Attendance at Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) churches, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., is declining everywhere in the country, except for New England, where attendance is up 1%. According to one sociology professor, the decline reflects how the evangelical movement is being “radically remade.” 

On Friday, Lifeway Research, the SBC research arm, released new analysis of the SBC 2022 Annual Church Profile census, published in May. It documented previously unreported aspects of the denomination’s decline, comparing 2022 figures to an essentially identical survey in 2017.

In the Lifeway analysis, eight of nine U.S. geographic regions reported declining SBC church attendance since 2017, with six of those regions noting 10% declines or more. The SBC’s Pacific region, which includes Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington, reported a dramatic 22% attendance decline in their churches.

Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research said California churches had particularly low reporting for the census, making their numbers less reliable. 

The SBC’s Northeast region—historically, one of the most secular regions of the country—reported tiny growth. “It’s easiest to achieve high percentage growth in areas with fewer Southern Baptists to begin with,” McConnell noted. 

Overall, the analysis showed that only 18.5% of Southern Baptist churches are growing, 42.5% are plateaued, and 39% are declining. It also showed that the SBC is comprised of mostly smaller Southern churches, with 78% of SBC congregations in the Southern region.

More than 70% of SBC churches reported an average worship service attendance of fewer than 100 people. Almost half have fewer than 50 attendees for a typical service.

Downward attendance trends chronicled in the latest analysis did not surprise sociology professor Ryan Burge, who writes popular e-newsletter Graphs About Religion. “It makes sense, given the fact that the SBC has lost 1.3 million folks in just the last three years,” he told TRR. “You can’t see losses like that just isolated to one region or another.” 

But Burge said the losses in the SBC don’t necessarily spell doom for evangelicalism.

“I don’t think evangelicalism is declining as much as it is being radically remade,” he told The Roys Report (TRR). “Sure, the SBC is declining—but non-denominational churches are growing rapidly.”

While most every Christian denomination has reported annual losses of tens of thousands of members, non-denominational churches are booming. Currently 13% of all Americans report affiliation with a non-denominational church, up from only 5% in 1990, according to Burge’s recent analysis of General Social Survey data. 

Reasons for decline

Lifeway said one reason for the SBC’s decline may be the age of most SBC churches.

“Newer Southern Baptist churches are more than twice as likely to have grown than churches started before the 21st century,” according to Lifeway’s analysis. 

Yet, only 23% of SBC churches started after 2000, Lifeway said. Nearly half were started before 1950.

Lifeway also notes that fewer Southern Baptist churches have members who are participating in small groups. According to McConnell, “Having a higher percentage of your attendees attending small groups each week is one of four measures that predict higher worship attendance five years down the road.”

From 2017 to 2022, the number of churches with fewer than 25% of their congregation involved in a small group more than tripled—from 5% to 16%.

In an in-depth article in May, Burge summed up three major contributing trends of the SBC’s accelerating annual membership losses. He cited aging demographics; rising secularism common in a large share of young people; and the decline in institutional trust. 

Gallup surveys reveal trust in many societal institutions has declined steeply in recent years, Burge said. Those include the government, media, medical professionals, law enforcement, and organized religion—notably the SBC, despite local churches being recognized as “autonomous” by the denomination. 

“(The SBC) is still seen as a large religious institution by outsiders,” said Burge. “That perception is especially acute given the recent sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the SBC and led to a Department of Justice investigation.” 

Freelance journalist Josh Shepherd writes on faith, culture, and public policy for several media outlets. He and his family live in the Washington, D.C. area.