‘Everyone Can’ goal not met, but impact felt

The ambitious goal for Southern Baptists to baptize 1 million people in 2006 was not met, according to yearly statistics reported by SBC churches.

Baptisms for 2006 instead declined by 1.89 percent – 364,826 in 2006 versus 371,850 in 2005.

The baptism thrust was launched by the SBC’s immediate past president, Bobby Welch, at the outset of his two years in office in June 2004.

Named the “‘Everyone Can!’ Kingdom Challenge,” it targeted 2006 as the year when Southern Baptist churches, for the first time, would reach the 1 million milestone in baptisms – in essence, more than doubling the number recorded in recent years.

SBC president Frank Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, told Baptist Press, “To hear news of a continued decline in baptisms is discouraging. However, Dr. Bobby Welch’s emphasis upon evangelism and soul-winning is nothing but an echo from God’s heart. Therefore, his pleas are biblically based and God-inspired. However, our obedience continues to lack both substance and passion.”

Page said he is “working closely with our North American Mission Board, our state partners and directors of missions, as well as others, to bring to our nation a true long-term, flexible, multifaceted evangelism strategy which will enable us to help our churches know better ‘how’ to implement the wonderful encouragement from Dr. Welch and others to be soul-winners.”

“Please pray for this national, continent-wide strategy,” Page added, noting that it will be partly unveiled during the SBC’s June 12-13 annual meeting in San Antonio.

Welch, the newly named strategist for global evangelical relations with the SBC Executive Committee and retired pastor of First Baptist Church in Daytona Beach, Fla., assessed the positive results of the campaign and voiced concern about what the baptism decline means for Southern Baptists.

The Everyone Can initiative sought to “challenge everyone to do their very best,” Welch noted. “It has done precisely what was hoped for by so many pastors and churches. A large number of our people made their very best efforts for Great Commission evangelism-discipleship. Many broke their recent history records in baptisms, and more set new benchmarks in evangelism-discipleship and baptisms.

“For these people, it has been life-changing, world-changing and eternity-changing,” Welch said.

Welch continued by stating that “while many did their very best, many others did about the same or less than before,” prompting him to underscore his belief that “a collective commitment” for evangelism-discipleship is needed among “a vast number of leaders at all levels of the SBC – national, state and association, and especially the local church.”

The decline in baptisms “in the face of an all-out effort by so many sounds the most urgent cry Southern Baptists will ever hear, and it comes from the handwriting that is now on our wall – and it is this: Back to the fields!” Welch said, referencing the “harvest fields” of non-Christians.

Harry Lewis, executive vice president of missions with the North American Mission Board, said a decline in baptisms “is never good news for Southern Baptists. However, for the 364,826 people who did receive Christ as Savior and follow him in believer’s baptism, it was the best news of their lives.

“Every Southern Baptist should be both informed and alarmed that our declining baptism trend means we are not coming close to keeping up with population trends,” Lewis said.

“This should call us all to have a renewed passion for sharing the good news with our family, friends and neighbors,” Lewis said.

States recording increases in baptisms in 2006 were (with the increase over 2005 in parentheses): Alabama, 22,439 baptisms (1,070); Alaska, 559 (147); Arkansas, 12,987 (591); California, 18,860 (11); Colorado, 1,935 (108); Florida, 39,148 (3,785); Hawaii-Pacific, 845 (391); Kentucky, 17,642 (272); Nevada, 1,512 (129); Ohio, 5,026 (221); Pennsylvania/South Jersey, 4,612 (169); South Carolina, 16,234 (18); Tennessee, 25,630 (877); Baptist General Association of Virginia, 8,136 (42); West Virginia, 1,162 (45); Wyoming, 381 (63).