Southern Baptist churches saw sustained growth in attendance and baptisms, but the two-decade membership decline continued in 2025.
Total Southern Baptist Convention membership fell by more than 3% from 2024 to 2025, dipping to 12,331,954, according to the Annual Church Profile (ACP) compiled by Lifeway Research in cooperation with Baptist state conventions.
While fewer members belong to Southern Baptist congregations, more people are attending worship services and small groups and are being baptized.
On average, nearly 4.5 million people attend a Southern Baptist church each week, while more than 2.6 million participate in a small group Bible study or Sunday School class — both up more than 3% compared to 2024 and up for the fourth consecutive year.
Five years and counting
Meanwhile, the number of baptisms increased by nearly 5% to well over a quarter of a million, marking five consecutive years of growth and surpassing pre-COVID levels.
Not all state conventions collect giving data, but among those that do, undesignated receipts in 2025 grew by almost 1% to $9,639,343,162.
In addition to some states not collecting information, in some areas, not all Southern Baptist churches report data for the annual census. In 2025, 61% of churches reported at least one non-financial item. The lack of reporting from some churches could be hiding larger attendance gains for the SBC.
Membership continues to shrink
Last year, the SBC marked its 19th consecutive year of membership decline, falling to levels last seen in 1973.
“Church closures and churches cleaning up their membership rolls to reflect those people God has currently entrusted to them have negative impacts on total membership numbers. Churches with more than four times as many members as their average attendance are either unhealthy or need to clean up their membership records,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research.
The states with at least half a million Southern Baptist church members include Texas (2,353,814), Georgia (1,122,485), Tennessee (1,036,601), Alabama (910,961), North Carolina (833,748), Florida (760,058), Kentucky (644,879), South Carolina (580,039) and Mississippi (575,925).
Unprecedented baptism growth
In 2025, 263,075 people were baptized in a Southern Baptist church, up 4.96% from the previous year. This is the first time in the past 75 years the SBC has seen five consecutive years of increases in baptisms. The numbers have not only rebounded since the pandemic but have now surpassed levels from 2017.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This report was written by Aaron Earls and originally released by Lifeway Christian Resources.
