SBC Indy Down 1,300 Messengers Over 4 Years
What story does these numbers tell?
I was curious about the difference between the 2004 SBC Indy and the 2008 SBC Indy. Here are the best numbers I could find, you write the story.
- 2004 - “about 8,500″ via 2004 BP News story
- 2008 - “7,196″ via 2008 BP News Blog
So, there were roughly 1,304 fewer messengers in the same city, only four years later. That’s around a 15% drop in attendance.
Any theories?
15 comments
Maybe higher gas prices? Or an overestimation in ‘04? At any rate, I bet with twittering, blogs, live video stream, etc., more people are following this convention than perhaps ever before.
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That really quite surprises me.
I would have guessed the opposite, a dramatic increase.
This year there was controversy about the president, buzz about membership resolutions, and general concern over declining figures.
There is, I assume, a general apathy toward the annual meeting, but I really expected an increase since there was some stuff going down.
Was there anything out of the ordinary going on in 2004? I can’t remember anything.
That was B.B. for me, Before Blogging.
GUNNY HARTMAN’s last blog post..Well, I’m in the amazing business.
Economy slow-down
High hotel costs
Gas prices
Flooding in S. Indiana (closed I-65)
Those right there are reason enough to drop attendance by 1300.
Or are you trying to say something else?
Scott’s last blog post..Lakeland “Revival”
i can hear dr. page speaking to the crowd from where i can sit right now.
tell you what i think, as a first time attender:
- lack of major discernable battleground issues (although congrats to tom ascol and the ‘founders’ bunch on getting rigorous regenerate church membership resolution amended and passed).
- lack of focus on the theme - with few exceptions, the reports have been general and lacking teeth (clear application)
- poor preaching at the pastor’s conference. lots of funny moments. lots of free stuff. but the denomination of greats like mohler, rogers, york, dever, and stanley filled it’s pastor’s conference with non-expositional preaching. young guys are going elsewhere for conferences…. this needs to be addressed.
my thoughts. anyone else?
pastakeith’s last blog post..Psalms of David
I know that several of my young pastor friends stayed home because they can only go to so many events a year, and they prefer conferences over conventions. If you are reformed (as most of these guys are), you’ve got the Piper conference, the MacArthur conference, the Sproul conference, T4G, etc. The number of these things keep increasing. You can’t go to everything, and often I think the convention loses out. I think the motion that was made concerning using convention week to offer seminars and theological classes was a helpful one that would help attendance at the convention.
Justin Nale’s last blog post..McArthur’s Millennial Manifesto
Good points about gas prices and access to information via blogs and video, etc.
If one has a limited amount of budget for conference action, is this the most bang for ministry buck as far as edification goes?
GUNNY HARTMAN’s last blog post..No? Okay, then shut your piehole and listen to me when I say that I am FINISHED with the checking-of-the-bags CONVERSATION.
I agree with Scott, but I think an additional reason is that older ministers are retiring, dying, losing health, losing convention allowance from churches, etc. at a faster rate than the convention is engaging the younger pastor.
Disagree re: “poor preaching at pastor’s conference” comment. Eliff, Wicker and Litton, especially strong, imo. But maybe I needed it more than others who disagree.
Thought PC set the tone for a convention that finally passed Regenerate Church Membership motion.
I think it is a combination of things. Gas prices and the flooding may have had an effect, though minimal. The SBC attendance has been on a downward trend for more than a decade now. Small churches, which make up as much as 80% of the membership of the SBC, are finding it more and more difficult to afford the sharp increases in air fare or other travel costs, including hotel rates which are up significantly nationwide. Indianapolis was not bad in that regard, compared to other places that the SBC favors. And the fact of the matter is that the convention registration is now feeling the effect of declining, aging membership that is finally showing up in denominational statistics. Just by observation, it would be easy to conclude that better than 75% of the messengers were from 50 on up, with a considerable segment of individuals in their 60’s and 70’s. In a decade, if they are not replaced with younger convention goers, and clearly they are not, attendance will be affected by half, perhaps more than that.
It is time for the SBC to consider alternative ways of conducting business, including allowing messengers to register and vote on line. Indianapolis is a reasonably priced city as far as conventions go, there were empty rooms near the convention center for less than $100 a night, but airfares were high, because it is a small airport and to get there from many places requires a plane change.. Since we had to rent a car anyway, we flew into Chicago and drove down, and saved $500 on air fare. I’ll go to Louisville, because, like Indianapolis, it is a relatively inexpensive convention city, and I can fly to Nashville for half the fare and drive up. But Orlando is out. I won’t spend a dime in that overpriced, sweltering, mosquito pit, where they are trained to reach into your pockets and legally rob you blind.
Lee Saunders’s last blog post..Strong Coffee: “Invite Johnny Hunt to Address the BGCT”
You know, when you think of all the costs involved in the annual meeting, one wonders if it’s all worth it.
After all, what is it that we necessarily need to have a great number of people there to accomplish?
There are (allegedly) millions of Southern Baptists, but a tiny few who show up to these things.
How many churches are even represented?
The reports could be emailed, put on a website, and/or mailed (if we just had to spend that kind of money). Voting could be done online, just as the ACP can be done online.
Think about how much money Lottie Moon would get if we took all the convention costs and applied them to foreign missions (minus whatever you’d have to spend to perform the same functions).
I’m not against the annual meeting so much. I just wonder if it’s worth the time, energy, and costs associated.
GUNNY HARTMAN’s last blog post..Your dad could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves.
I’m not sure there was much “business” being conducted - aside from a few key votes. It was a lot of information and some marketing the Cooperative Program’s brand.
It’s like a trade show.
Gunny,
My local association was offering “Full Scholarships” paid for by the SBC to any pastor willing to attend… and a free ride…
I am not sure if this was something that was available for all Southern Baptist Pastors or not, but if it was then the price of Gas is not the reason for poor attendance.
What does it say about the health of the annual convention when the SBC is willing to pay pastors to attend?
Grace Always,
Greg Alford’s last blog post..Anti-Great-Commission Policy?
Thanks for sharing that, Greg.
I’ve never heard of such an offer, but I can assure you it would motivate at least one more to go.
My church couldn’t afford it and I certainly couldn’t personally, so it was never really on the table.
But, if someone would have paid my lodging and travel expenses, I’d probably go every year, but especially to Indy, because they have White Castles.
GUNNY HARTMAN’s last blog post..Isms, in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism, he should believe in himself.
I remember a time when I was yet in High School, pre OK corral, then people would talk for weeks in advance about the upcoming convention, caravan in masse and attend whatever it was that was offered at the time, and come home and chitter and chatter for weeks again about the convention that they had just attended, and how it would be next year…what has changed the voting mechanism?
This was also my first time attending the Convention. I agree with what Tony said here. It really lacked much business other than the regenerate church membership resolution and the normal stuff of electing a president. It was a bunch of advertisements for the CP and the seminaries mostly. I live in central Indiana, so I went. I’ll go to Louisville, but I won’t travel any further to go in the future. It isn’t worth it.
As for the Pastor’s Conference: I agree with pastakeith when he said: ” - poor preaching at the pastor’s conference. lots of funny moments. lots of free stuff. but the denomination of greats like mohler, rogers, york, dever, and stanley filled it’s pastor’s conference with non-expositional preaching. young guys are going elsewhere for conferences…. this needs to be addressed.”
The preaching I thought was terrible. James MacDonald was the only real preacher there. He was the only one that stuck to the Bible and let the Word speak through him. And he isn’t even a Southern Baptist! I agreed with the theme of the conference and some of the points the others made. But nonetheless, the “sermons” weren’t text-driven. They quoted a few verses and mutilated them to say what they wanted to pontificate about, rather than letting God speak through His Word as it is our responsibility to do.
This is why us younger guys don’t go to these things. I went because it was close. I’ll go again in Louisville because it’s close. I won’t go after that unless something dramatically changes. T4G is far more important to me than this. If I am looking for spiritual refreshment, it won’t be found for me at the SBC.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m a die-hard Southern Baptist preacher and am not ashamed of it. I don’t even call myself a Christian when someone asks. I prefer to be called Southern Baptist because I’m not ashamed of that and a Baptist is a Christian with good theology. (See my blog for a recent post about that. “Are you just a Chrisitan?”) Nonetheless, there are far better and more edifying conferences for me to go to that I can actually be refreshed at. I agree…this Convention needs some changing if it wants to engage the younger generation. If it doesn’t, in twenty to thirty years when the older crowd has been glorified with Jesus, nobody will show up!
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