Will the Southern Baptist Convention step up to the plate and hit the ball out of the park this Christmas? The second largest denomination–and the largest Protestant denomination–in the U.S. is approaching a critical choice point in December 2009. The denomination has announced since 2007 that an additional 2,800 missionaries could help it complete the 2,000-year-old task of global evangelization.

A new study, The State of Church Giving through 2007: What Are Our Christian Billionaires Thinking–Or Are They? (19th edition), calculates that the cost to field those additional missionaries would require an increased donation of $7 per Southern Baptist. The annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is held in Southern Baptist churches each December. The question: Will Southern Baptists put their donations where their stated goal is?

Published by empty tomb, inc., based in Champaign, IL, The State of Church Giving through 2007 considers the SBC approach to its goal as a case study. The following excerpts from the book summarize points from the analysis.

• “The case study of the Southern Baptist Convention describes a denomination with a clearly stated goal, that is not effectively meeting that goal. The difference between the Southern Baptist Convention and many other denominations and multi-denominational groups, is that the Southern Baptist Convention has a large, at-scale clearly stated goal around which congregations can gather.”

For more, read here.