Growing up in a Southern Baptist church, I had heard of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). But up until recently, I didn’t know exactly what it was or its purpose. The SBC meeting is an annual gathering of representatives from Southern Baptist churches all across the United States. They meet for worship services and to discuss and vote on current issues facing the church.
In June, I had the opportunity to travel to Houston for the SBC annual meeting with the Baptist Campus Ministries (BCM) group from Jacksonville State University (JSU). After a 13-hour drive, we arrived in Houston on June 7. The following day, we participated in a Crossover Houston event: a block party hosted by a local church. There was so much ethnic diversity at that event: there were African Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics, Arabs, Asians and even a family who had recently moved to Texas from Russia. I had been told Houston was an international city, and I witnessed that firsthand at the block party.
The SBC Pastors Conference began on Sunday night, and so did our work at the convention center. JSU’s BCM, along with students from schools in Tennessee and Texas, registered messengers for the convention that week. My favorite part of the experience was meeting and talking to the messengers as they came to be registered. A messenger is a voting representative from a local church. Messengers must be approved in order to represent their church, but there is no minimum age limit to be a messenger. A few families even registered their children as messengers so they could vote and learn the goings-on at the SBC.
I didn’t realize just how small the world was until I worked at the convention. Everyone who worked at the registration desk wore a name tag with their name and the name of their state on it, and many people who came through my line saw my tag and asked, “What part of Alabama are you from?” When I said Gadsden, several people said they knew where that was. One man from Rhode Island said his brother-in-law lives about 20 miles outside of Gadsden and that he had been there before. Some people even asked me if I knew specific people in my town, and I always did.
On the ground floor of the convention center was the exhibition hall, which was filled wall to wall with venders and representatives from Christian universities, ministries and programs. A few students in my group are planning to attend seminary after their graduation from JSU, and they were able to use our free time to talk with school representatives and view their options for seminary in one convenient location.
In that same exhibit hall were a few food venders. One day, a teammate and I went to eat dinner. A young minister from Louisiana and his wife asked us if we would like to sit with them while we ate even though we had never met them before. We did and ended up talking with them for a long time. They shared they are considering homeschooling their children. I was able to connect with her because I was homeschooled as well and was able to share my family’s experience with homeschooling. That dinner conversation made me realize the convention was not just about voting on issues and reaffirming the doctrine and teachings of the SBC; it was about fellowshipping with like-minded believers, even those you’ve never met before, and sharing stories of God’s blessings in your life.
It’s exciting to see what God is doing in hearts and lives all across this denomination.
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