We are now less than two months away from Sept. 30, which marks the end of the fiscal year for the Southern Baptist Convention and a calendar reminder for our congregations to submit their individual reports to the Annual Church Profile.
The ACP numbers matter.
When I became moderator of my local association, I considered setting some goals for increasing attendance and baptisms. My first step was to look at “the data” to create a baseline, and I discovered the numbers were “off.”
What I mean is there were no discernible trends.
One year we were up, the next down. Even the numbers from a decade ago seemed suspect because of this undulation.
As I dug deeper, what I realized is that several churches were not reporting their numbers every year. And it only took a couple to throw off the numbers for the entire association.
Missing reports
I’ve since discovered that 15–20 percent of Louisiana Baptist churches don’t fill out and return the ACP. What’s the percentage in your state?
Importantly, this is a problem for making decisions about cooperative ministries such as where to plant a church and what congregations might need revitalization assistance.
Then I began to wonder if this could also account for at least some of the reported overall declines for the SBC in terms of attendance and baptisms.
Twitter campaign
So, I’m on a campaign to ask our leaders at all levels to make some noise about the ACP between now and Sept. 30.
Use the hashtag #TurnInTheACP to remind others to respond to the ACP surveys and urge others to join in the conversation on Twitter @acp_2021.
Otherwise, simply give some visibility to the effort in your conversations and encounters with others.
The bottom line is congregations need good numbers to plan their ministry efforts, local associations need good numbers to pull together to reach area communities, state conventions need the numbers to strategically focus larger joint efforts to win states to Christ, and the national convention needs good numbers in order to effectively use the wealth of resources we send to those causes to share the gospel in our country and beyond.
We all need good numbers.
Moreover, it’s not too big a task — something like 20 questions, maybe fewer. But the information makes a difference on planning the work to share Christ effectively on all levels.
Numbers are not everything. But they do matter.
Unless the Lord returns, Sept. 30, 2021, is coming. Be ready.
Editor’s Note — This article was written by Clark Palmer, pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Tioga, Louisiana, and moderator of CenLa Baptist Association. It was originally published in the Louisiana Baptist Message.
