(Ed. note: One IBSA Annual Meeting keynote speaker has been concerned about the direction of the SBC for a long time. As a professor at New Orleans Seminary, he warned in 1983 that the denomination had plateaued. He pointed to the loss of evangelism among Methodists that led to their decline. “They never mounted a serious effort to recover…. Today, we are where the Methodists were,” he wrote recently. Kelley studies the trends and their causes, including failure of the Great Commission Resurgence and its effect on missions in North America. The following is excerpted from a column at drchuckkelley.com.)
Southern Baptists tend to confuse Bright Spots with Trendlines. Statistical reports may yield some bright spots in any given year, even when the same reports indicate that the trends across the board are downward and a matter of concern. Rejoicing in bright spots so much that you fail to recognize and respond to the indications of downward trends makes emerging problems ever more difficult to resolve.
When an organization recognizes it faces serious problems, develops plans to address those problems, and works diligently in spite of obstacles and difficulties to implement those plans, bright spots can be an encouraging sign of progress. But when bright spots become an excuse to avoid recognizing foundational problems, allowing them to get worse, and delaying the implementation of plans to overcome the problems, the harm is greater than the benefit.
The latter scenario is the one facing the [SBC]. A mission offering may be up, or baptisms may be up, but those bright spots do not indicate the SBC is healthy and growing.
Take all the basic SBC stats from this year and compare them to the same stats from 2010, when the GCR proposals were adopted, and the bright spots lose their brightness. The downward trend is unmistakable. Compare those same stats with the statistics from 1990, and the differences are even more stark. Bright Spots tell you where you are. Trendlines tell you where you are going.
What the numbers say
Here is a fast take on where the [SBC] is today…. Decline is working its way ever deeper into Southern Baptist life. A diminishing number of churches are participating in the Cooperative Program. On any given Sunday the number of people filling a Southern Baptist pew is down by one-third (2,000,000 plus) since 2010.
The post-GCR strategy of the North American Mission Board is underperforming on an epic scale. A massive emphasis on church planting weakened, not strengthened our evangelistic outcomes. NAMB refuses to report annually the number of church planters it employs or the survival rate and continued SBC identity and participation of the churches it starts at the five-year or ten-year marks after launch.
The average number of baptisms per church since 2010 is down dramatically, and the combined total of North American and International missionaries was down from 3,645 in 2023 as compared to 2010.
After announcing a goal in 2013 of starting 1,500 new churches a year to keep up with population growth, the actual number of new church plants reported in 2023 was 608.
Ten years after their launch, how many NAMB church plants are still functioning, still identifying as Southern Baptist, and still [support CP], the mission offerings, etc. The question is very important in order to understand the likely future of the SBC.
In years to come, will the SBC be a Convention of aging churches slowly losing their vitality over time, or are we in the process of continual renewal by steadily adding new and fully engaged SBC churches to work alongside existing churches to extend and enhance the Great Commission impact of the Southern Baptist Convention?
This is not a time for Southern Baptists to get mad. It is not a time to look for a person or persons to blame. Southern Baptist leaders need to know that we can handle disappointing news and face challenges with resolve, not rage. This is a time for Southern Baptists to buckle up and get ready for some tough news, some hard choices, and the necessity of working up hill for years.