The Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) annual meeting drew 7,321 messengers to St. Louis, Missouri, on June 14–15 from the nation’s 46,000-plus Southern Baptist churches.
The unofficial total is 35 percent above 2015’s 5,407 messengers in Columbus, Ohio.
When registered guests, exhibitors and others are included, the count of those at the 2016 SBC annual meeting rose to 11,581.
SBC registration secretary Jim Wells said the results were higher than his pre-meeting estimate.
“I thought we’d have between 6,000 and 7,000,” he said. “7,321 is very good. The location being very accessible and the election year made a difference.”
Missouri churches turned out in force in St. Louis, the first time the SBC annual meeting has met in their state since 2002. Their 877 messengers dwarfed their 2015 total of 182 in Columbus and represented the largest single contingent of messengers.
371 Alabamians
Alabama registered 371 messengers, up from 226 in Columbus.
The 2017 convention will be held June 13–14 in Phoenix, Arizona. The 2018 convention will be in Dallas and the 2019 in Birmingham.
(BP)
Share with others: