headquarters a return of some of our members who had become INACTIVE. I sincerely hope this is the case, as I believe the first step toward increased church growth is to stop losing members and to win back some of those inactive members who have not dropped out because of bitterness, but rather as a result of losing interest in the Church. As they see the Church growing, I hope many more of these inactives will return to services.