I pastored a little American Baptist Church in rural Southern Illinois for over seventeen years. When I took over the pulpit in 2006, around 50 worshipers would gather on a typical Sunday. A slow decline was already in place when I arrived. A big chunk of the membership decline came through death. I buried many people during my tenure at First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon. We never had a big split or a controversy. Thus, the downward slide could best be described as incremental, not sudden. By 2016, our numbers fluctuated between 25 and 35, depending on the time of the year and the weather. However, from 2020 onward, the decline accelerated. As the calendar turned to 2023 and 2024, the number of faithful folks gathered at First Baptist was significantly smaller.
In the six months before we closed our doors in July of 2024, it would be common
