One of the few SBC insiders willing to call it straight is missiologist Ed Stetzer, who works for LifeWay Research. In a recent post, Stetzer analyzed the trends and concluded: "Reality is we have peaked. "
In no uncertain terms, Stetzer spells out the evidence showing that the SBC is declining.
Stetzer attributes the decline, in large part, to:
1) "a serious (and increasing) depopulation of young leaders" and a lack of ethnic representation in leadership positions,
2) the "national caricature" of Southern Baptists as bickering people who can't get along, and
3) what he sadly calls "our loss of focus on the Gospel."
One of Stetzer's more insightful comments relates to his second point, which I think may be the most significant factor of the three:
"The communities in which we live simply do not want to hear what we have to say when we can speak kindly to one another. If the focus of every SBC meeting is a new controversy to be debated, new parameters to be narrowed, and new issues to be fought, the trend toward decline will only accelerate."
Those are powerful words.
They are also the truth.
We can only hope that the powers-that-be and those who support them will get the message.
[Image from LifeWay Resources]
6 comments:
Does Stetzer connect any of his conclusions to the Barna research released last fall? According to that survey, 91% of non-Christian young people and 87% of Christian young people, ages 16-29, see Christians as anti-gay. According to David Kinnaman, Barna Group president, "The anti-homosexual perception has now become sort of the Geiger counter of Christians' ability to love and work with people."
Is there a denominational group more famous for being anti-gay than the SBC? Based on the above data, hasn't Southern Baptist unwillingness or inabilty to effectively express love toward gay people got to be hurting their general outreach efforts?
Hey Buddy!
You know, I'm not sure that the SBC is the only denom/convention that is having this problem. I'm reading Campolo's, "Speaking My Mind," and the "mainline" denominations seem to be having similar problems. I think this may be larger than all of us.
:(
Tim Dahl
David,
Stetzer doesn't mention Barna, though the guru of trends is mentioned among comments to the post. I doubt anyone connected to the SBC would dare suggest or affirm that high-publicity SBC attitudes toward gays have contributed to increasingly negative societal views toward the SBC. I don't doubt, however, that it could be a factor.
At the same time, denominations or other groups that are friendlier to gays aren't setting the evangelistic woods on fire, either, so I wouldn't know how to judge the relative impact of a less accepting stance.
All protestant denominations are in decline and the decline is more than it seems for several reasons. One is the captured statistics do not effectively capture the "state of the churches." About half of most churches Resident Membership hasn't been seen in the church of their membership in decades. Many churches, while still in existence, are substantively irrelevant. Also, as the world's population continues to grow, the percentage that is involved with a church of any kind, in any manner, is shrinking.
Even the "value of congregational property" might be over-stated except for the land under the buildings.
It is refreshing that Stetzer did not attempt to put a spin on the data.
jr posted the following comment, which I accidentally rejected, but which deserves to be heard:
jr wrote:
Dr. Chuck Kelley has been preaching that the majority of Southern Baptist churches are either plateaued or declining and a major thrust of New Orleans Seminary has been toward trying to remedy that, in different ways...with varying degrees of success as well as validity.
My gut feeling is that a lot of the negative view of the SBC from the general public has more to do with politics than anything else. Even though he's not Baptist, President Bush and the close relationship he's had with people like Richard Land of the ERLC give me the impression that being that close to an unpopular president hasn't helped.
As for the baptism push, I thought that was a horrible idea when Bobby Welch first pitched it several years ago. I personally account for two baptisms over the last 25 years...how many more people were "rebaptisms?" Should those really count toward the 1,000,000 when they're not really new additions? Simply counting baptisms is such an artificial way to count progress.
In any case, my general feeling as a young former Southern Baptist is that younger have few options, but the common thread throughout the theological/doctrinal spectrum, I think, is a weariness with the aftermath of The Controversy left on both sides, a battle which was fought mostly either before we younger Baptists were born or when we were young children. I would suspect that to be a reason...maybe not *the* reason, but a reason...for the youth exodus.
Sorry Tony,
didn't know where else to really post this. But since it's about the division in the SBC...I think this is a good example of critics tearing the SBC apart (both within and without). anyway, I'm not a big fan of Ken Silva, but NCBSC made his blog criticism. I kinda gave up on the SBC long ago, and more recently the NCSBC, but even I want to take up for them against Ken. Anyway, IMHO if Ken calls you out, you must be doing something right!
Link:
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2008/04/prayer_is_news.html
(highlight all the way to the end...even if it doesn't show up and it will highlight even what you don't see...copy and paste).
Hope you're well Tony, and I never did get to say congrats on the Campbell position. As an Alumni, sad I missed you!
peace and love
justin bowman
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