(RNS) — The dangerous information for Southern Baptists is that the denomination, the nation’s largest Protestant group, shrunk in 2023, with a drop of a few quarter-million folks.
The excellent news, in line with the Southern Baptist Conference’s annual statistical report, is that the decline slowed from 2022. As well as, of those that remained, extra went to church and extra newcomers took the plunge to get baptized.
The SBC’s 2024 Annual Church Profile, launched Tuesday (Might 7), confirmed that membership dropped to 12.9 million members, the bottom because the late Seventies. Having peaked at 16.3 million in 2006, membership has been in decline ever since, with practically 3.5 million members in complete misplaced. About half of that complete loss has come since 2018.
Weekly attendance at church buildings rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic, topping 4 million per week, whereas small-group attendance was about 2.5 million. Donations on the denomination’s 46,000 church buildings additionally remained sturdy, topping $10 billion, feeding practically $800 million into SBC nationwide and worldwide ministries.
The SBC’s church buildings additionally reported 226,000 baptisms, a key evangelism statistic held pricey by Southern Baptists. About 175,000 new folks joined SBC congregations in 2023.
Church buildings in Florida, Georgia, California, North Carolina and Tennessee reported the most important enhance in baptisms from 2022 to 2023.
Todd Unzicker, govt director-treasurer of the Baptist State Conference of North Carolina, mentioned that church buildings in his state have centered on growing baptism via coaching and a “fill the tank” initiative, which challenges congregations to refill their baptismal tanks within the weeks earlier than Easter. He mentioned that whereas many church buildings usually need to see extra folks baptized, few had been ready to baptize them.
“After I would go to church buildings, a lot of the baptistries had been stuffed with Christmas decorations and packing containers and provides,” he mentioned “And I all the time thought, if the Lord moved, they’re not even prepared.”
“Whereas we regularly deal with our shortcomings, it’s additionally good to pause and have fun the worldwide good Southern Baptists are conducting,” mentioned Jeff Iorg, president-elect of the SBC Govt Committee. Iorg, the longtime president of Gateway Seminary in Northern California, was named the SBC Govt Committee’s chief in March.
Bart Barber, a Texas pastor and present president of the denomination, referred to as the report encouraging information. Barber mentioned that if membership at church buildings had risen with no rise in attendance or baptisms, he’d be involved. Barber added that membership numbers can usually be much less correct than baptisms or church attendance.
“The numbers which might be up are the numbers I’m watching,” Barber instructed Faith Information Service. “We all know who got here to our Sunday faculty. We all know who got here to our small-group Bible research. And we’re good at counting baptisms. We’ve walked folks via a course of and we’ve dunked them in water and we all know their names. We will tie each a kind of numbers to a person individual.”
Maybe essentially the most regarding information associated to sexual abuse, a difficulty SBC leaders have struggled to deal with successfully.
Together with membership, baptisms and giving numbers, 29 of the SBC’s 41 state conventions additionally gather information on how their church buildings are addressing abuse. Fewer than two-thirds (58%) of church buildings in these states mentioned they required workers and volunteers who work with youngsters to have background checks. Fewer than half (38%) mentioned their workers and volunteers have been educated on report abuse, whereas fewer than 1 / 4 (16%) have been educated on take care of survivors of abuse.
Barber mentioned that these numbers, particularly the background test proportion, usually are not stunning. The common SBC church, comparatively small and sometimes in a rural setting, can hardly ever afford to assist a full-time pastor or the workers, volunteers and insurance policies wanted to stop abuse. These church buildings, the SBC president mentioned, usually have well-loved volunteers working with youngsters and assume they’re proof against abuse.
“However that’s incorrect,” mentioned Barber. “Abuse occurs in rural church buildings too. It’s necessary to assist church buildings like that see that they do must take these precautions.”
The SBC’s 2-year-old abuse reform implementation job pressure hopes to have new coaching materials for church buildings, together with coverage pointers, prepared at hand out at this 12 months’s annual assembly in Indianapolis in June.
Some states have requested church buildings about their intercourse abuse prevention insurance policies previously however that is the primary time these questions have been included within the nationwide Annual Church Profile.
Bruce Frank, a North Carolina pastor working for SBC president, mentioned that extra information will probably be wanted earlier than leaders know whether or not the conference is making progress on reform. However Frank, who served on a earlier job pressure set as much as support in investigating abuse, mentioned background checks are an important a part of making church buildings safer.
“For anyone who works with kids and college students, a background church is the essential, base-level security requirement,” he mentioned. “It’s rather a lot simpler and faster than it’s ever been earlier than. We wish everyone to benefit from that for the security and safety of their ministries.”
SBC leaders have lengthy inspired church buildings to test volunteers and workers backgrounds, and the denomination handed a sequence of reforms in 2022 geared toward addressing sexual abuse. However these reforms, together with a ministry test web site to listing abusive pastors and leaders, have largely stalled. No names have been added to the ministry test web site and there’s no everlasting funding plan for abuse reforms. A brand new nonprofit established to supervise reforms has obtained little assist for funding.