For the fifth year in a row there has been a decline in attendance at Baptist churches. There are three main reasons for this.

Firstly, we are not doing enough effective evangelism. It isn’t easy in today’s secular world and many Christians have lost confidence in even witnessing to their faith. They are not being taught how to evangelise. In a recent survey in Britain of 1100 evangelical churches only 35 had given their people any training in evangelism in the last five years. I suspect that it is the same here.

This needs to start at the top at Carey [Baptist College]. Our ministers need to be taught evangelism and apologetics so that they can teach their people.

Many of our churches have largely substituted social work for evangelism when the two should go hand in hand, if you look at Jesus’ ministry. Because our people don’t have the confidence to witness, with tact and grace, many of them say nothing and some are afraid that to do so would drive people away from their social activity.

Evangelism in many parts of New Zealand is now cross-cultural and requires the understanding of other religions. This could be included in the further education requirements for our pastors.

The second cause of Baptist decline springs from an over-emphasis on the autonomy of the local church, something pointed out by our National Leader in the December NZ Baptist. This is unbliblical and is having a detrimental effect on our movement.

Many Baptists have little allegiance to our denomination and are easily attracted away to churches of other groups when they are larger and appear to offer more. In some cases, instead of our churches working together, we act in competition to one another. Further, large churches which have multi-staff and plenty of musical talent ignore the needs of small, struggling churches. When they do offer help, the small churches, because of their independent spirit, resent this. This independence also means some churches don’t want help from consultants.

Thirdly, although we are seeing record numbers of young people attending our Easter camps, we have a large drop-out rate. Young people are presented with a more complex world offering a greater variety of ideas and experience than ever before. In some of our youth groups we are not teaching them what it means “not to perish but to have everlasting life.” What is presented to them is too narrow and too shallow intellectually instead of liberating and fulfilling.

Young Christians, more than any other group, are also attracted to large vibrant churches, some of which consist of mainly young people like themselves. Maybe Baptist churches in some areas could agree to centralise their youth work in one church.

I have dealt with the question of Baptist decline in more detail in a paper that I will send to anyone who emails me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . My great concern is that if we don’t do something urgently we will be faced with a steady decline like some other mainline denominations.

– Terry Smith
Auckland