Baptism, Membership, Discipleship Increases in SBC
The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. experienced a rise in baptism, membership, Sunday School enrollment and discipleship training, according to the recently released 2004 Annual Church Profile.
Over the past few years, the 16-million-member denomination developed a downward trend in most of those key characteristics with the exception of membership, which had continued to grow though at a decreasing pace.
The 2004 statistics bucks that trend, bringing the denomination back on the green on most of the critical barometers of church health.
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These are “encouraging signs that the denomination may be heading in the right direction,” said LifeWay Christian Resources President James T. Draper Jr, according to a press release by LifeWay.com. “I think there is a lot we can take from these statistics that is positive and shows a turnaround from where we’ve been the past three years. The increase in baptisms is slight, but an increase of more than 10,000 over the previous year is encouraging.”
The statistics revealed that enrollment in Sunday School went up by 12,554 to 8,206,440; men and boys mission education went up 4,601 to 423,207; discipleship training went up by 235,785 to 2,237,345; and the baptism total went up by 10,590 to 387,947. The number of churches also increased by 441 and the total membership increased by 62,444.
“Overall I think this is a good report,” Draper said. “Last year I felt there was a real urgency with the declines we were seeing in some key categories that reflected a denomination that had lost its focus. I’m hoping these figures reflect the beginning of a growing trend indicative of a denomination focused on reaching people for Christ.”
