Baptists build despite falling membership

As Southern Baptists build more and more churches, fewer worshippers fill the pews.

The lack of members is something that’s afflicting many religions, but the Baptists have approached the decrease by building more places to worship.

Though that might seem counter-intuitive, the Rev. Dean Fulks said the approach recognizes that churches have life cycles just like people.

Eventually, churches also decline and die, said Fulks, lead pastor at Lifepoint Church, which has three central Ohio locations. The cycle caused the church to put an emphasis on opening new churches to reach more people, he said.

“Ultimately the goal is not to build churches. The goal is to follow the great commandment and the great commission to try to reach people,” Fulks said.

Historically, building new churches attracts new members, said Jack Helton, in charge of evangelism at the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio.

“The message of the gospel never changes, but our methodology needs to change,” Helton said. “Millennials constantly want to get involved in social issues ... New churches are planted

to do that very thing.”

A study by LifeWay Christian Resources, in cooperation with Baptist state conventions, says that membership, attendance and baptisms in Southern Baptist churches nationwide have decreased, while new church construction has increased.

“Things are great in Ohio from a churchplanting perspective,” Helton said. There are approximately 125 Southern Baptist churches in the Columbus metro area and 700 in Ohio.

The statistics mark the lowest membership since 1990, the lowest worship attendance since 1996 and the lowest baptisms since 1946, according to Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Seminary.

Though the national picture is grim, Helton said he isn’t sure the same is true in Ohio. Baptisms were down last year, but Helton said that’s not necessarily indicative of a trend, as only 56 percent of Ohio churches reported numbers.

The lack of reports might be because churches aren’t as focused as they once were on keeping records and tracking memberships, Helton said.

Before last year, the number of baptisms fluctuated annually, he said. Three times in the past eight years the state won the national evangelism award for the highest increase in baptisms.

Southside Baptist Church, the oldest Southern Baptist church in Columbus, has about 50 to 75 worshippers on Sundays and hasn’t had a baptism in a while, said Carolyn Osborne, church secretary.

At Lifepoint, about 70 to 85 people have been baptized during each of the past few years, Fulks said. About 3,000 people call the church their own, but only about 50 percent are members.

The reason, Fulks said, is cultural.

“Now people don’t really like to be members of much,” he said.

There are also other societal pressures, Helton said.

“More people are busy today,” he said. “Less people attend church. Sunday used to be a pretty sacred day. It isn’t anymore in regard to work life.”

To reach more people, the church has to be bolder, Helton said.

That might mean changing the way the message is presented so that it makes sense to different people, to new generations, Fulks said.

“The culture shifted, but the church’s mentality never really did,” he said.

People need to be shown what God and a relationship with him can do for them, Fulks said. Sometimes religious leaders might forget that people don’t already know those things.

“We have to make God make sense to them,” he said.