By Dr. Chuck Kelley
From their earliest years, Southern Baptists consistently collected data from their churches each year and made that data easily accessible in the Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention. Anyone can go to the website of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives (sbhla.org), click on the Digital Resources button, and find every edition of the Annual online, going back to the first one in 1845. To make the information even easier to find, the basic SBC data report is always placed near the beginning of the Executive Committee Report in SBC annuals. The information of greatest interest is packed into two or three carefully crafted pages I call SBC snapshots, using virtually the same format every year. Some additional information on baptisms and church plants will be found at the end of the North American Mission Board report, and each entity includes more comprehensive data peculiar to that entity in the entity’s report to the SBC.
One peculiarity of the SBC approach to reporting data is that with very few exceptions, data is reported in the context of two years, the year under review and the preceding year. This approach clearly identifies “Bright Spots” for the year as compared to the past year, but it fails to reveal trendlines indicating whether or not the SBC and its churches are growing. For decade after decade, the Convention was growing or holding its own in the statistics that matter most to Southern Baptists. Against that backdrop, trendlines seemed unimportant because the typical SBC pattern year after year was so positive. About the year 2000, the winds of change began to blow in Southern Baptist life as a new millennium dawned. Key data points began moving steadily in a downward direction, first with baptisms and CP support, and later gradually moving into other categories. Some noticed these changes and expressed concerns, but most Southern Baptists underestimated the risks as decline took root in Southern Baptist life.
In 2010, a task force appointed by SBC President Johnny Hunt made proposals to the SBC which they hoped would lead to a Great Commission Resurgence (GCR). It was not to be. Instead, GCR became one of the most ineffective, if not damaging, initiatives ever adopted by the Convention. Decline exploded, with massive losses in membership, worship attendance, and baptisms, along with a dramatic slowdown in church planting. If one compares the basic statistics produced by SBC churches since the GCR proposals were adopted, with statistics from a similar number of years from any era of the SBC past, including the Great Depression years, the difference is stunning. The Home Mission Board and its successor the North American Mission Board (NAMB) were created to facilitate the efforts of Southern Baptist churches to reach their communities and the nation with the Gospel. Since GCR approval, NAMB spent more money with less positive effect on SBC churches than in any other era of Convention history. Today Southern Baptists are drowning slowly as a rising tide of lostness takes back ground already gained.
SBC has come to mean “Smaller Baptist Convention,” a diminishing presence in the midst of a growing North American population. I wonder how many messengers to the last two or three convention meetings noticed the silence outside the Convention Center? For years, protestors who advocated for pro-choice, homosexual and other secular issues marched and picketed outside the hall as Southern Baptists met inside. The activists have stopped coming. Apparently, opposing the SBC is no longer worth the effort. The ominous sound of silence keeps getting louder and louder around us as the culture turns a deaf ear to the Southern Baptist voice in national conversations. An SBC president told me of his surprise in not having more contacts from national media wondering how Southern Baptists were likely to vote in a looming national election. I had to break the bad news to him: What Southern Baptists think on issues of the day is less interesting because the secular media (and our neighbors) have noticed the SBC is losing steam and has become less significant.
You can investigate changes to the SBC yourself in at least four ways. One option is to go to the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives and look up the relevant information in multiple editions of the Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention. I warn you. Doing this is a bit tedious. As an alternative, in the process of my research, I compiled multiple charts of SBC data placed in the context of a timeline. A guided tour through this information is readily available in my book, The Best Intentions. A third option is to scroll through numerous blogs I have written on this topic, available now without cost at drchuckkelley.com. A fourth alternative is now ready. I prepared single-page data snapshots summarizing statistical changes in three key aspects of SBC life from 1990-2023. The first single-page summary is an overview of basic SBC data. The second single-page summary is an overview of SBC giving. The third single-page summary is an overview of SBC missions. These SBC snapshots are available for downloading without any charge, allowing one to review multiple years of crucial SBC data at a glance. The data are presented without comment or interpretation, letting readers to draw their own conclusions about the health of the SBC.
Why have I spent so much time and energy over the last five years in the preparation of these resources? The Southern Baptist Convention faces a critical fork in the road. One rugged road leads to revitalization and breaking free of decline, but it will be quite difficult to travel. The other, easier road leads to continuing decline and growing irrelevance. Will Southern Baptists accept decline as inevitable, or will they attack it and seek to break free of its grip? Many other denominations and families of churches came to this same fork in the road, such as Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, etc. To my knowledge, all chose the easier road of continuing decline and increasing irrelevance in the culture. Overcoming decline, once it settles into the life of a family of churches is very, very difficult for a variety of reasons. However, difficult is not impossible. Both a mighty work of God and sacrificial acts of obedience from His people will be required on the road to revitalization. Yes, with all my heart I do mean truly sacrificial acts of obedience. For a recovery to take place, God will require tough actions from pastors and the people in the pews of Southern Baptist churches and from the entities who serve them.
The solutions and actions necessary for winning this battle against decline must come from the congregations that form the heart and soul of this Convention and the expectations those congregations communicate to leaders of the Convention and its entities through the messengers and Trustees they send to the Convention. For instance, will Southern Baptists insist that NAMB make significant adjustments to a post-GCR strategy that has underperformed against expectations on an epic scale for more than a decade? Will Southern Baptists temper their love of optimistic reports with an expectation of transparency about the true state of the SBC, its entities, and its churches and new church plants even if the news is not always good? Will Southern Baptists settle in for a tough battle over the long haul necessary to overcome decline? I believe the potential Great Commission impact of a revitalized SBC is worth the necessary fight against decline. Do you?
Postscript
If you take the time to examine SBC data snapshots in the context of a timeline, I offer one cautionary note. Keep in mind that “Bright Spots” are not trendlines. Much rejoicing has come with the increase in baptisms registered this year and the preceding two years. Certainly, that is good news! However, keep in mind the context. After these increases, SBC baptisms have still not returned to the number recorded in 2019, prior to the Pandemic. More importantly, that 2019 number of baptisms was itself a continuation of a negative trend going on for years. More telling still, even with the “Bright Spot” increase, the SBC today still lags behind its total baptisms in 1939, when we had far fewer churches than we have today and were still in the process of recovering from the Great Depression and a shocking crime that shook the SBC to the core. The Treasurer of the Home Mission Board embezzled nearly $1,000,000 from the Board in 1929 just as the Depression unfolded, creating huge problems for the Convention. These are not the first “tough times” Southern Baptists have faced. They are the first “tough times” in which the SBC made little Great Commission progress. Always appreciate any “Bright Spots,” but stay aware: To determine whether or not a new trend is beginning takes time. My general rule is that it takes a minimum of five years to indicate the development of a trend, and ten years to be more certain that a trend is clearly progressing.
Single-page data snapshots:
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