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The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a fixture of the religious landscape in the American South, where grits, Republican politics, and SEC football are king. But the region where you\u2019re most likely to find a growing Southern Baptist church is the land of lobster rolls, progressive politics, and Boston Red Sox baseball: New England.<\/p>\n
A new analysis by Lifeway Research<\/a> found that the area spanning Connecticut to Maine was the only place to see an uptick in SBC church membership over the past five years. But the growth in the Lifeway report was miniscule\u2014a 1 percent increase in a region with fewer than 1 percent of SBC churches\u2014compared to the widespread decline across the denomination.<\/p>\n Southern Baptist membership decreased everywhere else during the same time period, with the biggest drops in the Pacific (down 22%) and West North Central (down 14%) regions.<\/p>\n Still, for pastors in the region with 358 of the SBC\u2019s 47,198 churches, the growth in New England was \u201can absolute encouragement, an affirmation of what God is doing here,\u201d said Aaron Cavin, Send City missionary for Boston with the SBC\u2019s North American Mission Board (NAMB).<\/p>\n Calvin recently shared the data with local church planters at a training session, and \u201cit was a celebration,\u201d he said. \u201cIt almost makes us a bit more resolute.\u201d<\/p>\n According to NAMB, Southern Baptists have planted 1,018 churches in the Northeast since 2010, an average of around 44 churches per year. That includes New England along with New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.<\/p>\n While the Lifeway statistics measured church growth only among existing congregations that reported membership numbers in 2017 and 2022, hundreds of SBC churches have started in New England since then.<\/p>\n The growth in Southern Baptists among all churches in the region is even more pronounced: New England church membership jumped from 27,668 to 30,265, a 9.4 percent increase. Over the same time period, total SBC church membership decreased 11.9 percent. Baptisms in New England fell by just 1.1 percent, while total SBC baptisms decreased 29.1 percent.<\/p>\n Political polarization and creative outreach by New England churches may be two factors fueling church growth, said Vermont pastor Dan Molind.<\/p>\n The region \u201cis getting more polarized,\u201d said Molind, pastor of Enough Ministries in Barre, Vermont. \u201cThere is less middle ground. If you\u2019re a conservative, you\u2019re getting pushed toward the evangelical church. If you\u2019re more liberal, then perhaps you\u2019re falling away from that. As an effort to preserve our values and what we see as truth, more people are becoming aware of and are seeking out the evangelical church.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYankee stoicism\u201d that values going it alone rather than relying on God makes evangelism difficult, Molind said. Plus, a Vermont aversion to visiting people at their homes makes it challenging to invite neighbors to church. That has forced Enough Ministries to reach people through a soup kitchen, food pantry, addiction recovery ministry, and clothes closet.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have something that will help their brokenness physically,\u201d he said, \u201cand that opens opportunities for us to help them with their real spiritual need.\u201d<\/p>\n Church growth varied across states. In New England, three states saw total church membership increase over the past five years while three others decreased.<\/p>\n Maine led the way with 25 percent growth among SBC churches. Rhode Island and Vermont followed with 11 and 9 percent increases respectively. New Hampshire churches posted the largest membership decrease in New England at 18 percent. Massachusetts churches decreased by 5 percent and Connecticut congregations by 4 percent, Lifeway Research told CT.<\/p>\n Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, cautioned that the sample size in Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hampshire is smaller than it normally would report. \u201cBut these do reflect the small size of these state associations, and we wanted to show all states,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Southern Baptist work in Vermont \u201chas been particularly exciting,\u201d said Terry Dorsett, executive director of the Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE), a regional Baptist convention that cooperates with the SBC. He cited an Association of Religion Data Archives report<\/a> that Vermont\u2019s evangelical population doubled between 2010 and 2020. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful example that God is bigger than statistics and sometimes God does things that statistics can\u2019t really explain well.\u201d<\/p>\n Maine\u2019s Southern Baptist growth \u201chas been pretty phenomenal as well,\u201d Dorsett said.<\/p>\n The growth hasn\u2019t come easily, though. New Englanders hold a \u201cstrong misconception\u201d that Southern Baptists are racists, Dorsett said. To overcome that stereotype, New England Southern Baptists point to their own ethnic composition: 57 percent of BCNE churches are predominantly non-Anglo. The slate of officers expected to be elected at next month\u2019s BCNE annual meeting is entirely non-Anglo.<\/p>\n Loneliness also is a challenge for New England Southern Baptist pastors\u2014especially in the northernmost regions where SBC churches are few and far between. Cavin thinks an increasingly robust pastor support network in New England may be tied to the growth of church membership.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the last seven to ten years, what we\u2019ve seen is a lot more of that familial bond happen and the intentionality we put into caring,\u201d Cavin said, \u201cand making sure that [pastors\u2019] spouses are cared for and families are cared for.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, New England Baptists say no statistical analysis can fully explain their growth. They point to the power of God and the persistence of churches as the key factors. Cavin experienced both recently when a neighbor to whom he has been witnessing for 14 years committed his life to Christ and was baptized.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re excited about is the transformation of individual lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n David Roach is a freelance reporter for CT and pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.<\/p>\n