by Rob Phillips

NASHVILLE (BP) - The number of people baptized in Southern Baptist churches fell for the third straight year in 2007 to the Southern Baptist Convention's lowest level since 1987.

Despite a decrease in baptisms among California Southern Baptist Convention churches, the state organization maintained its ranking in the top 10 for all state conventions and fellowships.

Although the SBC added 473 new churches and gave more than $1.3 billion to support mission activities around the world, Thom S. Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, said there is no escaping the fact that Southern Baptists are not reaching as many people for Christ as they once did. LifeWay gathers year-to-year information on the Convention's behalf.

According to LifeWay's Annual Church Profile (ACP), baptisms in 2007 dropped nearly 5.5 percent to 345,941, compared to 364,826 in 2006. The number of baptisms is a key measurement of the SBC's effectiveness in evangelism.

The ACP is an annual report of statistical information congregations are encouraged to complete. The information is then compiled on associational, state convention and the SBC level to measure progress and track trends.

For California Southern Baptist churches, the number of baptisms also dropped, from 18,860 in 2006 to 16,877 in 2007, a decrease of 10.5 percent.

California Southern Baptist Convention evangelism champion Randy McWhorter, leader of the CSBC healthy church group, noted "CSBC placed eighth of the 40 or so state conventions and fellowships."

Those state conventions reporting more baptisms were Texas (with two Baptist conventions, both reporting more than California), Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee.

McWhorter said he believes one of the reasons for the decline in California was an almost 11 percent decrease (from 74.4 percent in 2006 to 63.5 percent in 2007) in the number of churches submitting an ACP.

"California has grown from a pioneer state in an emerging region into one of the larger and most influential state conventions in the SBC," McWhorter said.

"This report is truly disheartening," Rainer lamented. "Baptisms (on the SBC level) have now declined for three consecutive years and for seven of the last eight years, and are at their lowest level since 1987.

"Indeed, the total baptisms are among the lowest reported since 1970. We are a denomination that, for the most part, has lost its evangelistic passion."
McWhorter agreed with Rainer, saying, "We need a revival of passion for the fires of evangelism to burn in our hearts."

However, McWhorter also believes Southern Baptists, and California Southern Baptists in particular, need a "revival of cooperation to obtain this vital information so churches can become and/or continue to be healthy and to help monitor trends so churches can be more effective in their evangelism efforts."

He added, "It is difficult to say for sure that Southern Baptists are less effective in their evangelistic efforts because of the dismal response to sharing annually church facts that can help both churches and state conventions become more effective."

McWhorter asserted Southern Baptist church leaders are far less "strategic" today about how they "do church" than in the past.

"Many don't see the connection between measuring results and planning effective ministries," he declared. "Because of this, leaders continue their ministries without evaluating their results. I think we've lost the sense of evaluation."

Overall, membership in SBC churches, 16,266,920, fell from 2006's total of 16,306,246, or .24 percent. It is the second drop in membership experienced by the SBC in the last decade. In 1998, membership fell 1 percent but increased the next year and recovered to a positive trend in 2000. Prior to that, the last drop in membership was 1926.

Total membership reported by California Southern Baptist Convention churches was 408,858.

(Phillips is director of communications for LifeWay Christian Resources. Terry Barone contributed to this report.)