Comments

The passage of the membership resolution is a big step forward. This resolution probably wouldn't have passed several years ago. That said, not much will come of it over the next few years.

Given the core distinctive of local church autonomy that Baptists (specifically Southern Baptist) hold it will be very difficult to get the membership roles purged. What might be best would be for the executive committee to hire a group of young seminarians during a summer, equip them with training and materials and send them out on an intentional denominational census.

One of the key issues in understanding the numbers is that many churches don't contribute accurate, or any, numbers to the denominational annual report. I believe several leaders have mentioned this as a further troublesome spot. Of course these churches would not stave off the looming darkness, but it does add to the problems.

As for the presidency of the SBC, most bloggers have realized that there is little the actual President of the SBC can and will do to reconfigure or stir up the convention during their term. The actions that matter take place in Nashville and are led by the Executive Committee...the presidency of this convention seems to be nothing more than figurehead these days.

IF THE POPES IN NASHVILL WOULD GET OUT THE WAY
AND LET THE HOLY SPIRIT WORK

IT IS THE CHURCH NOT A CHURCH (OR SBC)

We all need to grow down. Years ago a wise man preached that "the most miiserable people in hell were not going to be the reprpbates and prostitutes, the most miserable people in hell would be the people who sat in church every week and still did not give their lives to Jesus." We are guilty of a ,dare I say, unforgiveable sin when we fail to exercise church dicipline and allow unsaved people to think they are saved. I have known too many church deacons and elders who are working their way to heaven or are leading double lives that would make a swine run from the stigh. Jesus is the narrow gate it is time we knew that again in the church.

The easiest and simplest solution would be for the SBC to focus on attendance numbers (about 6 million currently) rather than membership numbers (about 16 million). I am not nor have I ever been a Baptist, and I cannot understand why they have ever had the category of "non-resident member." I assume it is so they can still get money from them.

So why aren't Southern Baptists talking about Johnny Hunt's diploma mill degrees?

They keep this up, there won't be Southern Baptists to count.

I don't think members are aware their new president two doctorates are from two mills.

I honestly don't get this - why is it okay to lie about academic credentials?

I would think SBC with accredited and earned degrees would not be pleased, let alone the message Mr. Hunt is sending to the membership and the rest of us.

We aren't talking honourary, there is nothing honourable about this.

Yes indeed, let's look at the academic credentials of the new SBC president. From all information available, he has some bogus degrees.

Cleaning up the church roll makes good sense. I think a letter to a non-active church members explaining the spiritual benefits of church membership and the consequences of not being under the spiritual protections will either wake people up or have no affect.

The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ should never be treated like membership of a country club and membership within a church as both benefits and responsibilities.

I was once an ordained Southern baptist minister. After seminary I became Presbyterian. One of the issues that moved me the Presbyterian direction was the baptist idea of using regeneracy as an identifiable qualifier. For example, the idea of cleaning up church membership roles based on regeneracy is impossible. Regeneracy cannot be seen with certainty. And if we cannot know it with certainty, how can we pretend to cull people on account of it?

The most we can do is evaluate members according to the terms of God's covenant, which is what the Presbyterian church does (though not perfectly, of course). "Is this person acting in accordance with covenant faithfulness?" is the question to ask, not "Is this person regenerate?"

As one of the authors and sponsors of the Resolution on Regenerate Church Membership that was the basis of the final resolution, I find that this blog entry is partially accurate and partially inaccurate.

The largest misperception perpetuated herein is the idea that "regenerate church membership" is primarily a statistical concept. It is not primarily a statistical concept; it is primarily a theological and ecclesiological concept. We would need to sharpen our commitment to the historic Baptist doctrine of regenerate church membership even if we had no statistical system in place and if no SBC church ever reported anything to anyone. Regenerate church membership is merely the concept that local churches ought to pursue means to ensure that only those who claim to be born-again Christians and give evidence of such in their lives are allowed to be members of the local church.

The statistical phenomenon certainly overlaps somewhat with this theological concept, but they are not the same thing.

It's a scandal when an evangelical denomination claims to have 16 million members but only 6 million can be found in the church. I think it was Paige Patterson who said even the FBI couldn't find the majority of members the SBC claims!

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What about the young man, who goes away to college. A Christian college. Each summer he goes on a foreign missions trip, and then when he graduates enrolls in seminary.

He graduates from seminary hoping to be ordained by his home church where he had been saved when he was ten years old.

Then he finds out he's not eligible for ordination since he hasn't been a member for the past 8 years.

You stated, "Another potential battle is financial: Distribution of Cooperative Program funds are partly based on churches’ membership numbers. Rigorous accuracy may be costly."

Maybe I'm confused, but how are membership numbers tied to distribution of CP funds? Churches contribute to the CP fund, and those funds are then used for Convention-wide ministries (missions, seminaries, ERLC). Churches don't receive financial support from the CP, they support it. Am I wrong? Therefore, this "potential battle" you mention may not be relevant to your argument.

I'm confused about your parenthetical statement: "Another potential battle is financial: Distribution of Cooperative Program funds are partly based on churches’ membership numbers. Rigorous accuracy may be costly." I'm assuming this is somehow related to distribution of funds to states? Individual churches do not receive money FROM the cooperative program, the GIVE to it.

The connection between the CP and regenerate church membership is not on a local church level but a bureaucratic level (that is, state conventions and local associations). The CP is allocated to various conventions and associations based on the findings in the annual church profile (ACP). When the numbers are up, more money is allocated. When numbers are down, the pendulum swings against them. Therefore, when churches seek to have a more meaningful and accurate membership, the bloated or inflated aspect will be removed, thus resulting in fewer numbers reported to the convention. The numbers indeed will be more accurate, but such accuracy comes with a price for those who live in the bureaucracy.

That is one of the reasons why the amendment for "denominational servants" (i.e., those in the bureaucracy) to encourage churches who pursue integrity in church membership is so important. While Southern Baptist often trumpet the autonomy of the local churches, we often don't act like it, especially when money is involved.

jay,

"I was once an ordained Southern baptist minister. After seminary I became Presbyterian. One of the issues that moved me the Presbyterian direction was the baptist idea of using regeneracy as an identifiable qualifier."

That is preferable to baptizing infants who cannot show any signs of being redeemed merely based on parentage. In the Bible those who repented were baptized. That is the command (Matt 28) and the example, and that should direct our doctrines.

Arthur,

Thank you for engaging my comment. I would be happy to discuss this issue with you further, but in order to avoid hijacking the comments section under this post with a discussion on infant baptism please see the links below.

Here is a link to what I've posted on the sacrament of baptism over the last couple years. See especially this post in which I comment on John Piper's arguments against infant baptism point-by-point.

Feel free to comment under any of my posts. Again, I would be happy to discuss the sacrament of baptism with you.

SBC Churches give to the Cooperative Program; they do not receive from it. Also, each church decides on their own what to give. It is not based on membership. Most give an amount based on a percentage of general budget receipts. Nashville, and any state convention they may be part of has no say in what each SBC church gives.
I am a SBC Baptist minister, in a church that decides our contribution through the annual budget process. The congregation votes on it each year. It is a gift we like to give and we try to increase it each year.

I have a comment on this. We left our church of 6 + years due to conflict. I'm not sure if it was right or wrong. We started attending a new southern baptist church.

Our old church took us off of their rolls immediately. 2 of my children still attend there and want to be listed in the directory. When I questioned why we were removed, I was told that it was "policy" because we were going somewhere else. We haven't transferred our membership yet.

How do they know we are attending elsewhere? My husband was a deacon in the past at a different church and it seems like if this one wants to evangelize, they ought to leave us on the rolls.

It has been very hurtful.

I could go on and on, but throughout this experience, God has certainly taught me how not to treat church members!

Please don't purge members from your rolls until you know for certain they will not be back.

Arthur,

Thanks for taking the time to engage my comment. I would enjoy discussing the sacrament with you further. I invite you to click my name and follow the link to my blog. Then click the "baptism" tag. There you will find all I've written on baptism over the last couple of years. Included is a point-by-point assessment of John Piper's arguments against infant baptism. Please feel free to comment with any further questions there.

Thanks

Southern Baptist membership is declining. Maybe people are finally starting to realize the nonsense that is Christian Fundamentalism.

I must confess that I am at a loss as to why this business of membership is such a big issue.

A person is either born again or they are not. Membership in a (Baptist) church is based on one being born again. Therefore one ought not to be regarded as a member of a (Baptist) church if one does not or cannot confess to being born again. What is so difficult about that?

If I want to join the millionaire's club I must have a million dollars. If I do not, I cannot quarrel with the club for not accepting me. Nor can I complain if after joining I become bankrupt an I am kicked out.

At some Baptist churches I know attendance once monthly is considered acceptable, at others once every three months. However, prolonged absence must be justified or one is considered a member out of fellowship in the first instance and may eventually be struck from the record.

What all this is saying is that one cannot simply say I am a member while one is either mainly absent or inactive without some justification. Keeping people's name on a list simply for numerical value strikes me as being both useless and dishonest.

Send out a housekeeping letter to everyone in your Church listing the requirements for Church membership and explain that you are simply updating the Church role. In the same letter request that anyone that wishes to be removed from the Church role to please respond to the letter with that decision. It might be wise to let the regular attendees know that this campaign will be launched on a given date and everyone, including the Pastor, will be receiving the letter. This voluntary reduction should cut down the Church roles significantly and allow you to handle case by case situations more effectively.

One has to wonder. . .again and again. . .what does the lost world see when it looks at all of this meaningless bureaucracy. After Pentecost, when the believers were newly filled with the Holy Spirit, they had all things in common and spent their time praising God and living in His fullness. Their numbers were added to greatly. Sad that it's been so long since we could say the same.

To TED OLSEN:

Can you verify that statement attributed to Frank Page that in 22 years, given current trends,that the SBC will lose half its churches (from 44,000 to 20,000) ??? When and where was that said? Can anyone? Feel free to e-mail me direct @ frankfears@everestkc.net.

TED OLSEN RESPONDS:
Here’s a source:
Half of SBC churches could die before 2030, president predicts (Associated Baptist Press)

Also check out Page’s book, The Incredible Shrinking Church.