Dallas, USA - The number of southern U.S. evangelical Christians is not growing as fast as the wider population, leading to a renewed effort to win converts on the domestic front from key groups like the Hispanic community.
That was one message that came through at a three-day "Empower Evangelism" conference hosted by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, or SBTC, which wrapped up on Wednesday.
"There has been a slowdown of the growth of our churches and our converts ... We have not been keeping pace with the population growth," said Frank Page, president of the national Southern Baptist Convention and a pastor from South Carolina.
Growth is important for the evangelical movement with its heavy emphasis on the "conversion experience."
According to the convention's North American Mission Board, in 1990 the population to church ratio for every Southern Baptist church nationwide was 6,549 to one.
In 2005 the ratio had widened to 6,783 to one, reversing earlier trends. The Southern Baptists did not provide numbers on the broader evangelical movement but it is a telling trend given their zeal.
America still has 60 million evangelicals out of a population of 300 million and about 16 million call themselves Southern Baptists.
They are an influential group in the United States. Politically they are often associated with conservative causes and are a key base of support for the Republican Party.
"In states such as Texas there has been massive population growth especially among ethnic groups and we have not kept pace," Page told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
Much of that growth has been among the Hispanic population which is traditionally Catholic and is viewed as a key target for Protestant evangelical activity.
At this week's conference, Spanish translations were pointedly available for the talks and sermons.
"We are looking to the Hispanic population for growth," said Mike Gonzales, the Hispanic Initiative and Ethnic Ministries Director of the SBTC.
He said there was now 127 Hispanic Baptist churches affiliated with the SBTC compared to 77 just over two years ago -- fast growth but it is very recent and off a low base.
CHANGING OIL FOR CHRIST
Besides reaching out to fast growing ethnic communities the conference also focused broadly on the domestic front with "coffee house" and other forms of evangelism promoted.
"This conference is encouragement for people to redouble their efforts to develop nontraditional and innovative methods in sharing the good news of Christ," Page said.
"My church for example four times a year does a massive 'single mother oil change' where we help fix their cars. We say we just want to show you the love of Christ in a practical way," he said.
Ryan Heller, a 35-year-old pastor in a community just north of Dallas, said he began his evangelical activities with neighborhood festivities that included clowns and parades.
Door-to-door marketing tactics were also employed.
"We started knocking on doors and asking people if they were going to go to a new church in town what they would like to see that church look like and do," he said.
"Our church is conservative theologically but in our church what we practice is very contemporary ... we have very contemporary music and a band which is pretty much a rock band," he said.
In just over three years he said his church had grown from scratch to regular attendance rates of between 300 and 350 -- growth that the movement would like to see elsewhere.