These lists are for the year 2014 as calculated by yours truly with LifeWay’s “SBC Statistics By State Convention.
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Top Ten Richest State Conventions, as measured by total receipts (in millions of dollars)
LifeWay footnotes their chart and says, in effect, ‘don’t pay a lot of attention here because of incomplete data’, which means that the states on top will brag and those who aren’t as high as they think they should be will sniff ‘bad data’.
- Baptist General Convention of Texas 1,674
- Southern Baptists of Texas Convention 1,069
- Georgia 1,034
- North Carolina 855
- Florida 766
- Tennessee 757
- Alabama 719
- South Carolina 557
- Mississippi 518
- Oklahoma 420
What to think about these?
My state convention, Georgia, barely made the SBC’s Billion Dollar Club in 2014. I think 2015 will be a better year and we can maintain our membership in the club.
Top Ten Richest State Conventions by giving per church (in dollars)
- Southern Baptists of Texas 457,620
- Baptist General Convention of Texas 401,376
- Southern Baptists of Virginia 341,978
- Georgia 311,452
- Florida 295,332
- Louisiana 279,643
- South Carolina 263,027
- Tennessee 249,406
- Mississippi 246,588
- Oklahoma 243,910
Only state conventions with at least $100 million in total receipts were calculated.
OK, the average SBCT church has about a half-million dollars in total receipts…but then, there are all those megachurches in Texas that skews the averages.
Top Ten Richest State Convention in Per Capita Giving (in dollars)
- SBC Virginia 1,014
- SBC Texas 928
- South Carolina 838
- Mississippi 794
- BGC Texas 780
- BGA Virginia 770
- Louisiana 767
- Florida 753
- Georgia 734
- Alabama 720
Only state conventions with at least $100 million in total receipts were calculated.
I presume that Dave Cline in Virginia is very well paid, seeing his convention on the top of the heap. My poor Alabama cousins might consider relocating to Texas or SC, or just swing next door to Mississippi for a pay raise.
Did the upstart Southern Baptist Convention of Virginia cherry pick the wealthier churches in Virginia (probably not, maybe they just cleaned their church rolls and got the per capita up).
Obviously, the SEC didn’t make the top spot in any of these lists…’cuz our SBC church members in SEC states put most of their money into football tickets, tailgating, RVs, and beverages.
I apologize to my friends in the smaller, newer state conventions like Wyoming and Montana who didn’t make these lists. I would only make the observation that Beth Moore’s ministry has greater assets than the entire income (individually) of eight or ten of the smaller state conventions.
How about a part two with CP giving per state, per church and per capita? Maybe a Lottie breakdown too.
Miller doesn’t pay me enough to work that hard.
I’ll make sure to get you a bonus–double your yearly Voices salary, for the work.
You get the same money I get!!
Well you did say that the site basically runs itself.
🙂
I would love to know how many households actually contribute this money. Not per capita gifts, per se, but the actual number of households who give, to the CP (through their churches’ budgets) and the LMCO. In other words, how many households actually give something (instead of nothing). I don’t know if the state conventions ask for this info, but I believe it is a necessary component in analyzing these numbers.
The number of “giving units” (and this is the impersonal phrase I’ve seen used a bit) is not a data point that is asked or collected so far as I know.
I think I’ve seen the figure of average undesignated offerings per week divided by average weekly attendance used often. Some of the stewardship people talk about $20/week or $30/week, etc., as an index of giving strength or weakness.
LifeWay footnotes and adjusts their data because a considerable number of churches skip the ACP and state conventions fiddle with the questions.
My state Oklahoma just barely broke through the noise. However, it should be noted that the largest ever CP giving for a fiscal year by an individual church came from Oklahoma. So that must count for something! On a more serious note, with the exception of only about four to eight [depending upon your methodology of dealing with income distribution by census tracts] of the 77 Oklahoma counties 90% of everyone else here in this state is flat broke. I say this a little flippantly but it is true that for states with many rural counties the growing divide between… Read more »
yep
Roger, I am not at the hand-ringing stage you seem to be over the demise of the South. I am not sure what data you are using to support the population decrease but the 2010 US Census revealed the South and West had the fasted growing populations in America. The Census Bureau said, “From 2000 to 2010, regional growth was much faster for the South and West (14.3 and 13.8 percent, respectively) than for the Midwest (3.9 percent) and Northeast (3.2 percent). https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-01.pdf January 31, 2013, Forbes ran an article on how the South will rise again. In the article… Read more »
I shall restate my contention that Lifeway should take over sponsorship of a bowl game in Nashville, to feature an SEC team against anyone else…we’d recoup some of that Southern football money.
Money spent on SEC football is already in the Lord’s work.
Lord Voldemort, Lord Sauron?
Lord Vader… The Dark Lord…
He Who Must Not Be Named?
Lord Voldesaban.
Can you imagine some of the whining and hooting that would take place if they did that?
I’m picturing Mercer vs. Baylor in the Battle of the Escaped Colleges….
Perhaps that would be better put as a “Runaway College Battle.”