By Joe Conway
NASHVILLE – The North American Mission Board (NAMB) is convening a national Pastors’ Task Force on Evangelistic Impact & Declining Baptisms to address the continued decrease in baptisms among Southern Baptist churches. The group’s first meeting was held Sept. 18 in Nashville.
The 2012 Annual Church Profile (ACP) reported a drop of 5.52 percent in the number of baptisms in Southern Baptist churches, confirming a two-decade downward trend. The most recent accounting marked the first time since 1948 that baptisms dropped below 315,000.
From 1950-2011 Southern Baptists baptized an average of 379,711 people annually. Only twice during that time did the numbers dip more than 10 percent below that average. But in 2012 the decline was 13 percent off the average–the worst drop in 62 years.
“Southern Baptists leaders are concerned,” said Gilbert, NAMB’s vice president of evangelism. “Our baptismal trends are all headed in the wrong direction. With a burden to penetrate lostness in North America, we must pray and think through what we can and should do to turn around this decline.”
Gilbert is facilitating the group’s sessions along with LifeWay Research president Ed Stetzer. In addition to the Sept. 18 meeting in Nashville, the task force will meet multiple times via conference calls and face-to-face meetings with the goal of completing its work by May 2014.
Task force members include: Ted Traylor, pastor, Olive Baptist Church, Pensacola, Fla.; Jay Wolf, pastor, First Baptist Church, Montgomery, Ala.; K. Marshall Williams, Sr., pastor, Nazarene Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Penn., and president of the African American Fellowship; Manpoong “Dennis” Kim, pastor, Global Mission Church, Silver Spring, Md.; David Galván, pastor, New Life Hispanic Baptist Church, Dallas; Carlos Navarro, pastor, Iglesia Bautista de West Brownsville, Brownsville, Texas; Andy Addis, pastor, CrossPoint Church, Kansas; Roger Spradlin, pastor, Valley Baptist Church, Bakersfield, Calif.; Jeff Lovingood, Next Generation pastor, Longhollow Baptist Church, Hendersonville, Tenn.; Benny Wong, pastor, First Chinese Baptist Church, Los Angeles; Keith Wieser, pastor, Resonate Baptist Church, Pullman, Wash.; Doug Melton, pastor, Southern Hills Baptist Church, Oklahoma City; Wayne Jenkins, Evangelism Church Growth Director, Louisiana Baptist Convention; Milton Hollifield, Executive Director-Treasurer, Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.
Prior to the meeting Benny Wong said one way churches will see increased baptisms is to narrow their concentration.
“We need to focus again on the most important mandate for the Church today, which is the Great Commission,” said Wong. “We need to observe the past to understand some issues, but the real need is to concentrate on the most important areas. In the past 20 years we have had some struggles as a church, but as we focus on the primary things, the ‘so called’ problems are not as important.”
Wong said in its first 40 years First Chinese planted five churches. Following a long gap in planting, the church planted a new church four years ago with 12 people. It now has 200. A second plant just launched.
“There is no magic,” said Wong. “It is not complicated. It is going back to the basics and following God’s leading in obedience. If we only focus on the secondary issues we will miss out on what is most important in the eyes of God.”
Gilbert said the most recent ACP was the final trigger in bringing the pastors’ task force together.
“There has been a lot of discussion about this issue for years,” said Gilbert. “Southern Baptists have talked about declining baptisms, but haven’t figured out a way to own it. I thought it was important to pull together pastors from different regions and backgrounds to address the issue. We want to dialog about how we can help take meaningful action.”
Joe Conway writes for the North American Mission Board.