Recently I attended a seminar with Dr. Bill Day on evangelistic church growth. Dr. Day, defines a Healthy, Growing Church as a church that has had:

• 10% growth over a 5 year period.
• At least one baptism per year in that period.
• An attender to baptism ratio of 15:1.

I like this formula, because it helps us see that not every church that is a healthy church is a growing church. And not every church that is growing, grows by evangelistic growth. This formula cuts through the pack to get to the healthy, evangelistic, growing churches. 

His research shows that in 2015, only 5.4% of the 40,000+ Southern Baptist churches in North America were healthy and growing by this definition. And this number is in decline! In 2007, it was 7.1%. In 2010, it was 6.8%.

Louisiana’s Healthy and Growing Churches

I was curious about Louisiana churches in regard to Dr. Day’s formula, so I asked Shana Johnson, Leader our Louisiana Baptist Information Services Team for a little help. Here’s the report:

• 163 Louisiana Baptist churches, or 10%, grew by 10% growth between 2012 and 2016.
• Only 88 Louisiana Baptist churches, or 5.4%, were healthy and growing churches between 2012 and 2016; with 10% growth, 1 baptism per year, and a 15:1 attender to baptism ratio.

Below is some info on these churches. More on some of the individual churches in the list later. Apply this formula to your church and see where you stand.

Where are these churches?

• 40 are in south Louisiana, 48 are in north Louisiana.
• 7 in NELA, 22 in NWLA, 15 in Central LA, 14 in SWLA,  30 in SELA.

How old are these churches?

• 7 are less than 10 years old
• 14 are 11-25 years old
• 10 are 26-50 years old
• 27 are 50-100 years old
• 32 are 100+ years old

What’s the size of these churches?

• 5,000+ – 1
• 1,000-4,999 – 3
• 500-999 – 6
• 250-499 – 13
• 100-249 – 31
• 1-99 – 35

By Louisiana Baptist Association:

• Acadia – 3
• Greater Baton Rouge – 5
• Bayou – 4
• Beaureguard – 2
• Bienville – 1
• Big Creek – 1
• Carey – 1
• Concord Union – 4
• Deer Creek – 1
• Delta – 2
• Desoto – 1
• Eastern LA – 5
• Evangeline – 2
• Gulf Coast – 3
• LaSalle – 2
• Louisiana – 2
• Moorehouse – 1
• Natchitoches – 4
• New Orleans – 4
• North Central – 2
• North Rapides – 3
• North Sabine – 4
• Northeast – 1
• Northshore – 8
• Northwest – 8
• Ouachita – 1
• Richland – 3
• Sabine – 2
• Vernon – 1
• Webster – 4
• William Wallace – 1