July 15, 2025
DALLAS (BP) — Georgia ranked fourth this year among states for the number of registered messengers for the Southern Baptist Convention's 2025 Annual Meeting in Dallas. Unsurprisingly, the host state Texas, which is home to two state conventions comprising thousands of churches, drew more than three times as many messengers as any other, the latest registration statistics show.
The 2,171 messengers from Texas churches were more than three times the number from Tennessee, which had the second-highest total with 695 registered messengers, according to figures released Monday, June 16, by Jonathan Howe, vice president for convention administration with the SBC Executive Committee.
SBC Registration Secretary Don Currence said Texas’ high participation was expected.
“That’s usually the norm that wherever the convention is being held, that normally in the southern states, they’re going to have the largest attendance,” Currence told Baptist Press. “Now, when we go further north, that’s not always the case, but as in the South, when we’re in Nashville, when we’re in Orlando and such, home states are going to have the largest attendance because they get the most messengers.”
Additionally, proximity also allows daily attendance without the cost of hotel stays, Currence said,
Texas messengers accounted for one-fifth – or 20.48 percent – of the total messenger count of 10,599 at the meeting June 10-11 in Dallas.
Across the annual meeting, 3,899 churches were represented, with 3,863 sending messengers and 36 sending only guests.
Currence said the phenomenon of churches sending only guests is somewhat unusual, but “most likely” is attributable to the timing of new church plants.
“We have lots of new church plants from (the North American Mission Board),” Currence said. “In order to be a messenger … for the convention we just finished, you have to give between October 1 (2023) through September of 2024. Well, probably most of these are new church starts who gave after that date, or maybe even this year.”
Registering as guests allows participants to experience the annual meeting, Currence pointed out, but they don't have the opportunity to receive ballots and make motions. But this year's guests may register as messengers in Orlando in 2026, provided their churches meet the qualifications as cooperating churches in the pertinent period.
Texas is home to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention with more than 2,800 churches, and the Baptist General Convention of Texas, which boasts 5,300 affiliated churches across Texas and beyond.
Following Texas and Tennessee, other top 10 messenger-sending states were Oklahoma, 650; Georgia; Florida, 621; North Carolina, 621; Alabama, 601; Mississippi, 492; Louisiana, 491; and Missouri, 428.
The top sending non-southern states were California, 240; Illinois, 172; Ohio, 160; Kansas, 122, and Indiana, 110.
Total registration at the 2025 meeting was 18,173, including 4,141 guests and 3,433 exhibitors, with attendance from all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
Cooperating Southern Baptist churches are allowed to register between two and 12 messengers, based on financial contributions as stipulated in Article III of the SBC Constitution.
A plurality of participating churches, 1,533, registered two messengers, followed by 1,070 that registered 1, according to data released by the EC. Forty-five churches registered the maximum number of 12 messengers.
Other churches ranged in the middle, with 363 registering 3; 344 registering 4; 160 – 5; 55 –7; 53 – 8; 29 – 9; 43 – 10; and 30 registering 11 messengers.
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This story appeared in Baptist Press.
