Dr Paul Allen

Below is an analysis and commentary on the SBC membership and baptism trends. LifeWay just released the data and sent my commentary out, so I thought I would post it here. I'd ask the patience of my friends from other (or no) denominations, but since this is national news, it is worth the time to share here. Southern Baptist are the largest Protestant denomination in America and its future impacts all of evangelicalism, even globally. The article talks a lot about trends-- and one in particular. It's called a membership change trend-- and you really need to get to know this trend if you want to understand the future. It's a long and consistent trend. I give more details about it here and have been expressing concern about it for quite some time . We've been talking about this trend for several years. Here is 2008 , 2009 , and 2010 . A few years ago, some leaders wanted to argue about the reality of membership decline since it was small and just one year... then two

Image via Wikipedia I probably shouldn’t admit this, but sometimes it makes me feel better to know that other organizations are feeling the pain as well. For example Borders was in the news last month. They announced they are  shutting 200 bookstores .  They’re faced with liquidating $350 million of inventory. Though people are still  reading books, Borders is stuck. A couple of years ago, you and I became owners of General Motors . The U.S. government had to use a $50 billion (that’s with a “b”) bailout to keep the company afloat. GM went from a 45% market share in 1980 to  under 20%  thirty years later. People are still buying cars, but GM is stuck. The United Methodist Church has  lost about three million members  since 1970.  The number of people attending at least one Church of England service each month is down by 50% since 1968. Today  less than three percent of the population attends services . Denominations are stuck. I get to work with and communicate with