THE OPEN SURVEY REPORT - Women Pastors in the SBC

Now Available:The SBC Women in Ministry Survey Report 

For the past several days, I have been asking Southern Baptists and others connected to Baptist life to respond to an open survey regarding women in ministry, pastoral titles, preaching, teaching, church cooperation, and the upcoming SBC Annual Meeting.

I launched this survey because I believed then, and still believe now, that Southern Baptists need more than assumptions, anecdotes, social media reactions, and carefully selected data points when we are making decisions that affect churches, cooperation, trust, and the future of our convention.

We need to hear from actual Southern Baptists. We need to see the data. 

This survey was not created to settle every question. It was not designed to inflame an already tense conversation. It was not a scientific, convention-wide poll with a randomized sample. It was an open, voluntary, grassroots survey built to gather responses from pastors, church staff members, volunteer leaders, laypeople, and others who wanted to speak directly to these questions.

The survey data was pulled at 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday, June 2, 2026. At that time, there were 1,398 total responses. (As this post was being created we crossed over the 1400 mark as you will see reflected in the slides)

Because this conversation concerns what Southern Baptists believe and how Southern Baptist churches cooperate, the analysis makes an important distinction. The full respondent pool is reported demographically, but the substantive analysis focuses only on those who self-identified as Southern Baptist.

That means the major findings, written-comment analysis, and interpretive summaries are based on SBC voices, not on the broader respondent pool.

Two reports are now available.

The first is the full survey analysis. It looks at the total response set, identifies the Southern Baptist respondent group, and analyzes the major questions related to the male-only pastor/elder office, the use of the title “pastor,” women preaching in Sunday worship gatherings, women teaching mixed-gender groups outside Sunday worship, church cooperation, the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, the Truth & Unity Amendment, and the proposed suspension of Standing Rule 6. VIEW FULL REPORT: hbit.ly/4x5rmsh

The second is a focused subgroup report. It looks only at self-identified Southern Baptists who are not pastors/elders and not church staff. In other words, it gives special attention to lay members, volunteer leaders, and others who are part of Southern Baptist churches but are not serving in formal pastoral or staff roles.
VIEW SUBGROUP REPORT: bit.ly/4dTddpi

That subgroup matters. One concern in denominational conversations is that the loudest voices are often platformed leaders, pastors, institutional figures, or online commentators. Those voices matter, but they are not the only voices. The non-pastor/non-staff report helps us hear from engaged Southern Baptists who are closer to the pew than the platform.

Several things are clear from the reports.

• First, the Southern Baptist respondents in this survey strongly affirm the male-only pastor/elder office. In the full Southern Baptist respondent group, agreement was very high. The non-pastor/non-staff subgroup also showed strong support for this conviction.
• Second, the survey shows that the debate is not simply about whether Southern Baptists affirm male-only pastors. Among these respondents, that point appears broadly settled. The harder questions involve application: titles, functions, preaching, teaching, local church practice, cooperation, and convention process.
• Third, respondents were much more divided on questions such as women teaching mixed-gender groups outside Sunday worship, flexibility in ministry titles, and how churches should cooperate when titles like “Women’s Pastor” are used.
• Fourth, support for the Truth & Unity Amendment is stronger than support for suspending Standing Rule 6. That matters. The data suggests that many Southern Baptists may share a theological conviction while still having real concerns about process, precedent, timing, wording, and trust.
• Fifth, the non-pastor/non-staff subgroup is especially important. That group still largely shares the core complementarian conviction, but it is more cautious about constitutional acceleration and procedural shortcuts. That should not be ignored.

I have intentionally kept the commentary light in these reports. The goal is not to tell readers what they must conclude. The goal is to put the data in front of people so they can read it, weigh it, question it, and draw their own conclusions.

That is why the reports and data are being made available publicly.

In a moment of importance for the Southern Baptist Convention, statements about what Southern Baptists believe should not be locked behind paywalls. Data that may influence messengers, churches, pastors, and denominational decisions should be open to review.

For-profit companies are free to do what they want with their own research, but when broad claims are made about Southern Baptists during a consequential denominational debate, the underlying data should be available for examination. 

(view the spreadsheet) https://bit.ly/4o8SNxs
(view the slide deck)  https://canva.link/j1vjirih7c6rczj 

Transparency matters.
Open questions matter.
Public analysis matters.

And Southern Baptists should be able to evaluate claims about Southern Baptists without having to pay for access to the information.

These reports are not perfect. No open survey is. The respondent pool is voluntary, engaged, and not a randomized sample of every Southern Baptist church member. The data should be read honestly, carefully, and within its limitations.

But it is real data. It is public data. It is available for review. And it gives us a meaningful window into how a large group of self-identified Southern Baptists responded to some of the very questions now before the Convention.
I welcome others to download the data, run their own analysis, challenge mine, and offer additional insight. That is how serious work should be done.

The goal here is simple: more light, less heat.

Southern Baptists deserve clarity, honesty, and transparency as we walk into important conversations and decisions together.

May we think clearly, speak truthfully, act wisely, and keep the mission before us.