Southern Baptists

[IggyAntiochus]

Reminds me of a church sign I saw once:
“We’re the friendly church in town”
Not like those other churches in town where they bar you at the door./QUOTE

LOL

 

[Zenas]

Like where? You just want me to name one that’s not in the southern U.S.? Here’s a few in New York. cnyba.org/index.php

This is the third time in this thread i have acknowledged there are Southern Baptist churches in all 50 states and all the Canadian provinces. But I’m not going to back down from my position that they are marginal at best outside the South. The website you referenced makes my point. 45 Southern Baptist churches in a population of 1,760,000. That comes to one church per 39,000 population. We don’t know the size of each one but let’s be generous and say their average membership is 200. That means Southern Baptists comprise 1/2 of 1% of the population of central New York.

They are marginal. They want to grow and taking the word “Southern” out of the convention’s name will probably help their efforts. My fear is that it will be a turn off for those who, like Lindsey Graham, consider themselves children of the South.

Not all SBC churches have southern baptist in their name. Especially the ones up north or overseas. Again, this leads to a name change. The SBC represents a lot more than the American south.

A point well taken, which means I may have seen a SBC church in Washington without knowing what it was. However, I maintain that 90% or more of all Southern Baptists are in the South.

I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Are you a southern baptist? Or are southern baptists asking you for help? As to the SBC being weak in Idaho, Oregon, and Missouri? I can’t say, haven’t been there in years. But years ago when I lived in MO the SBC church I attended was pretty large, and strong.

Southern Baptists in places like Idaho and Oregon receive assistance from Southern Baptists in the South. Surely you know of the NAMB and its various initiatives to get strong churches to go into areas where the SBC churches are either weak or absent and help out. That’s as it should be. But I mention it to emphasize that outside the South the SBC is weak and marginal.

And I don’t really understand why you would think a church would be unable to support itself. All you need is someone’s home, some folding chairs, and some cassarole (we are baptists after all ).

All I know is that every year teams go out from our church to places in the north and the west to build churches, repair churches, conduct vacation bible schools, and do similar projects. We also send a lot of money to the NAMB, who provides on site counsel and financial support to these areas.

 

[mitex]

The Northern Baptists became American Baptists?

 

[Zenas]

The Northern Baptists became American Baptists?

Yes, I think about 1950.