During December and January, I visited my home. I spoke at some churches and did a little research about the association. You can see a map of where the churches in the association are located in my post Mapping Out. Here are some of the key findings.
In 2008 the average number of baptisms during the year per church was seven. In 2009 baptisms fell to and average of six per church for the year.
In all there were just over 600 baptisms for the entire association in 2009, down over a hundred from the year before. This in an area that encompasses nearly a million people. Worse, more than 300 of those baptisms came from just 13 churches. That means the median number of baptisms (the point at which the same number of churches baptized more as baptized less) was just two.
