LifeWay has published the final results from the 2006 Annual Church Profile surveys. The results are telling, at best. I find them to be a bit more on the dismally alarming side.
Here are a few “key” results:
- Total churches numbered 44,233 (an increase from 2005 of 524 or 1.2%)
- Total Membership numbered 16,306,246 (an increase over 2005 of 35,931 or 0.22%)
- Total Baptisms numbered 364,826 (a decrease from 2005 of 7,024, or 1.89%)
- Primary Worship Attendance numbered 6,138,776 (an increase over 2005 of 86,455, or 1.3%)
- The “average” SBC church has 386 (reported) members. (So much for us being a convention of “small” churches?)
Analysis
These sad numbers indicate a steady, continuing trend of “negative growth” in the face of a rapidly growing United States population. The most shocking figure, and, I believe, the central figure in assessing the health and growth of Southern Baptist Churches, is the rate of baptisms.
Consider the 2006 figure of 364,826 baptisms. This figure indicates the following:
- The “average” Southern Baptist church baptized 8 people in 2006. (The summary report did not indicate the dismal annual figure which tells how many Southern Baptist churches didn’t baptize a single convert to the faith.)
- The ratio of Baptisms to Total Membership was 1:45. (Translation … that means that it took 45 Southern Baptists to reach each new believer in 2006. Or, in other words, 44/45 Southern Baptists are not accomplishing the Great Commission)
- This total baptism number was the lowest reported in the SBC since 1993. (I’m not sure what to think about that fact… that during the most rapid 15 years of growth in American history, our growth is slowing dramatically.)
- While the baptism rate dropped 1.89%, the population of the United States increased 0.6% in 2006 … topping the 3 million mark in October 2006. (Reality … if we only baptized our own children in our own churches, our baptism rate would pace population growth at +0.6%. We simply are not reaching our own children with the Gospel. Or, perhaps, have we grown so “elderly” in our SBC median age that we are not having children at the same pace as the remainder of the United States population. I, personally, tend to think that is a significant part of our growth problem. It would be make a very interesting study for a thesis…)
- Another way of looking at the baptism rate in relation to population growth rate: We baptized 364,826 in 2006. In that same year almost 1.8 million people were born in the United States. Wow! The population is growing at 4 times (4x) the rate of the SBC!
Beyond baptisms, growth in attendance is simply not a satisfactory indicator of health. Consider:
- The total growth in attendance of 84,455 people in 2006, averaged over our 49,467 churches and “church-type missions,” shows that the “average” SBC church or mission added a whopping 1.7 people in attendance. (That’s individuals or persons … 1.7 … the average SBC church added less than two people in attendance last year!)
- At the same time, the average SBC church claimed 8+ baptisms of new believers. (These numbers simply do not “wash.” How can our churches claim to add 8 new members each via baptism, yet only less than 2 new actual attendees in the same year? Hmm…..)
- Anyway … a convention-wide worship attendance of 6,138,776 is only 37.6% of the actual members that we claim. 62% of our “members” are MIA!
A Testimony
I have always thought that my church, Crossroads Fellowship, has been experiencing very moderate growth in its 5-year history. But my study of the 2006 ACP results led me to study my own church’s numbers over the past five years. Here’s what I found:
- We currently have 143 members. We started at “0″ in 2002, so I’m not sure what our annual rate of growth actually is. But we seem to average about 30 new members a year, which is somewhere around a 20-21% rate of growth (averaged over 5 years).
- Of our 143 current members, we have baptized 45 of them. That is a very vigorous baptism:church member ration of 1:3 … which far and away “blows away” the convention-wide average of 1:45.
- Our weekly attendance is now averaging about 225 … while our membership is only 143. So, instead of having 62% MIA membership, we’ve found an additional 57%.
My point? I don’t share my church’s numbers out of pride, or as an opportunity to gloat. I am merely trying to place a local church perspective upon the overall statistics of the SBC. I perceive my church as being as being in a season of very slow, modest growth. Yet, when I look at our stats in comparison to our convention … we seem to be blazing a growth trail!
It makes me wonder about the scope of “negative growth” (i.e. “decline”) that truly exists within our beloved SBC.
Yes, as a convention/denomination, we we seem to be “solid” on our doctrine. We seem to know what we believe. But does our conservative Biblical stature and continual definition and clarification of our “Baptist identity” actually translate into Great Commission accomplishment?
The numbers seem to say a rather emphatic, “No.”
What do you say?
July 9, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Alan,
Pretty good analysis. Your church certainly is not your “typical” SBC church. Maybe I should assign you a topic to speak on in the Smackk Chruch Conference next year.
I have to differ with one portion of your analysis. You said that the average church has an average of 386 (reported) members. Then you imply that his means that we are not a convention of small churches.
When you look at the average attendance during Primary Worship divided by the total churches, the figure is 139 attendees per week per church. I believe that statistic is much more telling than total members on a church roll.
And when you add in the fact that only 1.4% of our churches average over 1,000 attendees in worship, I would say that the SBC IS a convention of small churches.
Keeping it real.
Les
July 9, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Good point, Les. The actual number in attendance remains a “small church” number, close to the 100 range.
I stand corrected (sort of).
July 9, 2007 at 5:29 pm
BTW … what is the Smackk Church Conference?
Is that where the pastors get together and talk a little smackk?
July 9, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Geoff:
The ACP numbers are pretty useless when it comes to analysis. There is not enough information. Most folks looking at the numbers do not really know what to look at. However, you can see that they are not good. But, trying to quantify them in any way is difficult.
By the way, your “average” growth rate is around 33%. Your lowest rate was 25% and your highest around infinity.
Your baptism ratio of 1:3 is fantastic! Praise God! But, the way most churches count members your ratio would be closer to 1:5 (still pretty great!)
While you may be feeling that you are in a season of slow growth, it may be slow to you or hard to quantify for the ACP, but when put in perspective of the overall, it could still be pretty good.
I make all of these comments, not to be a pain, but to show how numbers are easily misread. Unfortunately the are often misused.
One thing that I feel confident in saying, there may be bright spots, like Crossroads Fellowship, but the overall picture does not look too healthy.
July 9, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Keith,
Not too healthy … Overall, that’s my point.
I quite agree that the ACP numbers are relatively useless for analysis. We can only imagine how many churches do not submit such a report. But they’re all we have to work with.
It seems quite obvious to me that, though we seem to be “holding the line” on most numbers, we are losing incredible ground in light of the exploding population in our country.
And, somehow, I don’t thing that “holding the line” is quite what the church has been called to do.
Thanks for visiting my blog. Please come back … often.
July 9, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Geoff, Alan, whoever you are,:)
LOL. I MEANT to type “Small Church Conference”. Humblest apologies to my gracious host.
Les
July 9, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Funny …
I didn’t even catch the Alan part. But I did like the idea of a bunch of pastors getting together and talking some “smackk.”
Oh … wait … we already have a few conventions for that, don’t we?
July 9, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Geoff:
Holding the line is like trying not to fail. It all seems kind, how shall I put it, safe or ordinary. Not words I would ascribe to God or His kingdom work.
And as you pointed out, we are not really holding the line. BTW, did you mean “useful” or “useless?”
July 10, 2007 at 5:37 am
The baptism figure is certainly worse that it shows inasmuch as a good proportion of those are rebaptisms, a statistic that is never reported but occasionally studied. One state reported that 40% of their baptisms were of people who had been baptized before.
I would be curious to see a breakdown of your 45 baptisms to include those who were previously sprinkled or immersed, those who were baptized as babies, those whose testimony is that they were already a member of a baptist church and had been immersed before they were saved, etc.
This is not to be critical of whatever policy you follow but just a case study of the complicated nature of baptism statistics in SBC churches.
Good work. I commend you for it.
July 10, 2007 at 5:42 am
Keith,
“Useless.” I fixed it.
William,
Welcome to “Along the Shore.”
A MOST excellent point. That would be an interesting study, indeed, among all of our churches. I am sure that several of our baptisms (as in any church) would fit within that category.
And thank you for your kind commendation.
Please visit and join our conversation on a regular basis.
Blessings,
Geoff
July 10, 2007 at 8:02 am
Brother Geoff,
Great topic. I believe Brother Les is teaming up with the Wrestling Federation to sponsor his Smackk Conference. :>)
I want to ask a question that may not have been thought of. While the numbers you present are excellent, How can we get these numbers in churches already in existence? I believe that Brother William has asked an excellent question that we all need to examine. Also, Brother Keith has pointed out the deficiencies in the ACP. However, having said that, it appears we are holding the SBC responsible for the baptismal rate. Should we not point to the churches themselves instead of the SBC?
Blessings,
Tim
July 10, 2007 at 9:10 am
Tim,
I am not in any way holding the SBC “responsible” for the state of (non)growth that exists in so many of our churches.
Indeed, it is within the churches themselves that we find the real issue. But, then again, what is our convention? It is an assembly of our churches. As go the individual congregations, so goes the convention.
How do we get these numbers in churches already in existence. Well, in most cases I don’t think you can. Church Planting studies show us that as a church ages, its rates of baptisms and growth go down. That is simply a reality that is reflected in the numbers.
I think that, ultimately, the answer is for churches to plant new churches and give them the freedom to experiment and “push the envelope” on methodology in order to reach people. I fear that our present strategy of state conventions and associations planting churches is a picture of inefficiency, since any church planting effort is, inevitably, “dumbed down” to a product that the most legalistic church involved in the process can be “comfortable” with.
So … I chased a bit of a rabbit … but let me bring it home. Yes, it is the churches. No it is not the convention. But, other than a small percentage of vibrant, healthy churches, I fear that overall we are a convention of plateaued and declining churches. The statistics bear that out.
Now, I’m ready for the Smackk Conference … Bring it on!!!
July 10, 2007 at 10:07 am
From my personal observations the SBC as a whole is in decline. Its larger churches seem to be doing quite well, while its small churches seem to be drying up. I am not sure if this trend is related to the SBC, or if it is just simple demographics of all Churches in general. Whichever is true, it is affecting the SBC disproportionately due to the heavy concentration of small churches within the SBC.
I recently left the SBC church I had attended all my life in favor of a non-denominational church. The Church is not pentecostal, all its staff graduated SBC seminaries, but they choose for many reasons not to belong to the SBC. Everyone seems to agree that membership in the convention would actually damage the mission of the Church. The Church is only 6 years old and has grown to 10,000+ attendance every Sunday. This is in a small town, not a big city. This time last year, we were running 4000 per Sunday. The reason I said that was to say that until I left the SBC, I did not realize the negative image that a vast number of number of Christians hold of the SBC. When members started leaving SBC churches in the area to attend this Church, Many of the SBC pastors labeled the Church a Cult. Called the preacher a Cult leader. He is doctrinally sound. The only thing he did wrong was take their members. The pastor of the SBC church that he left to start this new church absolutely hates him. Why? The only reason that makes any logical sense is he took 2000+ of his members.
I think the SBC should do more to moderate the behavior of its member churches. The convention as a whole is an awesome convention. However, they do not discipline or expel member churches who are truly acting out of line with the word. Lets face it, there are still a large number of racially segregated churches in the SBC.
The convention should not let this happen. It should not let a church who will not allow black members to belong to the SBC.
July 10, 2007 at 11:42 am
Hal,
Interesting testimony. The experiences of your new church sound a lot like my own. We remain affiliated to the SBC, but we have been soundly rejected by the local association (I’m pretty familiar with the “cult” label…)
I believe that there is much truth in your analysis. Indeed, I was not aware of the enormous negative view of the SBC until I spoke with guests who moved to our area from up north. Most love our church, but do a bit of emotional backpedaling when they hear we are SBC. I was shocked.
I do, indeed, think that the small church is what is truly in decline in our “Wal-Mart,” and “shopping mall” culture.
Very interesting …
July 11, 2007 at 10:11 am
Geoff, Tim, Hal and others:
I think there is plenty of “blame” to go around. Ultimately the responsibility resides in the local church, but the leadership influence of the convention and its policies, programs and processes on those local churches might also share in that “blame.”
Keith Price
July 11, 2007 at 1:21 pm
I’m pretty sure that God won’t hold the Southern Baptist Convention responsible for its failure. The SBC is simply an organization, and none of them will give an account before God one day. I’m also pretty sure he won’t hold my church, Calvary Baptist, responsible for the decline in numbers. I am sure that he will hold me, and every other individual member of Calvary and of your church as well, responsible for what we did with what He gave us. Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees. Sometimes we can’t see the trees for the forest. I care what the SBC is doing, but I’m not going to waste my time or breath on it. And, even if no one else in my church follows what I teach or where I lead, I’m going to be one who tells one about how to know God through Jesus. That’s my answer. I’m going to do it.
July 11, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Keith,
Maybe so … but I tend to think that the convention more reflects the churches, rather than vice-versa.
Cyle,
You’ve hit the individual nail on the head. We will each bear our own responsibility before God. But the church is a corporate body. Many times the environment, practices, expectations, etc… of the local church have tremendous impact upon the evangelistic and missions zeal of its members. I think we do need to talk about it, instead of “glossing over” the truth by highlighting whatever “high points” we can manage to invent in the ACP results (which is what the annual summary seems to always attempt to do).
July 11, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Geoff,
Statistics on our convention can be frustrating. I would love to see some more in depth analysis done on various subjects. Do we have fewer “re-baptisms” now than 20 years ago? Are we losing churches to death, new denominational affiliations, what? Are we demonstrably older now as a convention?
I am grateful for the SBC. My grandfather was saved in an sbc church here in IL. We don’t like all the perceptions people here have of the sbc but we are changing many of those perceptions in our area. I am of the opinion- perhaps there are less of us now?- that the sbc serves a very worthwhile purpose. It is worth preserving- and improving.
July 11, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Doug,
I agree. The stats are frustrating. And the lack of reporting by many churches, in addition to the “over-reporting”
by some churches also adds to the difficulty.
Your last query, about the age of our convention, is the one that I would really like to see studied. It would answer many of the other questions.
Yes, the SBC does serve a worthwhile purpose. And, yes, it is worth preserving and improving. But the “rub” comes in the definitions of “preserving” and “improving.” Which vision for the SBC are we going to “preserve?” And what I consider “improvements,” many people in our beloved convention rail against.
After all … “improving” = change. And that’s the one thing that the vast majority of Southern Baptists seem willing to go along with.
July 11, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Here’s one of the “improvements” that perhaps most can agree on. We desperately need a revival of spiritual passion among many of our churches, pastors and church leaders. We need to deeply care about loving God and reaching people.
Most of the changes I hear about involve changes of structure or style. Those are secondary needs to me. We need, primarily, a change in our passion for God and his work.
July 11, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Geoff,
Let me try a similar analysis on our church, Woodland Creek. We started 1 1/2 years ago with 20 and have grown to 75 in attendance. We baptized 8 last year with 20 members (1:2.5) and have so far baptized 4 this year with 40 members (so far 1:10). We also have helped plant two churches and are working on our third. So some good, and lots we can do better. I think every church should do this analysis every year, or even every quarter and challenge themselves to do better every quarter.
This is a place where DOMs and associations could really help local churches. Sitting down with each pastor in the association and going over this with them, getting them to clean up their exaggerated membership roles, and helping them see a clear picture of how they are doing would be good leadership. Pastors who are not in associations or where the DOM is not interested could get together and hold each other accountable on these figures. But I agree, the ACP does not go far enough and is not accurate enough to inspire real change.
July 11, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Doug,
I sincerely believe that a revival in spiritual passion among our churches and leaders will result in a convention-wide change of methodology that will lead our churches to be more focused upon reaching the lost, rather than maintaining traditions and satisfying the desires of the already saved.
Roger,
Agreed. Every church should do a realistic growth/”productivity” analysis every year.
February 19, 2008 at 5:16 am
I’m sorry that some of your pastors are labeling successful competting sbc churches as cults. I know this can deeply hurt.
sincerely,
a member of a denomination the sbc routinely labels as a cult.
May 18, 2008 at 9:27 am
I grew up Souther Baptist – I no longer will
affiliate with that sect. Although I am very much still the of the Baptist Faith I was taught. The Souhtern Baptist of my childhood and my teaching – a good and honest childhood with solid Christian teaching – is not your church.
The Southern Baptist of today killed themselved with hatred instead of love – evil and unkind deeds – and putting man’s ideas above Gods — what else did you expect -
September 5, 2008 at 8:01 pm
when i was baptist the church i went to was badly in decline. you could also see it in the other baptist church’s. but i converted to the orthodox church and so did alot of other baptist i knew. check out orthodoxy i am really sure you will like it.
March 19, 2009 at 8:00 am
If you would like some additional statistics read Donald Olsons book “The American Church in Crisis”. It not only describes the Baptists but also the other “orthodox” and non-evangelical churches. He used a sample of over 200,000. It is quite an interesting read.
The reason for the church decline is not really the churches themselves but it is the people who claim Christianity but don’t do what Jesus, the Messiah, asked us to do. We focus on Eph 2:8-9 and totally disregard Eph 2:10.
Yes, I am a Southern Baptist at a church that is growing in Oklahoma.