PHOENIX -- Making a greater effort to reach out to millennials and converting them to Christ must be a priority, members of the Southern Baptist Messianic Fellowship said Sunday during their annual business meeting held in conjunction with the Southern Baptist Convention.
Addressing the lack of millennials in Christian and Jewish evangelism was the main topic of the meeting, which took place at First Arabic Baptist Church. It was among numerous meetings associated with Southern Baptist affiliates and taking place over two days preceding the annual Southern Baptist Convention, which begins Tuesday at the Phoenix Convention Center.
Southern Baptists are the largest Baptist denomination in the world and the largest Protestant organization in the country, with just more than 15.2 million members in the United States, according to figures released Thursday in Lifeway's Annual Church Profile.
Messianic Judaism centers on the Christian belief in Jesus as the savior and incorporates elements and traditions of Judaism.
The Southern Baptist Messianic Fellowship, which works with the North American Mission Board, defines millennials as adults between the ages of 18 and 35, a group that many within the fellowship believe is critical to the denomination's long-term success.
At the heart of Sunday's discussion was the age group's daily use of technology and social media, which led fellowship members to vote unanimously to increase its outreach efforts geared toward millennials through social media.
"The baby boomer generation thought that you had to go to meetings," said Mike Saffle, a pastor from Anchorage, Alaska. "[Millennials] go on YouTube and see what happened at the meetings. They can impact the world through social media."
Bruce Stokes, vice president and director of admissions for the fellowship, said there is a need to increase church membership by converting younger people to Christ, also known as "soul winning."
Even though Southern Baptists remain the nation's largest Protestant group, their numbers have declined for 10 consecutive years. Southern Baptist numbers declined about 77,800 from 2015-16, according to Lifeway's Annual Church Profile, and baptisms nationwide decreased by more than 14,000.
"We're driving a dinosaur here," Stokes said.
Amy Karen Downey, CEO of Tzedakah Ministries in Texas, also emphasized the need to be more progressive in efforts to pave the way to a future for Jewish evangelism and to make it relevant in the 21st century.
"We have lost the battle if I, at 47, am the youngest person in the room ... and the only person in the room concerned about this issue," she said.
The group also noted statistics that show younger Americans are moving toward secularism and not adhering to a particular faith. Downey quoted a Pew Research Center study that said 36 percent of Jewish millennials who were asked their religion replied 'none.'
"They will say, 'Yes, I am Jewish, but my religion is none,'" Downey said.
In response to the need to reach millennials, Downey said Tzedakah Ministries has started Explore Messiah, an outreach program aimed at reaching Jews and spreading the gospel of Jesus by using Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media.
She said other outreach efforts in the past year have included beginning a coffee house fellowship in Dallas for the city's gay Jewish community, and attempting to reach an area with a dense population of prostitutes in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Saffle said his ministry in Anchorage will pursue outreach efforts geared toward intermarried couples. The Jewish population in Anchorage numbers around 5,000, Saffle said, and 70 percent of secular male Jews are married to Christian women.
There was "no place in the church to really help them work through that," Saffle said.
While much of the discussion centered on reaching new groups, Esther Garrett of Walnut Ridge cautioned that it is important to reach out to older generations as well.
"We have a lot of seniors in Arkansas," said Garrett, who along with her husband, Hal, leads Mishkan Ministries. "Last year, I converted a 76-year-old woman.
"It's never too late to come to Christ."
A Section on 06/12/2017