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The dangerous information for Southern Baptists is that the denomination, the nation’s largest Protestant group, shrank in 2023, with a drop of a couple of quarter-million individuals.
The excellent news, in line with the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual statistical report, is that the decline slowed from 2022. In addition, 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, 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 almost 3.5 million members in whole misplaced. About half of that whole 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 almost $800 million into SBC nationwide and worldwide ministries.
The SBC’s church buildings additionally reported 226,000 baptisms, a key evangelism statistic held expensive by Southern Baptists. About 175,000 new individuals joined SBC congregations in 2023.
Churches in Florida, Georgia, California, North Carolina and Tennessee reported the most important enhance in baptisms from 2022 to 2023.
Todd Unzicker, government director-treasurer of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, mentioned that church buildings in his state have targeted 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 typically need to see extra individuals baptized, few have been ready to baptize them.
“When I’d go to church buildings, many of the baptistries have been stuffed with Christmas decorations and bins and provides,” he mentioned “And I all the time thought, if the Lord moved, they are not even prepared.”
“While we regularly handle our shortcomings, it is also good to pause and have a good time the worldwide good Southern Baptists are engaging in,” mentioned Jeff Iorg, president-elect of the SBC Executive Committee. Iorg, the longtime president of Gateway Seminary in Northern California, was named the SBC Executive 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 and not using a rise in attendance or baptisms, he’d be involved. Barber added that membership numbers can typically be much less correct than baptisms or church attendance.
“The numbers which are up are the numbers I’m watching,” Barber instructed Religion News Service. “We know who got here to our Sunday faculty. We know who got here to our small-group Bible examine. And we’re good at counting baptisms. We have walked individuals via a course of and we now have dunked them in water and we all know their names. We can tie each a type of numbers to a person particular person.”
Perhaps essentially the most regarding knowledge associated to sexual abuse, a problem SBC leaders have struggled to deal with successfully.
Along with membership, baptisms and giving numbers, 29 of the SBC’s 41 state conventions additionally gather knowledge 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 skilled on find out how to report abuse, whereas fewer than 1 / 4 (16%) have been skilled on find out how to take care of survivors of abuse.
Barber mentioned that these numbers, particularly the background verify share, usually are not shocking. The common SBC church, comparatively small and infrequently in a rural setting, can not often afford to help a full-time pastor or the workers, volunteers and insurance policies wanted to stop abuse. Those church buildings, the SBC president mentioned, typically have well-loved volunteers working with youngsters and suppose they’re resistant to abuse.
“But that is improper,” mentioned Barber. “Abuse occurs in rural church buildings too. It’s essential to assist church buildings like that see that they do have to take these precautions.”
The SBC’s 2-year-old abuse reform implementation process drive hopes to have new coaching materials for church buildings, together with coverage pointers, prepared at hand out at this yr’s annual assembly in Indianapolis in June.
Some states have requested church buildings about their intercourse abuse prevention insurance policies prior to now 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 knowledge can be wanted earlier than leaders know whether or not the conference is making progress on reform. But Frank, who served on a earlier process drive set as much as help in investigating abuse, mentioned background checks are a vital 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 is ever been earlier than. We need everyone to benefit from that for the security and safety of their ministries.”
SBC leaders have lengthy inspired church buildings to verify volunteers and workers backgrounds, and the denomination handed a sequence of reforms in 2022 aimed toward addressing sexual abuse. But these reforms, together with a ministry verify web site to listing abusive pastors and leaders, have largely stalled. No names have been added to the ministry verify web site and there’s no everlasting funding plan for abuse reforms. A brand new nonprofit established to supervise reforms has acquired little help for funding.
© Religion News Service
