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Southern Baptists going back to roots

Small churches better, study says Associated Press

Earlier this century, Southern Baptists took over the South with their ability to start congregations in rural areas too small for other denominations to bother with.

All it took was a few people and a lay preacher and you had a church. But in the past 40 years, the denomination took a deliberate turn to larger churches. The smaller churches were closed and merged, and big churches with seminary-trained pastors became the trend.

what they have found is that bigger is not necessarily better, according to a new study in the latest issue of the Review of Religious Research. Increasing the size of congregations has produced a flood of midsize congregations whose members give less in time and money than members of smaller congregations. the study found.

The Southern Baptist Convention is beginning to move back to the "house churches" that first gave the denomination its strength.

"It's rea1y only been in the last generation that we've created these large churches and our smaller churches became midsized churches," said Rev. David Palmer, associate director of the convention's New Church Extension Division. "We made a fatal connection. We sold the idea to be a real church you had to have a fall-time preacher."

In the Review of Religious Research. sociologist Roger Finke of Purdue University traces the subtle but dramatic transformation of the Southern Baptist Convention from a group of small, fiercely independent churches to a 15 million-member denomination of large. congregations increasingly run by professionally trained clergy.

During the past 70 years, congregation size has more than, tripled to nearly 400 members, Finke said, But at the same time churches have been getting larger, what researchers have found is what early Southern Baptists knew all along: There is strength in small numbers.

In small groups, members are more accountable to one another and are able to maintain a high set of religious standards. Supportive social networks, fervent testimonials and a sense of belonging are but a few of the advantages of small religious groups, according to Finke.

The figures bear out a high level of commitment in small churches. Churches with less than 100 members have the highest rate of Sunday School enrollment, with some 86 percent of congregates in churches with less than 50 members participating. in contrast, less than half the members in midsize churches are enrolled in Sunday school

Finke also said the total contribution by member size also is higher among small churches, with an average contribution of $374 per member in. churches of less than 50 members in 1990. Churches of 200 to 300 members reported an average contribution of $235.

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