current FBC baptism numbers

[Norefund]

Easy. He used the same methods that Santa uses to visit all the good boys and girls every Christmas. You know, mythology.

With FBC's new pastor and his discipleship program being implemented, can anyone offer insight how this has affected the number of baptisms at the church.  I try to view their live stream services, but it usually turns off before the reading of the names and the baptisms.

I know that during JH's 80's and 90's, FBC regularly had over 10,000 annual baptisms. Even back in the 60's, Bro Hyles was having dozens baptized every Sunday.  I just was looking through Bro Hyles' book, "Let's Use Forms and Letters", and in the book is a copy of FBC's church bulletin dated Oct 24, 1965, and it states that 36 were baptized the previous Sunday.  Later in the book is a copy of a newsletter for the deaf called "Glad Tidings", and it states that 12 were baptized on 9-26-65 and 36 baptized on 10-3-65.  (I'm finding many memories and good times at FBC that I've forgotten recently.)

Just curious how the present baptism are.

I do remember the 10,000 figure, then I did a little math, 10,000 divided by 104 which is the number of Sunday morning and evening services and you get an average number of 96 baptisms per service. That is a rather high average considering through the summer months we would not have very many at all and some services there would not be even one baptism. I can testify that we have no where near that number now.

Again there are services where there is not even one baptism.

We sure had a problem with numbers.

What was the number of sermons Bro. Hyles claimed to have preached? Was it somewhere around 50,000?
The number would periodically change by several thousand, it was hard to keep up with it.

Let's do a little math. 50,000 sermons divided by a lifetime ministry of 50 years in round numbers would make an average of 1000 sermons every year on the average some years less some years more.

1000 Sermons a year divided by 52 weeks would mean that he preached on the average 20 sermons per week, now I could never figure out how that could be. How was there enough time to study?

If you studied just 3 hours for each sermon that would be 60 hours a week in sermon preparation. Now we can't forget the time it takes to present a sermon with all prefatory activities. Average service would be, what one and a half hours? So that's 30 more hours for sermon presentation. We are at 60 hours of preparation and 30 hours of presentation giving us a total of 90 hours per week on the average.

Then I would break it down to total number of hours per week a normal pastor who preaches a thousand sermons a year would spend in various activities.

What about the prayer time in the forest preserve and at Memory Lane with mom? At least 3 hours per day. 21 hours per week.

What about the hundreds of people that were counseled every week? Another 10 hours.

What about sleep time? Let's not go overboard here, say 6 hours per day that's 42 hours per week.

Soul-winning time?  2 hours per day that's 14 hours or so a week.

Ok let's add these up, 60 hours preparation, 30 hours presentation, 21 hours praying for God to bless the sermons, 42 hours sleep to restore energy to enable sermon presentation, 10 hours in counseling, 14 hours winning the lost, and I think I missed a number of things a busy pastor would do but this is a start.

I used an adding machine and all the above added up to 177 hours.

24 x 7 is 168 hours in a week, so I always had a problem making it work out.

I would always get to this point and my head would start to hurt, how could this be? Well I never could answer that question, "how could this be"? I wanted to believe my pastor.

How can a busy pastor and father mange to preach a thousand sermons per year average over a lifetime?

He must have been chasing his tail.

Anybody have any ideas how this could have been the case?

 

[tobytyler]

I do remember that in the late 80's, Clifford Holmes and Louis (sp?) Allen would baptize dozens of "B" Sunday School converts on Sunday afternoons.  It appeared that they would baptize more than Drs Colsten and Moffitt would baptize in the morning service.  The bus driven Sunday School numbers kept FBC having the "World's Largest" title for many years.  "A" Sunday School always had good attendance, but the church auditorium would never be completely packed in the morning services as it would be in the evening service.

 

[RAIDER]

Can't speak for bg because I've been away for a quarter of a century now. However, when I was there, baptismal numbers were skewed as bg said. During PS one year, I was one of Hyles' personal bodyguards along with my dad and we would walk him from his office to the pulpit, wait in the choir waiting room with him before he went to the platform, etc. During PS that particular year, the college students were sent around the area to witness to people and they were to bring them in to get baptized during PS. None were coming through so Hyles called Lapina over and told him to go grab some City Baptist kids to get baptized. Of course, Lapina obliged and a couple of those Christian school kids got baptized a couple times each that week. IIRC, there was only a couple "legit" baptisms involving outsiders brought in to be baptized.

Smellin, I've been thinking about this.  I know I'm being the "forever optimist".    We all know that Dr. Hyles loved to tease.  Do you think he was saying that to Lapina in jest?  "Hey, grab some of those City Baptist kids and let's baptize them".  The reason I bring this up is questioning why he would say something like that in front of you and your dad.  If he wanted to do this he could have easily pulled Lapina aside and told him to do this.  just a thought!

 

[Smellin Coffee]

Can't speak for bg because I've been away for a quarter of a century now. However, when I was there, baptismal numbers were skewed as bg said. During PS one year, I was one of Hyles' personal bodyguards along with my dad and we would walk him from his office to the pulpit, wait in the choir waiting room with him before he went to the platform, etc. During PS that particular year, the college students were sent around the area to witness to people and they were to bring them in to get baptized during PS. None were coming through so Hyles called Lapina over and told him to go grab some City Baptist kids to get baptized. Of course, Lapina obliged and a couple of those Christian school kids got baptized a couple times each that week. IIRC, there was only a couple "legit" baptisms involving outsiders brought in to be baptized.

We didn't take it as that but then again, apparently Lapina didn't either.

My dad and I were still deemed "loyal" and to be honest, I looked at it as being more comical at the time and kinda realized we were helping protect the image before America. It really wasn't until I began putting the incidents together before I realized it was wrong.

Anyway, I can't tell you Hyles' intent as to being humorous or not, but I do know it was taken literally.

Smellin, I've been thinking about this.  I know I'm being the "forever optimist".    We all know that Dr. Hyles loved to tease.  Do you think he was saying that to Lapina in jest?  "Hey, grab some of those City Baptist kids and let's baptize them".  The reason I bring this up is questioning why he would say something like that in front of you and your dad.  If he wanted to do this he could have easily pulled Lapina aside and told him to do this.  just a thought!

 

[RAIDER]

Can't speak for bg because I've been away for a quarter of a century now. However, when I was there, baptismal numbers were skewed as bg said. During PS one year, I was one of Hyles' personal bodyguards along with my dad and we would walk him from his office to the pulpit, wait in the choir waiting room with him before he went to the platform, etc. During PS that particular year, the college students were sent around the area to witness to people and they were to bring them in to get baptized during PS. None were coming through so Hyles called Lapina over and told him to go grab some City Baptist kids to get baptized. Of course, Lapina obliged and a couple of those Christian school kids got baptized a couple times each that week. IIRC, there was only a couple "legit" baptisms involving outsiders brought in to be baptized.

We didn't take it as that but then again, apparently Lapina didn't either.

My dad and I were still deemed "loyal" and to be honest, I looked at it as being more comical at the time and kinda realized we were helping protect the image before America. It really wasn't until I began putting the incidents together before I realized it was wrong.

Anyway, I can't tell you Hyles' intent as to being humorous or not, but I do know it was taken literally.

Smellin, I've been thinking about this.  I know I'm being the "forever optimist".    We all know that Dr. Hyles loved to tease.  Do you think he was saying that to Lapina in jest?  "Hey, grab some of those City Baptist kids and let's baptize them".  The reason I bring this up is questioning why he would say something like that in front of you and your dad.  If he wanted to do this he could have easily pulled Lapina aside and told him to do this.  just a thought!

I'm going to take it that you actually saw several City Baptist kids being baptized that night?

 

[Smellin Coffee]

Can't speak for bg because I've been away for a quarter of a century now. However, when I was there, baptismal numbers were skewed as bg said. During PS one year, I was one of Hyles' personal bodyguards along with my dad and we would walk him from his office to the pulpit, wait in the choir waiting room with him before he went to the platform, etc. During PS that particular year, the college students were sent around the area to witness to people and they were to bring them in to get baptized during PS. None were coming through so Hyles called Lapina over and told him to go grab some City Baptist kids to get baptized. Of course, Lapina obliged and a couple of those Christian school kids got baptized a couple times each that week. IIRC, there was only a couple "legit" baptisms involving outsiders brought in to be baptized.

We didn't take it as that but then again, apparently Lapina didn't either.

My dad and I were still deemed "loyal" and to be honest, I looked at it as being more comical at the time and kinda realized we were helping protect the image before America. It really wasn't until I began putting the incidents together before I realized it was wrong.

Anyway, I can't tell you Hyles' intent as to being humorous or not, but I do know it was taken literally.

Smellin, I've been thinking about this.  I know I'm being the "forever optimist".    We all know that Dr. Hyles loved to tease.  Do you think he was saying that to Lapina in jest?  "Hey, grab some of those City Baptist kids and let's baptize them".  The reason I bring this up is questioning why he would say something like that in front of you and your dad.  If he wanted to do this he could have easily pulled Lapina aside and told him to do this.  just a thought!

I'm going to take it that you actually saw several City Baptist kids being baptized that night?

I can recall 4 that I personally knew that I witnessed at least once. I worked in "B" Sunday School and was laughing about it with them the next Sunday before opening assembly. They were laughing and a couple of them bragged about how they got out of classes 2-3 different days that week to get baptized. So it DID happen. How many times? Not sure. I didn't attend all the services.

 

[RAIDER]

Can't speak for bg because I've been away for a quarter of a century now. However, when I was there, baptismal numbers were skewed as bg said. During PS one year, I was one of Hyles' personal bodyguards along with my dad and we would walk him from his office to the pulpit, wait in the choir waiting room with him before he went to the platform, etc. During PS that particular year, the college students were sent around the area to witness to people and they were to bring them in to get baptized during PS. None were coming through so Hyles called Lapina over and told him to go grab some City Baptist kids to get baptized. Of course, Lapina obliged and a couple of those Christian school kids got baptized a couple times each that week. IIRC, there was only a couple "legit" baptisms involving outsiders brought in to be baptized.

We didn't take it as that but then again, apparently Lapina didn't either.

My dad and I were still deemed "loyal" and to be honest, I looked at it as being more comical at the time and kinda realized we were helping protect the image before America. It really wasn't until I began putting the incidents together before I realized it was wrong.

Anyway, I can't tell you Hyles' intent as to being humorous or not, but I do know it was taken literally.

Smellin, I've been thinking about this.  I know I'm being the "forever optimist".    We all know that Dr. Hyles loved to tease.  Do you think he was saying that to Lapina in jest?  "Hey, grab some of those City Baptist kids and let's baptize them".  The reason I bring this up is questioning why he would say something like that in front of you and your dad.  If he wanted to do this he could have easily pulled Lapina aside and told him to do this.  just a thought!

I'm going to take it that you actually saw several City Baptist kids being baptized that night?

I can recall 4 that I personally knew that I witnessed at least once. I worked in "B" Sunday School and was laughing about it with them the next Sunday before opening assembly. They were laughing and a couple of them bragged about how they got out of classes 2-3 different days that week to get baptized. So it DID happen. How many times? Not sure. I didn't attend all the services.

This has really been bothering me.  Thanks for answering the questions. 

 

[cast.sheep]

When the 10,000 baptism thing was going on, the church was open 24/7.  You could win 'em and dunk 'em right away.