The 2026 Annual Church Profile (ACP) collection process has begun, and your church can now access this through the Workspace portal! This year we have a new administrative assistant, Marte Thomas, who is eager to help you with anything you may need to get your congregation’s report completed, including gaining access to Workspace. The ACP collection deadline is Nov. 6, but why wait to submit since the process is so simple? These reports are very important for a number of reasons not only to your church, but also to our association and the state convention.

Some churches have refused to submit an ACP because they fear these reports will be used against their congregation in some sort of way. I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. You are free to input as much or as little information as you’d like – but please, share as much as you can. Take a few moments to consider the following reasons for participating in the annual ACP collection, compile your church’s data, and PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE submit your ACP this year:

1. The numbers you collect help YOU to gauge the effectiveness of your congregation’s ministries. I pray you are keeping up with some sort of data to ensure that your congregation is accomplishing the goals you have set. If you don’t have any goals and ministry benchmarks identified, CMBA is here to help your church identify biblical goals that will give your congregation something to strive toward.
2. Numbers are important to Jesus. God records stories of numbers throughout Scripture, including the book of Numbers. Jesus feeds the 5,000 in the New Testament. He teaches about leaving the 99 to go and reach the one lost sheep. Remember when 10 lepers were healed, but only one returned to thank Jesus? If numbers are important to Jesus, it should be important for your congregation to record them as well.
3. The ACP helps CMBA to see where we are missing the mark as a larger Family of Churches. The ACP reports help CMBA compare our congregations’ overall numbers to census growth numbers. The data also helps us determine where we need to provide help and what particular kind of assistance is needed in specific areas.
4. The South Carolina Baptist Convention gains and loses national Baptist representation on key committees based on the number of congregations who provide ACP reports.
5. We can see which congregations truly want to engage with the CMBA Family of Churches by those that provide ACP reports.
6. ACP numbers create a historical reference for your church. ACP data is what CMBA uses to provide historical records to your congregation when we are asked to meet with your leadership team to provide important steps for growth moving forward. The reverse is true. If your congregation doesn’t provide this information, CMBA is unable to show historical trajectories of growth or decline which speak into what a path forward might look like.
7. Because I asked you very nicely!