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The southern baptist Convention is seeing signs of spiritual activity-weekly attendance and baptisms have increased-but it continues to lose members overall and its national-giving remains flat. From 2024 to 2025, SBC membership fell by about 3% to 12.3 million, while 4.5 million attend services weekly and 2.6 million participate in small groups or Sunday School (both up about 3%). Baptisms rose by 5% to more than a quarter million, marking a fifth straight year of increases.<\/p>\n

At the same time, funding for the SBC\u2019s Cooperative Program-which supports seminaries, missions, and public policy-stayed roughly level<\/a>.The article links these mixed results to ongoing internal debates within the denomination, including disputes over whether women can serve as pastors and concerns about perceived \u201cliberal drift\u201d in major national entities like the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. It notes that many conservatives view declines in membership and Cooperative Program giving as evidence of diminished trust in SBC institutions, even as local-church participation appears to improve. <\/p>\n