Blinded by the Light

By Dr. Chuck Kelley

While adding finishing touches to my current research/writing project, an article from Lifeway Research on the 2025 Annual Church Profile Report of ministry outcome data from the churches and entities of the Southern Baptist Convention popped into my inbox. Because the title of my coming project is Can the Southern Baptist Convention Be Born Again?, you won’t be surprised to know that I immediately stopped my work to give the latest SBC data report my full attention. We should all rejoice in some of the positive news coming from the ACP data. Baptisms, worship attendance, and participation in a small group Bible study were up. Baptisms increased for the fifth year in a row for the first time in 75 years. These are true bright spots to be celebrated, but not all the news was good. For instance, membership in SBC churches continued to shrink, now down to 1973 levels. There are other, more ominous data points that the report did not include, and the context of the direction SBC data has been moving since the Great Commission Resurgence proposals were adopted in 2010 was barely mentioned. Rejoice wholeheartedly in the positive reports, but beware of being blinded by the light of the bright spots and distracted from harsh realities now facing the Southern Baptist Convention.

I deeply regret having to share this, but the SBC is clearly in decline, and the spread of decline across the SBC has accelerated since 2010. Ministry outcomes from SBC churches and entities have been worse in the last fifteen years than any other fifteen-year period in the history of the Convention, including the Great Depression era. Even with the bright spots from this year’s ACP report, there are few indications that SBC decline has bottomed out and is beginning a reversal. Such comments are not welcome by a family of churches as addicted to positive news as Southern Baptists are, but you cannot fix problems you do not know you have.

The SBC is very blessed to have collected and published data on ministry outcomes from its churches and entities from its earliest years onward. Lifeway coordinates the process, while a team of data professionals holding a variety of positions across the SBC do the work together. They take the task very seriously and are excellent in executing a process of data collection and interpretation that is far more complex than most Southern Baptists imagine. What keeps decline under the radar in nearly all data reports to the Convention is not a conspiracy. It is the long-standing culture of data reports in SBC life. From the beginning, most SBC data reports are published in the Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Book of Reports given to SBC messengers, and Baptist Press. Typically, the reports include data from last year and this year, a two-year comparison. This format tells you where you are now, but it gives very little indication of the direction things are moving: up, down, or stable. When the general direction of the SBC is upward, as it tended to be for decades for the largest Protestant denomination in America, this format seemed sufficient. It clearly reveals what happened since last year, and it makes the data bright spots pop out for all to see.

Until the 21^st century, stats moving downward for more than two or three consecutive years were unusual and did not attract attention. Southern Baptists created and preferred the two-year format for reporting Convention data that has been used for years in nearly all reports to the Convention from SBC leaders and others. Charts showing SBC data in the context of a decade or longer were rare. Unfortunately, things began to change for Southern Baptists as the new millennium unfolded, and declining statistics became common. Inadvertently, and despite the best intentions, the Great Commission Resurgence proposals accelerated the process of decline without being noticed by most. Our history trained us to expect a bounce-back if things were down for a bit, but a new reality dawned. The bounce-back to former levels of progress never came. The absence of tools such as decadal charts recording key SBC data over time became a liability, making it more difficult to notice and understand the development of a new normal.

Here are a few of the indications that the SBC is now in decline in spite of the real, true bright spots reported this year. In 2010, the SBC had 16 million members and 6 million people attending worship each week. Today we have only 12 million members and 4 million attending worship, a dramatic change. Today we celebrate 263,075 baptisms, the fifth annual increase in a row. Yet that is fewer people than we baptized in 1939 with far fewer churches and members. In 2010 we had a total of 10,127 SBC missionaries at home and abroad. In 2024, we had a total of only 6,865 missionaries, a loss of 3,262 mission volunteers. NAMB is celebrating a milestone of 12,000 new churches started since 2010. However, in 2013 NAMB told Convention messengers that reaching the nation would require starting 1,500 new churches each year, 15,000 new churches in a decade. The 12,000 new church starts we celebrate today are more than 10,000 new church plants less than the number NAMB said was necessary for the SBC to reach the nation. For the first time in SBC history, the net total of SBC churches declined for the fourth consecutive year. Also, the giving of Southern Baptists to their churches and of SBC churches to the Cooperative Program continues to trend downward. In nearly all data categories we are not matching our past and not beginning to close the growing gap. That is the definition of decline.

In light of these realities, what ought Southern Baptists to do? First, don’t get mad. There is no one to blame. We need to look for solutions, not scapegoats. Second, Repent. All of us. Not some of us. God is removing His hand of blessing from us. Why? We must seek His face and ask what we must do for Him to send a season of refreshing upon us. Any response not including repentance before God for becoming a people He will not bless is futile. Third, Refocus. God gave life to the SBC for it to amplify the Great Commission impact of SBC churches and get the Gospel to all, calling all to repentance and faith in Jesus. The Great Commission must be our urgent focus, even if other matters are important. Voluntary cooperation in order to fulfill the Great Commission was long the distinctive of the SBC, and must become so again. This requires a culture of continual sacrifice by our churches and leaders for the sake of baptizing and teaching the lost in our communities, our nation and our world. That culture of making whatever sacrifices are necessary to amplify our efforts to reach the lost must be recovered.  

Do not be blinded by the light of the bright spots in the recent SBC data report, but do be encouraged. Complex and difficult the road ahead may be, but God still moves. God still works. God can still use you and your church to change your community, this nation, and the world. May God help our beloved Convention and its churches to again embrace the task of reaching the lost above all else. Perhaps now you will better understand how to pray for me as I finish: Can the Southern Baptist Convention Be Born Again?