DALLAS (BP) — With Texas home to two state conventions comprising thousands of churches, the state drew more than three times as many messengers to the 2025 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting than any other, latest registration statistics show.

The 2,171 messengers from Texas churches were more than triple the 695 messengers who registered from Tennessee churches, the nearest number, according to numbers released June 16 by Jonathan Howe, SBC Executive Committee (EC) vice president for convention administration.

SBC Registration Secretary Don Currence said Texas’ high participation was expected.

“That’s usually the norm that wherever the convention is being held, that normally in the southern states, they’re going to have the largest attendance,” Currence told Baptist Press. “Now when we go further north, that’s not always the case, but as in the South, when we’re in Nashville, when we’re in Orlando and such, home states are going to have the largest attendance because they get the most messengers.”

Additionally, proximity also allows day attendance without the cost of hotel stays, Currence said.

Texas messengers accounted for one-fifth — or 20.48% — of the total messenger count of 10,599 at the meeting on June 10-11 in Dallas.

Across the annual meeting, 3,899 churches were represented, with 3,863 of them sending messengers and 36 of them sending only guests.

Currence said the phenomenon of churches sending only guests is somewhat unusual, but “most likely” is attributable to the timing of new church plants.

“We have lots of new church plants from (the North American Mission Board),” Currence said. “In order to be a messenger … for the convention we just finished, you have to give between Oct. 1 (2023) through September of 2024. Well, probably most of these are new church starts who gave after that date, or maybe even this year.”

Registering as guests allowed them to experience the annual meeting, Currence pointed out, but they just didn’t have the opportunity to receive ballots and make motions. But they’ll have the opportunity to do so in Orlando (2026), provided they’re meeting the qualifications as cooperating churches in the pertinent period.

Texas is home to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention of more than 2,800 churches and the Baptist General Convention of Texas, which boasts 5,300 affiliated churches across Texas and beyond.

Following Texas and Tennessee, other top 10 messenger-sending states were Oklahoma, 650; Georgia, 625; Florida, 621; North Carolina, 621; Alabama, 601; Mississippi, 492; Louisiana, 491, and Missouri, 428.

Top sending non-southern states were California, 240; Illinois, 172; Ohio, 160; Kansas, 122, and Indiana, 110.

Total registration at the 2025 meeting was 18,173, including 4,141 guests and 3,433 exhibitors, with attendance from all 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

Cooperating Southern Baptist churches are allowed to register between two and 12 messengers, based on financial contributions as stipulated in Article III of the SBC Constitution.

A plurality of participating churches, 1,533, registered two messengers, followed by 1,070 that registered one, according to data released by the EC. Forty-five churches registered the maximum number of 12 messengers.

Other churches ranged in the middle, with 363 registering three; 344 registering four; 160 — five; 55 —seven; 53 — eight; 29 — nine; 43 — 10; and 30 registering 11 messengers.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)