I'm probably going to get flack for this, but I am going ahead anyway. I am a pastor of a Southern Baptist Church. I am in my sixth year of my current church. When I started there were then people in the church. We now have over 100. We have had to remodel once, and are in the process of remodeling a second time as we only have 105 seats and run out on Sunday mornings. We have started a building fund and three months ago and now have 15,000.00 dollars in it. I say all of that because we have had ZERO help from the SBC. Nada. Zip. Because the church is older (building and the date it was established-not the membership-we have tons of kids and young adults and 20 somethings), the SBC funnels most if not all of its money towards new church plants and ACTS29 churches. Those of us that are working to get the gospel out of older established churches are more or less, left on our own. Because of that we have cut back on our misssion giving. We cannot give at our current level, and be able to build and/or expand. The SBC is heavy with administration costs...they care about the numbers and the reports. The only time I hear from anyone at the state or national level is when we are late sending in a report. The SBC has let us down.

Ok, that was supposed to read that there were "ten people" when I started pastoring this church, not "then people". Sheesh. I need to use spell check more often.

Well said, Peterson. The SBC is making only minor changes that will not affect the declining baptism rates. There's too much about programs and not enough about the gospel. Churches must be made healthy before they can truly grow numerically. Otherwise, any growth in a spiritually unhealthy church is a mere padding of numbers. Quality must come before quantity.

Thank you for the insight, Peterson. I was troubled to read this in the article "The proposal calls for a "refocused" North American Mission Board that will prioritize starting new churches and working in regions where there is not a high concentration of Southern Baptists." It seems odd that the SBC's solution to declining baptisms is...new churches. I would have thought it might have been finding creative ways to attract more people to the gospel or perhaps not portraying such a judgmental approach to secular politics, which turns off some unbelievers.

Perhaps if Southern Baptists would stop carping about the superstition of CLIMATE CHANGE and SOCIAL JUSTICE, there might be TWO THINKING people left in their pews to baptize.

CHURCHES NEED TO PREACH FROM A BIBLE, NOT FROM THE TALKING POINTS OF THE SOCIALISTS who have hijacked their "mission" work.

Sheeesh.....quit your whining and get back to the ROOT CAUSE of your problems.