LifeWay's Leader: SBC Must Emphasize Evangelism for Church Growth
by Allie Martin
May 1, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The president of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) says a recent report that showed a drop in baptisms for the denomination should serve as a wakeup call for church members. Each year LifeWay releases its Annual Church Profile (ACP), which looks at various categories of trends throughout the denomination. For instance, the profile showed a net increase of 234 Southern Baptist churches established last year for a total of 43,699 churches. That number is up slightly from 43,465 the previous year.
However, the profile also shows some denominational statistics as exhibiting a downward trend last year. While baptisms in the SBC increased in 2004, they declined again in 2005: the ACP shows that baptisms fell last year from 387,947 to a total of 371,850 among Southern Baptist congregations.
Dr. Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, says churches in the SBC need to regain their focus and their passion for evangelism if the decline is to be reversed. He feels the ACP report should be viewed as a wakeup call for the denomination.
"We're facing becoming, in appearance, a mainline church," Rainer warns. "If we're not doing evangelism, we're saying that we believe in the Word of God but we're not practicing our belief. We're at about a 20- to 30-year lag from [following] the same downward trend as what used to be the larger mainline churches."
Other areas that showed a drop included enrollment in Sunday school and men and boys' mission education. On the other hand, total offering receipts were up and total mission expenditures increased. However, the head of LifeWay feels the slump in baptisms is the statistic Southern Baptists need to be giving their urgent attention. "You can look at discipleship as being critically important, and I respond, 'Yes, it is,'" he says. "But there's no one to disciple if we have not seen people come to faith in Christ."
Furthermore, Rainer asserts, if Southern Baptists want to talk about worship, he insists that people "cannot learn to worship until they've become a follower of Christ." And, likewise, if a church wants to emphasize fellowship among its people, he says, "they can't understand Christian fellowship until they've become a follower of Christ; and I could go down the list."
To grow and to thrive, Rainer says, the SBC must begin with evangelism. "I'm not minimizing the importance of what else we do in the church, but if we're not doing evangelism, we soon won't have a church," he contends.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
