The Southern Baptist Convention released today its annual metrics, just in advance of its annual meeting — and the news is all bleak.
The number of cooperating churches within the Southern Baptist Convention rose for the 15th consecutive year, but the churches lost more than 200,000 members, the biggest one-year decline since 1881, according to the Annual Church Profile (ACP) compiled by LifeWay in cooperation with Baptist state conventions. Average attendance, baptisms and giving also declined.
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One of the biggest declines last year was Southern Baptist church membership, which fell 1.5 percent to 15.5 million — still the largest Protestant denomination by far, but at the lowest level since 1993. Weekly worship attendance declined 2.75 percent to 5.67 million Sunday worshippers.
The Convention reports it has 46,499-churches. So, a little math and … voila: The average attendance at SBC church services ~122-persons. But: Some of their churches attract thousands of attendees, meaning some of the other churches have much lower than the average attendance, amount in fact to no more than home study groups.
If you click on the graphic to the right, you’ll be taken to a large, spreadsheet-like graphic that details the grim news — including, interestingly, the fact that North Carolina has the second greatest number of Southern Baptist churches, just behind Texas; can’t say I’m surprised. I checked Michigan, too, because a few years ago there was a lot of talk about ‘planting’ there because of the Detroit bankruptcy; 284. And when I checked the Upper Peninsula, I learned there are only 8 churches — 3 of them without pastors.
Those who understand it will never acknowledge it aloud, but the fact is in plain sight: The SBC is in decline, and the decline is accelerating. How else could it be, really? The founding narratives are false, and the authoritarian cult-like values are bad.