Church Strengthening hopes to combat church decline
Many churches are experiencing decline. It is true that churches were impacted by the pandemic. We’ve heard from several of our Georgia Baptist pastors that their membership or attendance has dropped since 2020. This isn’t isolated to Georgia. The problem is that the decline is not a new discovery — it started happening way before the pandemic. A survey of 15,278 religious congregations across the United States confirms trends sociologists have documented for several decades: Congregational life across the country is shrinking. (Yonat Shimron, “Study: Attendance Hemorrhaging at Small and Midsize US Congregations,” Religion News Service, Oct. 14, 2021).
We can point to multiple explanations for why this is the case. However, the goal is not to bemoan the culture in which we live. Doing so without taking any action to rectify the situation would lead to throwing up our hands in exasperation. Rather, the goal is to determine how best to impact the communities where God has planted us. As a church leader, you need to know you don’t have to go at this alone.
We exist to help churches advance the gospel.
We do this by engaging, equipping and empowering your church to take its next step in ministry. The Church Strengthening team is composed of experienced and well-trained staff who can help any church of any size. We can help you assess any needs you may have and help prioritize your next step, whether building a strong discipleship ministry, developing missions-mindedness, nurturing an evangelism culture, establishing a worship structure or growing future leaders.
We win as a team when we help you win as a church.
We all long for the day when churches are no longer on the decline. We want to see churches strengthened. When churches are strengthened, so is the momentum of sharing the gospel in our communities, across the state and around the world. We believe the best days of your church can be ahead. We want to help you get there. So take advantage of your Church Strengthening team at the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. Get started by reaching out to your local consultants in your region. You can find contact information on gabaptist.org on each ministry page or in the directory in the site map near the bottom of the homepage.
Published April 8, 2022