After 5 years, is there a Great Commission Resurgence?

Editor’s note: What follows is an abbreviated version of a much lengthier analysis of the “Great Commission Resurgence” document adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention five years ago. To read the full article, which addresses each major component of the GCR document, visit baptistmessage.com/after-5-years-is-there-a-great-commission-resurgence.

When the gavel dropped to end the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2015 annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio, it also marked the fifth anniversary of “a vision for a Great Commission Resurgence” that was adopted by messengers during the 2010 business sessions in Orlando, Fla.

A blue ribbon task force developed seven components of a plan “to mobilize Southern Baptists as a Great Commission people” with the goal of “penetrating the lostness” in North America and around the world.

The task force framed all of its recommendations in the context of a mission statement and core values designed to facilitate our convention of churches “working together more faithfully and effectively” in creating “a new and healthy culture.”

The eight core values (Christlikeness, truth, unity, relationships, trust, future, local church and kingdom) are well-stated ideals and actionable, but difficult to measure.

The mission statement (“ … to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations”) essentially is a restatement of Matthew 28:19-20, except it omits mention of baptism — which is a key measure of effectiveness in assessing mission success.

In 2010, LifeWay reported 331,008 baptisms in the United States and the International Mission Board announced 360,876 baptisms overseas.

Five years later, both disclosed fairly large drops in their respective data.

The number of conversions fell to 305,301 at home (a five-year loss of 25,707), according to the 2015 Annual Church Profile summary, and IMB’s 2015 Fast Facts show a dip to 190,957 spiritual births abroad. (However, it is not known how much of the 169,919 slump is due to an IMB procedural change started in 2010 to “no longer include reports from partner conventions and unions” in order to more accurately reflect “the board’s work and influence” in the field. Also, although overseas baptisms have fallen from 2010 levels, the 2015 total exceeds the 114,571 baptisms in 2014.)

Giving

Although the task force did not set specific goals related to evangelism and baptisms, in statements related to giving and funding, three contained benchmarks about finances.

Calling for “a new level of sacrificial giving,” the ad-hoc committee urged churches “to increase the percentage of their Cooperative Program giving,” prevailed upon state conventions to forward a greater percentage of CP funds to national causes, and asked SBC entities to maximize use of CP monies for taking the Gospel to the nations and leading SBC churches to do the same.

They also took action to “celebrate every dollar given” — another way of saying that churches, and pastors, should get credit for contributions to SBC work, even if outside the channels of the Cooperative Program and special mission offerings for the IMB and the North American Mission Board.

To this end, the panel crafted a special category, “Great Commission Giving,” into which the CP, Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and Annie Armstrong Easter Offering are lumped together with other designated gifts deemed as contributing to local, state or national Southern Baptist work. This category did not replace Total Missions Expenditures but was added as a new measure of effectiveness.

Implemented in 2011, GCG amounted to $695,694,322. It has varied during subsequent years, but was reported in 2015 as $637,498,179, a $58 million drop from its beginning (and a hefty decline from the $777,452,820 recorded during the previous year).

As for CP, $191,763,153 was contributed for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, compared with $186,567,611 received during the fiscal year ending Sept. 20, 2014 (although Baptist Press announced in June that receipts to this point in 2015 are 2 percent ahead of donations for the same time frame in 2014).

The final report also called on Southern Baptists to adopt giving goals “no less than $200 million annually” for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and “$100 million annually” through the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.

The LMCO goal remained unchanged at $175 million from 2010 through 2015, but the annual collection never exceeded $154 million.

The AAEO undulated between $54 million and $56 million, or so, from 2010-2013 before reaching $57 million during the last fiscal year. Meanwhile, trustees dropped the annual goal from the $70 million mark for 2010 to the $60 million target for 2015.

Church Planting

Component four of the GCR recommendations was crafted with the priority of “liberating NAMB to conduct and direct a strategy for reaching the United States and Canada with the Gospel and planting Gospel churches.”

So how has church planting improved?

The data does not allow assessment of whether NAMB has succeeded in reprioritizing “to reach metropolitan areas and underserved people groups” as called for by the task force. However, the numbers show that churches planted after the adoption of the GCR recommendations essentially are as healthy as they historically have been in the SBC.

For instance, NAMB shared in 2015 that the “church planting class of 2010” started with 943 church plants, with 757 surviving through 2013 (the latest ACP report at the time) — or about 80 percent. According to findings from the Church Survivability and Health Study 2007, about 81 percent of church plants survive through year three.

Except for a ratio of one baptism for every 13 members (church plants in the CSHS 2007 study typically baptized 13 people in year three while averaging about 73 in worship service, for a ratio of about 1:6), the class of 2010 appears to be on par with previous church-planting year groups. That’s not to dismiss the importance of this metric — it’s an essential measure of evangelistic effectiveness. But a single year of low baptism data may not point to trouble.

Even with good news about the 2010 cohort, the 757 church plants still existing today do not come close to meeting the need that existed in 2010, and our church plant numbers in subsequent years have not kept up with the needs that have expanded each year since.

The population of the United States increased by 11 million people from 2010 through the start of this year (about half the growth was the result of immigration), creating the need for an estimated 110,000 new churches (based on an average of 100 members per congregation).

Altogether, an estimated 30 percent of the U.S. population is not Christian — about 96 million — meaning we need about 960,000 new church plants, if that is going to be our main means of evangelizing the lost.

Moving Forward

Despite the broad scope of recommendations by the Great Commission Task Force, as yet, these reforms have not turned around the negative trends identified as signs the “Great Commission commitment is diminishing among us.”

— Will Hall is editor of the Baptist Message, the newsjournal for Louisiana Baptists.