A new Lifeway Research analysis finds the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) lost more than 1,200 churches in 2022.
As part of a three-year trend, the denomination lost more than 1,000 churches each year from 2020 to 2022. The downward spiral continues despite church plants and new church-type missions associated with the Convention.
The most recent Annual Church Profile found that 1,253 congregations were disaffiliated, the primary reason being disbandment. More than three-quarters of SBC churches (79%) disbanded or closed, which resulted in 984 fewer churches. In tandem, 813 of those churches (83%) also closed.
An additional 136 churches (14%) merged with another Southern Baptist congregation. A smaller percentage (17 churches, or 2%) became non-Southern Baptist churches, never opened (8 churches, or 1%) or shared a meeting space with another church (10 churches, or 1%).
If the church did not disband or close, the congregation members voted to leave the Southern Baptist Convention or were disaffiliated (228 churches or 18%). A small fraction (29 churches or 2%) were “classified as a new church work or not yet a church” or were listed as a ministry but not a congregation (2 churches or less than 1%).
No reason was given for the ten churches that decided to disband or close.
“It can be painful for all involved when an active congregation and the convention separate,” Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, said. “While the number of congregations who left or were disaffiliated doubled in 2022, more than four times as many were removed from the Southern Baptist Convention’s congregation list because the last few remaining members voted to cease to be a congregation.”
Read the full report here. The 2023 Annual Church Profile will be forthcoming.
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
