Baptist Press reported today on the SBC messengers in Indianapolis. Registration Secretary Jim Wells has always done a good job with this thankless job.

The number of messengers is not encouraging, but since so many have already commented on that, I want to look at the younger messenger numbers for two reasons:

1. I was young a couple years ago (at least I was under 40).
2. We have done some research on age trends and I have opined on the subject earlier.

From the BP story today:

According to data from 672 messengers who provided additional information during the registration process, messengers 18-29 years old accounted for 5.95 percent of the total; 30-34, 4.76 percent; 35-39, 5.51 percent; 40-44, 5.51 percent; 45-49, 13.10 percent; 50-54, 14.73 percent; 55-59, 18.90 percent; 60 and over, 31.25 percent.

The writer, Mark Kelly, rightfully points out, "The percentage of messengers in the 18-29 category almost doubled over the 3.12 percent at the 2007 meeting in San Antonio." That's good-- and a step in the right direction. (This year, there were 40 messengers reporting their age that fit in this age category. In 2007 San Antonio, it was 20. In 2006, it was 53 and back in 2005 it was 106 for that age group.)