Across the Southern Baptist Convention we saw an increase in worship of more than 86,000 people while at the same time we baptized 7000 fewer people than the year before. It currently takes 45 Southern Baptists to baptize one person in a year. That's completely ridiculous! We may be growing slightly in numbers but our churches are more disfunctional than ever. Can you imagine a bakery that doesn't sell bread? Can you imagine a farm that doesn't grow crops? Can you imagine a church that doesn't make disciples? No need to imagine--just take a look around!
Read the LifeWay analysis of the 2006 Annual church Profile here.
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2 comments:
I'm not sure an increase in attendance of less than 2% in one year is an indication of growth, as much as it could simply be that the weather was better along the Atlantic seaboard and Gulf coast this year than the previous year. I believe the SBC reported a weekly worship attendance of 7.8 million in 1980.
The drop in baptisms should be a concern, though we've seen it continuously fall for two decades. The other thing about that number that bothers me is that only a handful of them are adults. The majority are children. What does that say?
Lee, It says that we're not doing a very good job of being Christ to our nation. Perhaps we've been worried about the wrong things for the past two decades...
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