Jesus said he came “to seek and to save the lost” Luke 19:10

The Baptist Faith and Message says that it “is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and every church of the Lord Jesus Christ… to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ.”

Being spiritually lost is described in the Bible as being alienatedfrom God, guided by the flesh, perishing, under wrath, and many more terrifying descriptions for the present and eternal life of an individual. Followers of Christ must be committed to follow His example and command to seek and save the lost.

One of the assumptions that kills the mission to the lost is that we think most people are already saved or have a church they attend. Below is a compilation of Parish by Parish data that shows how many are potentially lost, how many evangelicals there are, and how many attend southern baptist churches across Louisiana.

The tool used calculates Spiritual Lostness by:

• # of non religious adherents + cults
• # of Christian adherents (all denominations including Roman Catholics) minus 60% of total (using Barna’s figure that 60% of people that claim to be Christian, do not profess to believe in Christ as a means of salvation)
• Add 60% to non-adherents + cults = number of lost individuals
• Also shown is how many may be reached by a non-traditional or new church. 50% of the lost say they would attend church if invited. So, 50% would not. These are the radically unreached.

Yes. You can probably poke holes in the data, or you can say, “What if this is true?” – “What will it take to reach that many people in my community?” “Is my church able to reach the lost as it is?” “What am I doing to change these numbers?” If you could start a movement to reach thousands of lost in your community or region or the state, what would it to look like?

• SBC Attendance numbers are from 2018 Annual Church Profile Data.
• Population figures are from the 2010 Census. We’ll be looking forward to updating this with new 2020 Data in the very near future.
• Data on Adherents is mostly from The Association of Religious Data Archives – thearda.com.

Lostness Across Louisiana

• Parish by Parish LINK (includes populaton, evangelical population, SBC attendance, church to population ratio)
• Louisiana Worksheet LINK 

• Estimate shows that 76% of Louisiana may be spiritually lost. That is over 3.4 million!
• 28% of Louisiana’s population are evangelicals.
• 26% are Roman Catholic.
• 41% are none’s or non-affiliated.
• Only 3.5% of Louisianians attend an SBC church. Less than 8% of the population are resident members of an SBC church.

If you add all these numbers to the fact that baptisms, worship attendance, and Bible Study attendance are all down and at historic lows for Southern Baptist in Louisiana, it points to our need of a movement of God to turn the tide of lostness in our state. Revitalization? Yes! Crusade Evangelism? Yes! Sunday School Growth? Yes! Church Planting? Yes! We need all hands and all ideas on deck!

How goes it in your Parish? 

Here are Parish by Parish Worksheets on Lostness throughout Louisiana –

1. Acadia Parish
2. Allen Parish
3. Ascension Parish
4. Assumption Parish
5. Avoyelles Parish
6. Beauregard Parish
7. Bienville Parish
8. Bossier Parish
9. Caddo Parish
10. Calcasieu Parish
11. Caldwell Parish
12. Cameron Parish
13. Catahoula Parish
14. Claiborne Parish
15. Concordia Parish
16. De Soto Parish
17. East Baton Rouge Parish
18. East Carroll Parish
19. East Feliciana Parish
20. Evangeline Parish
21. Franklin Parish
22. Grant Parish
23. Iberia Parish
24. Iberville Parish
25. Jackson Parish
26. Jefferson Davis Parish
27. Jefferson Parish
28. Lafayette Parish
29. Lafourche Parish
30. LaSalle Parish
31. Lincoln Parish
32. Livingston Parish
33. Madison Parish
34. Morehouse Parish
35. Natchitoches Parish
36. Orleans Parish
37. Ouachita Parish
38. Plaquemines Parish
39. Pointe Coupee Parish
40. Rapides Parish
41. Red River Parish
42. Richland Parish
43. Sabine Parish
44. St. Bernard Parish
45. St. Charles Parish
46. St. Helena Parish
47. St. James Parish
48. St. John the Baptist Parish
49. St. Landry Parish
50. St. Martin Parish
51. St. Mary Parish
52. St. Tammany Parish
53. Tangipahoa Parish
54. Tensas Parish
55. Terrebonne Parish
56. Union Parish
57. Vermilion Parish
58. Vernon Parish
59. Washington Parish
60. Webster Parish
61. West Baton Rouge Parish
62. West Carroll Parish
63. West Feliciana Parish
64. Winn Parish