Early tomorrow, I will be leaving Atlanta for Louisville, home of the famous baseball bat, which bears the city's name. The large Kentucky metropolis is also host to this year's Southern Baptist Convention, an event that promises to have people swinging a few clubs of their own. The SBC annual convention is always a great place to watch old people cat-fight over things the rest of the world cares nothing about. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the dire situation in the SBC with younger leaders looking for a place to participate and many more looking for the exit. I am more excited to attend this year than in many previous years combined (and I sense others are too) because this year might be a turning point for what has become a poorly-branded, pseudo-political organization of late. The Great Commission Resurgence must receive the lion's share of credit for renewed interest in this year's annual meeting.
I was quoted in two well-written articles on the upcoming meeting, and I wanted to link to them both:
- Louisville Courier-Journal: "Convention Growing Grayer"
- Associated Press: "Southern Baptists to Gather in Kentucky"
If you are interested in these sort of things, please leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts. If not, I promise to return to regularly scheduled programming very soon.
4 comments:
I look forward to maybe running into you there.
"might be a turning point" - I'll believe it when I see it. I like being a Southern Baptist but I have little faith that that any significant strides towards non-politicism and generational shifts will actually occur any time soon. Fight the good fight for me there! - Rand
If nothing else it seems that the frustration of younger Southern Baptists with the convention is getting a lot of attention this year and should hopefully increase awareness of internal opinion about the various issues.
As a Louisvillian & member of an Acts 29/SBC church, the circus is coming to me, I'm afraid. In Christ we have a living hope, yes, but I definitely think the normally passive Convention chemicals are being catalyzed. Last year's regenerate church membership referendum was huge. Looking forward to the Baptist 21 forum, hosted by my church, as well.
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