Total membership dipped once before, and then grew in the following years. But this time, Stetzer believes the growth over the past five decades has plateaued.
"Many have predicted that membership (an inflated statistic anyway) would soon begin to decline, but the statement, 'Southern Baptists are a declining denomination' was not 'officially' accurate.
"Until today," he said in his blog on Wednesday.
And while the Southern Baptist Convention added 473 new churches in 2007, gave more than $1.3 billion to support mission activities around the world, and saw a 0.16 percent increase in worship attendance, Stetzer believes the denomination cannot ignore the trend moving toward decline.
"Some might want to point to the good news (attendance up slightly, more churches, etc). However, you cannot miss the fact that a dubious historical milestone has been reached - and it needs to be noted in denominational and church offices across the country," he said.
"My hope is this will cause people to wake up and change," he commented.
Offering a few suggestions for change, Stetzer said the Southern Baptist Convention needs ethnic and generational diversity in its leadership. Also, the "infighting" has to stop. Debates over theological differences and boundaries at every denominational meeting would only accelerate the trend toward decline, he said.
Most importantly, the recovery of the Gospel in Southern Baptist life is key, he said.
"We must recover a Gospel centrality and cooperate in proclaiming that gospel locally and globally," Stetzer stressed, as he expressed hope for a Great Commission Resurgence.
"It is time for us to once again rise to a new day," he stated. "The temptation will be that the news of the day will result in a new denominational obsession to fix the problem with a new plan. It won't work. Instead we must refocus on the Divine Obsession (Luke 15), the obsession with lost people."
