Therefore, it is impossible to determine whether members who became inactive or left were different from the larger group in terms of age, involvement before joining, or relationships within the church. No data are available for assessing the role of these relationships in the decision to join the church. However, previous research suggests that their existence should improve the likelihood of the retention of these members. They were then asked to indicate how each left. Data were provided for 59 of the 82.
Some attrition takes place very quickly in the membership career.
Of these about half were still Nazarenes, having transferred to another Nazarene church. Another one-fourth were still in the Christian community, having transferred to another denomination. This is intended to be the first in an annual series of reports on the New Nazarenes who joined the Church of the Nazarene during the 1989 assembly year. In the decade which ended that year 286,339 New Nazarenes joined the church. Data have not been available to examine this, or other, assumptions.