Volunteers help register messengers for the 179th SBC annual meeting at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis June 9 for the four-day event starting with a two-day Pastors’ Conference.
INDIANAPOLIS (BP) — More messengers registered for the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) than in either of the two years Indianapolis previously hosted the event, according to the SBC Executive Committee’s registration database.
Nearly 11,000 messengers, 10,946, registered this year, compared to 7,277 in 2008 and 8,600 in 2004.
Registration Secretary Don Currence said Indianapolis has much to offer convention goers, citing a convenient layout of the convention center, access to adjoining hotels by skywalks, several restaurants within walking distance and pleasant weather.
“Indianapolis is a great city to host the annual meeting,” he said, “and the attendance showed it for 2024 with this year being the highest attendance in the three years that the SBC has held their annual meeting here.”
In addition to messengers, 3,132 guests and 2,740 exhibitors registered for the 2024 meeting, bringing total attendance to 16,818. Messengers hailed from all 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico, representing 3,988 churches.
Tennessee led with the most messengers, 974, accompanied in the top 10 sending states by Texas, 958; Kentucky, 856; Florida, 761; Georgia, 733; North Carolina, 700; Alabama, 637; Missouri, 489; Indiana, 474; and South Carolina, 439.
But messenger registration and church representation were lower than in 2023, when the annual meeting in New Orleans drew 12,781 messengers from 4,423 churches in 48 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico, according to the 2023 SBC annual.
The 2025 annual meeting is scheduled June 10-11 in Dallas, a city that registered the highest SBC annual meeting participation on record, with the 1985 Dallas meeting drawing 45,519 messengers, according to the 1985 convention annual.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)
