Posted on 08/24/2016 5:52:10 PM PDT by marshmallow
The denomination lost 200,000 members in 2015.
The Southern Baptist Convention lost more than 200,000 members in 2015— the ninth straight year of decline for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
Membership stands at 15.3 million, down from 15.5 million in 2014, according to denomination statistics released on Tuesday. Baptisms also fell by more than 10,000 to just a little more than 295,000.
Baptisms are an important measure for the Nashville-based denomination because of its strong commitment to evangelism.
After the numbers were announced, some denominational leaders emphasized the positive news that the number of Southern Baptist churches increased last year by 294, mostly due to new churches started by SBC pastors.
But Executive Committee President and CEO Frank Page refused to put a positive spin on the declines, exclaiming in a news release, “God help us all! In a world that is desperate for the message of Christ, we continue to be less diligent in sharing the Good News.”
Mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches started to experience significant declines in the 1960s and 1970s, said Mark Chaves, a professor of sociology at Duke University who studies religious trends. Significant decline for many more conservative Protestant denominations has become apparent only in the last decade or so.
There’s just a national trend of declining religious involvement, and conservative churches are not immune to it, as they thought they were for a while,” he said.
Comparing membership numbers across denominations can be difficult, since different groups report them differently. Chaves said he relies primarily on attendance estimates from large national surveys. The Southern Baptists say their average weekly attendance was 5.6 million last year, a decrease of about 97,000 from 2014.
Some denominations have stopped publicly reporting membership numbers altogether rather than admit their churches are shrinking, but the Southern Baptists survey.....
(Excerpt) Read more at tulsaworld.com ...
They’re panicking because $$$.
I remember that. Is it a private non-profit or is it somehow owned by one of the state Southern Baptist associations? There are any number of Baptist denominations, groups, companies, and charities that have virtually nothing to do with the SBC.
Yes. Charles is getting older, but he still has the touch. His sermons are remarkable.
His son is another story, though. Hereditary schemes should not be a characteristic of churches.
And so? It isn’t a one dimensional issue. Fewer bodies but more saved souls could be a net plus.
That is $$$illy.
Southern Baptist is semi-denominational at most. In some, they say little or nothing in the services about SBC affiliation; others make more of their formal affiliation with that convention.
Re your tag: I suppose it could be better. “They” could give us nothing at all, nobody on this sad earth ever having lived up to anything better.
***Mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches started to experience significant declines in the 1960s and 1970s, ***
The SCOTUS and our liberal religious leaders have given us Golden Calves to worship with a new cry. “These be the gods that brought you forth out of Britain, out of the house of bondage!”
And forcibly mixed us with the followers of Ba’al Peor!
..the SBC tried to be the “big tent” like the RNC—too much compromise. I find myself continuously having to redirect the Lifeway Bible study material back to sound interpretation of Scripture. Hope to abandon Lifeway completely soon...
Maybe this was the reaction against religious bullying.
My Christ-centered SBC church is growing....people are drawn in when the truth is presented unleavened by BS.
And yet the day after you do that, you may meet someone who quite sincerely says that the message carried by Lifeway was the best thing their soul ever heard... and always gives you an orthodox reading when asked, when you don’t believe...
It’s hard to generalize. The bible is the only utterly infallible source material, but it is sometimes hard to understand. That’s why other literature exists at all. Always read everything with a soul leaned towards the Spirit.
I haven’t heard Andy Stanley preach in years, but the last time I did, he was solidly biblical.
The 200,000 loss could be primarily from deaths of older members.
Well, he recently made quite a stink when he said parents with their children in a small church are “stinking selfish” and don’t care about the next generation. He eventually apologized, but we got a glimpse into how he thinks. I wouldn’t subject my kids to even one of Andy’s sermons. I don’t think he understands the biblical concept of the church and his grasp of the gospel is in doubt, too. He’s certainly not strong in his stand for the Bible either. Basically I see him as a compromising seeker-sensitive pragmatist type. He embodies the spirit of today’s evangelicalism.
It’s called the Russell Moore effect.
Allow some closet liberal, OWG, racist stooge like him contaminate the SBC and watch the pews become empty.
That is certainly a factor.
The old generation that was at church two nights a week as well as every Sunday morning is passing away.
Economic upheaval figures into this as well. Mom and dad are working multiple jobs to make ends meet - IF they are lucky enough to find them. Some families aren’t. Your local small town Baptist (or other) church that loses half a dozen key families because their jobs left is in serious hurt. The families that move away don’t automatically get replaced. Nor do they necessarily commit to a new church in their new home.
In our town of 7,000 people there are four SBC churches. We never hear from them. We don’t see them witnessing, or evangelizing door-to-door. These activities used to be quite common.
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