Thoughts on the analysis of Paige Patterson on the ACP

Paige Patterson has offered what I believe is an insightful analysis on the ACP report and the wealth of punditry that has followed. Patterson concludes by suggesting four real reasons for the numeric decline. I believe Patterson is spot-on (Patterson’s words appear in italics with my comments following).

1. The first failure is the busyness of the age, which has robbed churches of serious prayer . . . Prayerlessness is foe number one.

Two comments: First, one unintentional aspect of the church growth movement has been a dependence on methods rather than on the power of God. This, of course, was never the attention of McGavran or of the second generation of CGM leaders. Nevertheless, more than fifty years later, McGavran has been largely forgotten and his God-dependent principles with him. I am personally an advocate of Church Growth and its emphasis on removing manmade barriers to the gospel and church growth. However, as McGavran would agree and Patterson alludes in his column, no method can advance the kingdom apart from absolute dependence on God. To the extent that prayerlessness is a characteristic of our churches, we should not be surprised at a decline in our numbers. Patterson rightly calls Southern Baptists to a return to prayer and complete dependence on God for success in ministry.

Second, prayer is not the only casualty of the busyness of the age. Christians have, by and large, abandoned the mission of God for other pursuits. It is time that Christians reject the busyness of the age that centers on the mundane and get consumed by passion for God’s mission. We must reorient our lives around the Great Commission rather than our own self-interests. This leads to Patterson’s second point.

2. The second culprit is our failure to witness. We are so adept at "marketing" and "programming" that we have failed to share Christ individually on a consistent basis. In fact, because meaningful church membership has been traded for numerical addition, most of our people hardly witness at all.

Again, another unintentional and non-McGavranite consequence of some modern mutations of the church growth movement. Numerical addition was never intended to replace meaningful church membership. In fact, McGavran argued for numbers that were meaningful. McGavran states,

“It is not adding mere names to the roll or baptizing those who have no intention of following Christ. Roll-padding, aside from being dishonest, is useless. The numerical increase worth counting is that which endures from decade to decade. Roll-padding and dishonest baptizing will never produce lasting growth.”[1]

To the extent that numerical addition has replaced meaningful church membership, churches ought to repent and return to the growth principles centered on abundant, unhindered, contextual evangelism.

Second, as Patterson has so rightly reminded us, we must return to the actual practice of witnessing. As many have noted, the conservative resurgence has not yet resulted in a Great Commission resurgence. In my opinion, part of the problem among conservative evangelicals, is that we have pursued Christ-likeness in terms of character but not in terms of mission. Certainly, we must pursue the one without abandoning the other. We have forgotten, however, that to become truly like Him, we must allow God to work not only in us, but also through us. How can we know Christ and truly be like him without pouring out our life for his mission to reach the lost? Baptists must renew our commitment to evangelism, not only in theory, but in practice.

3. Third, the shallow state of preaching has exacerbated the lethargy of the church and left the lost with no real Word from God. The pastor ought to be the major source of theological understanding and the most able teacher of the Bible. Anemic pulpits create anemic churches and denominations.

I’ll let Patterson’s words stand on their own here. I will only add to my last point that we must return to preaching the full counsel of God so that our preaching is God-centered, cross-centered, and mission-centered rather than merely self-help, self-actualizing, felt needs preaching. Certainly, we need to preach those texts that help believers become better Christians, but even then the preaching must be centered in Christ and his cross.

4. Finally, our churches, in their hot pursuit of cultural adaptability look more and more like the culture and the world. Even at its best, the church is not good at being the world. In looking like a faint imitation of the world, the holiness of God and a thirst to be like Him have apparently been lost. And with the loss of holiness has come the corresponding loss of power and appeal!

Hear Patterson correctly here. I do not believe he is saying that we must abandon contextualization. He is, however, saying that not all contextual methods and models are God-honoring and faithful to him. We must approach contextualization critically and approach evangelism in away that both communicates to the culture and at the same time remains faithful to the biblical gospel. To the extent that churches have capitulated to the culture and abandoned the offense of the cross, we must return to the true gospel and to biblical models and methods.

In the final analysis, Patterson has offered wise words that should be considered by all Southern Baptists. We must recommit ourselves to the prayerful, powerful, critically-contextual, abundant proclamation of the gospel. Until we do, we should not be surprised when our statistics are not what we wish them to be.

Lord, send a revival and let it begin in me.

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[1] Donald A. McGavran, How Churches Grow: The New Frontiers of Mission (London: World Dominion Press, 1959), 16.

A Second Look at the Annual Church Profile (ACP)

As Dale Carnegie said, “Of course, I could be wrong – I often am.” The truth is, I don’t really know what the numbers mean for our denomination. Upon further review, however, I did find one statistic of particular interest. One significant number figured in the ACP is the ratio baptism rate—a ratio which continues to increase. In 2007, the number of baptisms to members was 1:47. In 2006, the ratio was 1:45.

The significance of the year-to-year changes reflected in the ACP report remains elusive. Even the change in the baptism ratio is not easily explained. Looking back at my last post, if I am correct about only the change in who is a candidate for baptism, i.e. we are baptizing fewer people but no less are being genuinely converted, then one would expect the ratio to rise. That is, fewer total baptisms means fewer baptisms per member. If, however, I am correct only about the change in membership reporting, i.e. some churches are cleaning their roles, then you would expect the baptism ratio to decrease. That is fewer members means fewer members per baptism. If I am right about both, then the numbers will off-set to some degree. If I am right about neither, then we have reason to be alarmed. While the year-to-year change may or may not be significant, I am more concerned with the change in ratio baptisms from 1:19 in 1950 to 1:47 in 2007. This seems to me to be a bigger problem than the changes in reporting practices can account for. If Dr. Stetzer is correct, the decline in ACP numbers is part of a 50-year trend. (I highly recommend reading and pondering Stezer's original assessment, whether or not you agree).

Regardless of what the numbers mean, I offer two opinions:

1. We should be concerned about increasing our evangelism efforts.

2. We should be concerned with statistics – that is, the numerical results of our efforts.

No, we should not make statistics an idol. Yet, neither should we ignore numbers as one useful indicator of our faithfulness to the evangelistic task. Results are not faithfulness, but they may indeed be an indicator of faithfulness or a lack thereof. In the face of declining numbers, every church must be willing to ask themselves whether their lack of results is an indicator of a lack of faithfulness. (For more on this, see my forthcoming dissertation).

In response to Stetzer's assessment on our declining numbers, Malcolm Yarnell suggests,

“Perhaps the churches are busy proclaiming God’s Word, but the Spirit in His sovereignty has not yet seen fit to bless us with the numbers we desire to see. Perhaps our focus should be less upon meeting statistical goals and more upon simply being faithful with what responsibilities we have been granted.”

Of course, Dr. Yarnell’s scenario is within the realm of possibility. However, should we default to the assumption that we are being faithful without conducting a rigorous examination of our evangelistic efforts? I respectfully offer another “perhaps.”

Perhaps we are NOT busy at the work of evangelism. Perhaps we do not often share the gospel. Perhaps in our evangelism we do not clearly present the cross of Christ. Perhaps we are failing to communicate the gospel clearly, in a contextual manner, without unnecessary social or culture barriers. Perhaps we are presenting facts without pressing for a verdict. Perhaps God is waiting for our obedience. Perhaps we are NOT being faithful.

Are we or are we not? Again, the answer to these questions is not in the ACP. The numbers may mean a variety of things. Of course, we should not base our entire assessment of either our denomination or our local church on numbers alone. Dr. Yarnell is right that we should be focused on being faithful more than on numbers. However, I would suggest that numbers are a good place to start in self-examination. The ACP ought to get us to ask of ourselves the hard questions. Just what IS the significance of the numbers? If we are unwilling to examine ourselves, our motives, our methods, and our evangelistic activity, how can we justifiably claim that all is well?

Let us press on toward the mark. Let us be consumed with the mission of God and his glory. Let us not be satisfied with sagging numbers until we are absolutely sure we are doing all we can for the cause of the gospel.

SBC Numbers Down

Well, I just finished my dissertation and can return to blogging . . . just in time to respond to the 2008 ACP report. In a nutshell, baptisms are down, membership is down, church planting and attendance is up.

Before offering my analysis, let me affirm that I am neither interested in spinning the statistics for the purpose of preserving the perceived status of the SBC, nor do I wish to overstate the significance of the report as a way of highlighting the importance and urgency of renewing our passion for evangelism as a denomination.

That being said, while the ACP is valuable for self-evaluation and year-by-year comparison, the significance of numbers from one year should not be overblown. The number of churches reporting is not consistent (down 1300 this year), and the way that churches report is in flux. I personally believe that there is a gradual shift in the way that churches are counting. An increasing number of pastors are baptizing less people because they are, rightly or wrongly, raising the bar on who they are willing to baptize. This may account for at least part, if not all, of the decline in the number of baptisms. Further, some pastors are, under the banner of regenerate church membership, leading their churches to clean up their membership roles. An example of this attitude can be seen in the (defeated but widely supported) resolution proposed by Tom Ascol last year on integrity in church membership. That an increasing number of churches are reducing their membership in this way may account for some or all the decline in membership.

It is quite possible that the cumulative ACP statistics are seeing a kind of correction, similar to what happens periodically on the stock market, which could continue over the next 5 to 10 years as more and more church leaders adopt these practices. This, in my opinion, would be a good development in the long run.

The continued use of statistics, however, should not be rejected. Statistics are a valuable tool, but numbers are only as valuable as the facts they represent. While ACP reporting practices are changing, the value of the cumulative annual report may be, for the time being, diminished. However, ACP statistics can be a valuable tool in a church’s self-evaluation process. Since a church tends to report numbers in the same way, significant changes in particular statistics can communicate a lot about a church’s progress or lack thereof. Comparison with other churches, however, will prove useless as long as churches do not report their numbers in the same way. Likewise, when churches vary extensively in their baptism practices, comparison of the number of baptisms is often misleading and unfair. Such comparisons often reflect poorly on churches who may actually produce more genuine converts.

In any case, given the gradual change in the nature of ACP numbers, there may not be anything definitive we can conclude about this year’s ACP report. The report will be seen by some as a positive development, by others as a disaster, but hopefully will remind all of the urgency of our evangelistic task.