The Southern Baptist Convention

Founded in 1845 and incorporated the same year by a charter granted directly by the Georgia legislature, which gave the body authority to receive, hold and dispose of property, to sue and be sued, and to make its own bylaws. That charter predates Georgia's modern corporation statutes, and the Convention is accordingly not governed by the state's present nonprofit corporation act — it is not required to have a board of directors or to conduct its affairs in compliance with the current statute. A denomination often described as the least structured of the large American bodies is in fact operating under an unusually old and unusually permissive corporate instrument.

• governing document Charter of the Southern Baptist Convention (Georgia, 1845) (accessed 2026-07-31)

The Executive Committee, which conducts the Convention's business between annual meetings, is based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Convention's ministries are carried on by separately incorporated entities — mission boards, seminaries, and a benefits agency — rather than from a single head office.

• governing document SBC Executive Committee Bylaws (adopted 16 June 2020) (accessed 2026-07-31)

Calls itself a convention rather than a church, and the distinction is load-bearing rather than decorative. In its own constitution the Convention "does not claim and will never attempt to exercise any authority over any other Baptist body, whether church, auxiliary organizations, associations, or convention." On this account the Convention is something congregations cooperate with, not something they belong to.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

46,608 churches reported in the 2025 Annual Church Profile — roughly twice the number of United Methodist congregations, in a body with far less machinery holding them together.

• statistical 2025 Annual Church Profile, reported by Lifeway Research (May 2026) (accessed 2026-07-31)

12,331,954 members in 2025, with average weekly worship attendance of 4,460,910 and 263,075 baptisms. Membership fell more than 3% from the previous year, the nineteenth consecutive annual decline, while attendance and baptisms rose for the fourth and fifth consecutive years respectively. The divergence is partly an artefact of how a congregational body counts: membership rolls are maintained by each church on its own terms, and some of the decline reflects churches revising rolls rather than losing people.

• statistical 2025 Annual Church Profile, reported by Lifeway Research (May 2026) (accessed 2026-07-31)

The congregation owns its building outright, in its own name, with no denominational interest attached. There is no Southern Baptist equivalent of a trust clause, and the Convention's disclaimer of authority over any other Baptist body leaves it nothing to assert against a deed. Where courts apply neutral principles of law — looking to the deed rather than to church rules — a property held in the local church's name with no trust language stays with the local church. Property is therefore not a lever the Convention holds, and this single fact drives most of what follows: a body that cannot take the building has to rely on money and fellowship instead.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)
• secondary Brotherhood Mutual, 'What Church Leaders Should Know About Trust Clauses' (accessed 2026-07-31)

None exists. This is a positive fact about the body rather than a missing record: no instrument encumbers Southern Baptist congregational property in favour of the Convention, the state convention, or the local association, and the Convention's own constitution forecloses the claim by disclaiming authority over any other Baptist body.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

A congregation that stops cooperating with the Convention keeps everything it owns. Because no denominational interest attaches to the property in the first place, the question that dominates departures in connectional bodies simply does not arise: no payment is required, no approval is sought, and no instrument has to be released.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

Congregations give a percentage of their undesignated receipts through a single unified channel rather than to individual causes. In the Convention's own words, every year a church "prayerfully decides how much of its undesignated gifts will be committed" — the church sets its own percentage, and no formula is applied to it from above. Funds go first to the state convention, whose messengers decide at their annual meeting what share stays in the state and what is forwarded to the national Convention; messengers at the SBC annual meeting then allocate what arrives among the entities. In Texas, for one published example, 45% remains in state and 55% is forwarded. What the messengers actually allocate is published in the Convention's annual. For 2025–2026 they adopted a Cooperative Program allocation budget of $190,000,000, distributed as: world mission ministries 73.20% — the International Mission Board taking 50.41% of the whole and the North American Mission Board 22.79% — theological education 22.16% across six seminaries and the historical library, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission 1.65%, and the Executive Committee with the Convention's operating budget 2.99%. Two features are worth noting for comparison. Almost three-quarters goes to missions, and the Convention's own administration takes under 3% — a lower overhead share than most bodies on this site disclose at all. And every one of these percentages is voted annually by messengers rather than fixed in a constitution, which is the opposite of the Global Methodist approach of capping the rate and leaving the total to vary.

• the body's own statement SBC.net, 'About the Cooperative Program' (accessed 2026-07-31) — self-description
• the body's own statement Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, Cooperative Program allocation (accessed 2026-07-31) — self-description
• governing document 2025 SBC Annual, Recommendation 1: 2025-2026 SBC Cooperative Program Allocation Budget, adopted Dallas, 10-11 June 2025

Giving is voluntary in amount but not entirely in kind. The Convention's constitution requires a cooperating church to have made undesignated financial contributions through the Cooperative Program or to Convention entities during the preceding fiscal year — so a church that gives nothing at all is not in friendly cooperation, while a church that gives a token sum is. Contribution also buys representation: a church seats up to twelve messengers at the annual meeting, earning additional ones either for each full percent of undesignated receipts given or for each $6,000 contributed, whichever yields more. The incentive is real but bounded, and the ceiling means a very large church cannot convert its giving into proportional voting power.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article III (accessed 2026-07-31)

Cooperative Program money funds separately incorporated entities — the mission boards, the seminaries, and ministerial relief — rather than returning to congregations as subsidy. There is no Southern Baptist counterpart to a conference supplementing a small church's pastoral salary; a congregation that cannot afford a full-time pastor does not have one. Church planting is funded through the mission boards, which support planters directly rather than propping up existing congregations.

• the body's own statement SBC.net, 'About the Cooperative Program' (accessed 2026-07-31) — self-description

The congregation sets its pastor's pay, subject to nothing above it. There is no minimum, no schedule, and no review by any body outside the church. Where a United Methodist congregation negotiates within a conference floor, a Southern Baptist congregation negotiates within its own budget alone.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

The congregation pays, entirely from its own receipts. Unlike the United Methodist arrangement, congregation, employer, and appointing authority are the same body, which makes the employment relationship legible in a way connectional systems are not.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

There are none. No Convention body sets or recommends a binding compensation floor, and no fund exists to raise a congregation's pastoral salary to one. This follows directly from Article IV: a minimum salary would be an exercise of authority over a church, which the Convention disclaims.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

Retirement is available but not arranged for the pastor by anyone above the congregation. GuideStone administers a 403(b)(9) church retirement plan open to anyone receiving W-2 income from a Southern Baptist church, school, or association; employee contributions are voluntary, churches may contribute on an employee's behalf if they choose, and some state conventions make an annual contribution for eligible ministry leaders. Nothing requires a congregation to participate. The contrast with a connectional body is sharp: where a United Methodist church must contribute a set percentage of its pastor's compensation, a Southern Baptist church may contribute nothing, and a pastor's retirement is correspondingly a function of the generosity and solvency of each church served.

• the body's own statement GuideStone Financial Resources, Church Retirement Plan (accessed 2026-07-31) — self-description

Churches ordain, and nothing above them does. There is no denominational credentialing body, no register of standing, and no external requirement of education or examination; the ordaining church sets whatever standard it wishes, and a calling church may set a different one or none. A congregation may decide it does not require its pastor to be ordained at all. Ordination is accordingly a recognition offered by one local body rather than a licence issued by the denomination, and it can be neither suspended nor revoked by the Convention.

• secondary Harvard Divinity School, Baptist ordination requirements (accessed 2026-07-31)
• the body's own statement Baptist Press, 'Churches Declare Their Stance on Pastorship Through Ordination' (accessed 2026-07-31) — self-description

The congregation calls its own pastor, ordinarily through a search committee and a congregational vote, and no outside body nominates, approves, or can be appealed to. A pastor seeking a post applies to churches; a church seeking a pastor searches. There is no appointment, no consultation requirement, and no cabinet.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)
• secondary Harvard Divinity School, Baptist ordination requirements (accessed 2026-07-31)

The congregation is the employer without qualification — it hires, pays, and may dismiss, and the same clergy dual status for Social Security applies as elsewhere. This is the enum's clean case, and it is worth naming as such: the field strains badly on connectional bodies precisely because they split what the SBC keeps in one place.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

The congregation dismisses its pastor by whatever process its own bylaws prescribe, typically a congregational vote. No denominational body reviews the decision, hears an appeal, or is obliged to find the pastor another post. A dismissed Southern Baptist pastor is unemployed, where a United Methodist elder in good standing is reappointed.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

There is none beyond what a pastor's own agreement with the congregation provides. No guarantee of placement exists, because no body has the power to place. The standing argument for this arrangement is that it keeps a pastor accountable to the congregation that knows the work; the standing argument against it is that it leaves a pastor's livelihood to the congregation's mood, with no recourse and no transitional support — and both are arguments about the same structural fact.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

The annual meeting, composed of messengers sent by cooperating churches. Messengers are not delegates: they do not carry binding instructions from their congregations and cannot commit them to anything, because the Convention has no authority over the churches to exercise. A church seats up to twelve, earned partly by its contributions. Between meetings the Executive Committee acts, but the annual meeting is where the Convention's decisions are made — and what it decides binds the Convention's own entities, not its churches.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Articles III and IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

Nothing oversees a Southern Baptist congregation, and the constitution says so: the Convention "does not claim and will never attempt to exercise any authority over any other Baptist body, whether church, auxiliary organizations, associations, or convention." There are no bishops, no presbyteries, and no courts with jurisdiction over a church. The nearest thing to oversight is the Credentials Committee, and its competence is limited to the Convention's own fellowship: it may recommend that a church be found not in friendly cooperation, which ends a relationship without touching the church's pastor, property or governance. Local associations and state conventions relate to congregations on the same voluntary footing.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)
• governing document Bylaws of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bylaw 8 (Credentials Committee) (accessed 2026-07-31)

Anyone may plant, and no one may close. A new congregation comes into existence when people constitute one; it becomes Southern Baptist by cooperating, not by being chartered from above. The mission boards fund and support planters, but that is patronage rather than permission. Correspondingly, no body can close a Southern Baptist church — a congregation ends when it dissolves itself.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Articles III and IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

Congregations name themselves, and the Convention does not license, condition, or withhold the use of any name. Many cooperating churches carry no Baptist reference in their names at all. Since 2012 churches may also describe themselves as "Great Commission Baptists," an alternative descriptor messengers adopted by a narrow 53–46 vote while keeping "Southern Baptist Convention" as the legal name — and the adoption was explicitly permissive: churches use whichever term serves them. A departing congregation therefore loses no name and changes no signage, which removes one of the frictions that makes leaving a connectional body costly.

• the body's own statement Baptist Press, 'Task force: Keep legal SBC name, but adopt informal name, Great Commission Baptists' (accessed 2026-07-31) — self-description

The Convention disciplines its own fellowship, not its churches' members or ministers, and the procedure is published in full at Bylaw 8 — which is worth setting out, because it is the most developed removal process on this site and the sharpest contrast with the networks. Between annual meetings, if the Credentials Committee forms the opinion that a church is not in friendly cooperation as Article III describes, it submits a report to the Executive Committee stating that opinion and its reasons. The Executive Committee then determines the question at its next meeting, and "the Executive Committee's decision shall be final unless the church appeals the decision to the Convention during the next annual meeting." A church appeals by written notice to the committee chair at least thirty days before the annual meeting; the appeal is announced in the registration report and heard during miscellaneous business on the first afternoon, with one representative of the church and one of the committee permitted to speak. The question put to the messengers is prescribed: "Shall the decision of the Credentials Committee and the Executive Committee that [name of the church in question] is not in cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention be sustained?" Where the question arises during an annual meeting instead, the church's messengers are seated pending a decision. The committee may meet privately or publicly, "in order to maintain the degree of confidentiality which is appropriate under the circumstances to serve the best interests of the Convention and individual churches." There is still no trial court with jurisdiction over congregations and no process by which the Convention can discipline an individual pastor — a pastor removed by one church may be called by another the same month.

• governing document Bylaws of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bylaw 8, as printed in the 2025 SBC Annual

A church is in friendly cooperation with the Convention when it meets the standing qualifications of Article III: a faith and practice closely identifying with the Convention's adopted statement of faith; formal approval of its own intention to cooperate; undesignated financial contributions through the Cooperative Program or to Convention entities during the preceding fiscal year; and compliance with the Convention's standards regarding sexual abuse and non-discrimination. There is no admission ceremony and no receiving body: the church declares its intention, gives, and seats messengers. Affiliation is thus something a congregation does rather than something it is granted — the mirror image of a connectional body, where a congregation is constituted from above.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article III (accessed 2026-07-31)

A congregation leaves by ceasing to cooperate. No vote threshold is prescribed by the Convention, no approval is required from any outside body, nothing is owed on the way out, and the church keeps its building, its name, its assets, and its pastor. In practice a church simply stops giving through the Cooperative Program and stops sending messengers, and the relationship lapses. What a church decides internally is governed by its own bylaws, which may set their own thresholds.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Articles III and IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

Everything. Property, name, assets, and pastor all belong to the congregation already, and clergy standing is not held by the Convention to be surrendered. The only things a departing church gives up are participation in the annual meeting and whatever benefits flow from cooperation — access to the retirement plan as a Southern Baptist employer, mission board partnership, and the state convention relationship.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

Expulsion is the Convention's only lever, and it is the mirror of its lack of others. A body that holds no property, issues no credentials, and appoints no pastors can do exactly one thing to a congregation: declare it no longer in friendly cooperation, on the Credentials Committee's inquiry and the Executive Committee's vote, with a published right of appeal to the messengers under Bylaw 8 — set out in full under discipline above. The consequence is loss of standing and representation only — the church keeps its building and its pastor and continues exactly as before, minus the relationship. Several congregations have been removed in recent years under the Article III qualifications, and appeals to the messengers began in 2023. A further qualification is currently pending rather than in force. At the June 2026 annual meeting messengers gave first approval, with 75% of the vote, to an amendment adding a sixth Article III qualifier concerning women serving in the office or function of pastor. Under the Convention's amendment procedure it must pass a second time by a two-thirds majority at the following annual meeting to enter the constitution, and until then it is not a criterion for cooperation.

• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article III (accessed 2026-07-31)
• secondary Baptist Press, on the Credentials Committee, disfellowshipping, and appeals (accessed 2026-07-31)
• secondary Baptist Press, first-reading vote on the proposed Article III amendment, June 2026 (accessed 2026-07-31)

The Convention is a Georgia corporation under its 1845 legislative charter, with authority to hold property and to sue and be sued; because the charter predates the modern statute it is not subject to Georgia's present nonprofit corporation act and is not required to maintain a board of directors. Its ministries are carried on by separately incorporated entities. Cooperating churches are independent corporations or unincorporated associations under their own state's law, connected to the Convention by cooperation rather than by ownership or membership — so there is no corporate chain from congregation to Convention at all.

• governing document Charter of the Southern Baptist Convention (Georgia, 1845) (accessed 2026-07-31)
• governing document Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention, Article IV (accessed 2026-07-31)

No group exemption ruling covering cooperating churches was found. What the Convention's own annual shows instead is a set of separately exempt entities: the Executive Committee "is exempt from federal income tax as an organization described in Section 501(c)(3)", GuideStone and its affiliates are separately organised 501(c)(3) corporations, and other entities report their own exemptions. Each part of the Convention holds its own status; none is held on behalf of the churches. The contrast with the United Methodist arrangement is exact and follows from the polity. There, a single group ruling obtained in 1974 covers congregations automatically, so a church proves exemption by certifying inclusion. Here there is nothing for a congregation to be included in — which costs it nothing directly, since churches are treated as exempt without applying, but does mean a cooperating church's tax standing owes nothing whatever to the Convention. One more thing a church would not lose by leaving.

• financial filing 2025 SBC Annual, financial statements of the Executive Committee and of GuideStone Financial Resources — separate 501(c)(3) exemptions