Church Decline and Death in Real Numbers

Is your church healthy? Most of you who will read this have heard the numbers time and time again. Eighty percent of SBC (and other evangelical denominations) churches are either plateaued or declining. My concern is that we’ve heard that number so many times that we really don’t allow it to sink in.  Recently, I attended a state-level meeting in South Carolina where we discussed the decline of the church and the need for church planting in our state.

There, we began to break the percentages and statistics into real numbers. In SC, we have about 2100 SBC churches (which makes up 2/3 of all evangelical churches in our state).  Of those, 1680 are either plateaued or declining and 634 churches baptized no one last year. That number is depressing, but even more so is the realization that only 420 SBC Churches are growing in a state with a population of 4.5 million people. Some estimates put our lost population at 3.25 million (70 %). Additionally, twenty to forty churches in SC will close their doors each year.

Again, to put that into perspective, if we place the burden of reaching the lost on the shoulders of the 420 growing churches in our state, they will each need to reach 7,738 people. In our state convention, the status quo continues to prevail, unfortunately, the statistics show us that the status quo is a failure.

Every church and every pastor claims that Kingdom Growth is their goal, however, if we take the numbers at face value, we have to admit that it doesn’t appear that their talk matches their walk. Likewise, even at the state convention level, we claim to have evangelism and missions at the fore of our efforts and yet a paltry 3% of our annual in-state budget goes to support church planting, the original Christian mission and the only hope we have of reaching the 3.25 million lost people in our state.

The rallying cry is that money doesn’t make church plants and that conventions don’t plant churches, however our budget numbers reveal where our loyalty lies. The truth, however, is that if evangelization of the lost were truly a priority, we would be willing to fund that evangelization through our state convention rather than to continue to perpetuate old ways of budgeting money. Churches need to be planted because we do not have enough to reach the population of our state, but especially when we consider the urban population.  In South Carolina it is estimated that 75% of SBC churches are located among 25% of the population. That means that 525 churches have the daunting and impossible task of ministering to 3.375 million people, an estimated 2.3 million of whom are not evangelical believers. How can we not see the urgent need for a church planting movement in our state?

We are sick and it is time that we wake up and admit it. For too long we as the South Carolina Baptist Convention (and the SBC) have feigned health while slowly decaying and dying. Yet, we continue to perpetuate unhealthy practices because it is the will of some without ever questioning whether the will of some is the will of THE ONE.

Though numbers do not tell the whole story for everything, the fact that we are not impacting our state (and nation) in a formidable way with the gospel shows that we are not doing the job that we should be doing to fulfill the Great Commission.

Re-alignments and re-organizations are not worthwhile unless there is a true revival among the people of the SCBC.  Our sacred cows must be sacrificed on the alter of the gospel and we must have heart-change that moves us toward creativity in church multiplication. Ed Stetzer’s research has shown that in our state we need to plant at least 63 churches per year if we are to continue to grow as a denomination.  We need ethnic church plants and Anglo-church plants, contemporary and traditional, and we need to plant churches with mother churches who give whole-hearted support.

For South Carolina Baptists to accomplish the goals of evangelizing our state, cooperation across age-barriers, worship-styles, and ethnic groups will be necessary. Cooperation is the best way to accomplish the Great Commission, but that cooperation must be full-bodied and not segmented and cliquish. Part of that cooperation will come only as leaders, young and old, will show up at meetings to make their voices heard. Voting by absence never brings change, it only brings stagnation.

The vote of the State Convention in 2008 did necessarily represent the majority of SC Baptist, but merely the majority of the very few people who showed up to participate in the process. Only 396 people voted for president of the convention last year. Assuming that each of those votes represents one church, less than twenty percent of SCBC churches were represented at the annual meeting of the SCBC last year. Thus, the direction of the convention has been molded by a the majority of a very small minority.

Business meetings are certainly not enjoyable, but if missional leaders in the state of South Carolina desire to see the lost of this state saved, then those leaders are going to have to make time to show up and cast a vote. As hard as it is to realize, participation in the denominational process can make a difference in accomplishing the Great Commission. However, staying home and refusing to participate while complaining about the direction of the Convention does nothing but create division and bitterness.

It may be that with involvement from more missional leaders in associational, state, and national denomination affairs, that the 80% of plateaued and declining churches could become 75% or 70%.  It may be that a revival could begin when “missional” leaders decide to take their mission even to the religious among them. It could be that renewed cooperation will result as young and old leaders come together to learn from the past and dream for the future. We cannot predict the outcome of what may happen if young and missional leaders step-up to the denominational plate, but we can predict the outcome if they don’t, and that outcome is decline, decay, and eventual death of many multitudes of churches and perhaps even a denomination.