• A LifeWay Research study found only 22 out of 43,000 SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) churches met the criteria of baptizing at least 26 people per year, overall attendance growth and a membership-to-baptism ratio of no more than 20 to 1 over the last 10 years.
• The study further noted that the average tenure of the pastors is 15 years.
• Across the 22 churches, pastors also stress the importance of preaching the gospel and providing opportunities for lost people to respond.
  • More than two-thirds say they make an altar call at the end of every service while others have people fill out a decision card.
• One-third of the pastors indicate they preach topically and almost half use expositional or textual preaching.
• Most pastors say their worship style is "contemporary," "informal," and "casual."
  • Others say theirs is blended in terms of music and only one pastor described his church's worship as "traditional."
  • Four of the churches consider their worship services to be “seeker- driven” or “seeker-targeted."
• Eleven churches use on-campus Sunday school as their primary fellowship groups, while six meet in off-campus small groups, and two have a mix of on and off-campus groups.

• In 2004 there were 2,779,095 adherents in the Assembly of God church compared to 2,830,861 in 2005.
• In 2004 there were 12,277 churches with 280 new churches opened
• In 2005 the Council of the Assembly of God reported 12,298 churches with 258 new churches opened.
• In 2004 the membership of the Assembly of God Church was 1,594,062 compared to 1,612,336 in 2005.

From 2004 to 2005, every baptism category, by age, went down—except one. The one category that went up? Preschoolers—those under five years of age. That makes me nervous. Though I am not one to say that a five year old cannot trust Christ, it's hard to see the march toward infant baptism as good news.

Total annual baptisms by churches also show alarming trends:

• In 2005, 11,740 churches reported zero or one baptism, up from 11,122 in 2004. This is an increase of 5.6 percent.
• Over 55 percent of churches baptized no youth (12-17 year-olds) in 2005, up from 52 percent the previous year.
• The number of churches baptizing ten or more declined to 10,062 in 2005, down from 10,598 in 2004.