Preparing for the SBC Annual Meeting

Southern Baptists across the nation are beginning to focus their attention on the denomination’s annual meeting, scheduled this year for June 12–13 in San Antonio. 
  
About 10,000 messengers are expected to register for the annual gathering. If history is any indicator of the future, one can expect that between 500 and 600 of the registered messengers will be from Alabama Baptist churches. 
  
While the annual meeting is only two days long, events and related meetings prior to the annual meeting make it an active week.
  
Alabama-native and former Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) President Bobby Welch is spending the weeks leading up to the annual meeting urging churches to participate in Crossover San Antonio. This is a focused evangelistic and ministry effort designed to impact the host city of the annual meeting with the good news of Jesus Christ. 
  
Every year, hundreds of people make initial decisions to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in religious surveys, block parties and other ministries led by Baptists from across the nation who are coming to the area for the annual meeting. 
  
Crossover, held the weekend prior to the convention, has become so much a part of the preconvention activities that many people take it for granted. 
  
Few people may remember that it was first suggested by current SBC Executive Committee President Morris Chapman. At the time, Chapman served as president of the SBC, and the first Crossover event was held at the 1992 annual meeting in Indianapolis. 
  
The years have seen other changes in the denomination’s annual convention. The first annual meeting this writer attended (1969 in New Orleans) started on Tuesday night and went through Friday night. 
  
There were nine different sessions with Thursday afternoon reserved for alumni gatherings for the six Southern Baptist seminaries. 
  
The SBC Pastors Conference started on Monday morning and went through Tuesday afternoon. Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) held its annual meeting in a similar time frame. 
  
This year, the annual meeting will run Tuesday morning through Wednesday evening with Wednesday afternoon reserved for seminary alumni meetings, a total of five sessions. 
  
The Pastors Conference now begins on Sunday evening and goes through Monday night. WMU meets Sunday afternoon through Monday evening. 
  
As one would expect, the condensed schedule has impacted the programming of the annual meeting. There was a time when the International Mission Board (IMB) and the North American Mission Board each received most of an evening session to highlight their work for the messengers. 
  
In those years, the IMB usually ended its evening with an altar call to which scores in the congregation responded to the call to vocational missions. 
  
This year, each of the mission boards has 30 minutes on the program — 10 minutes for a report and 20 minutes for a feature. Both come at the end of evening sessions after messengers have been sitting for more than two hours. 
  
Personally that is probably the change we most regret. There is no better reminder of the reason Baptists ban together in a national convention than the focus on missions and ministry provided by the two mission boards. 
  
Over the years, the program has been streamlined in other ways. Reports are generally shorter. Time is managed more judiciously. 
  
There are fewer entities to feature. There is also concern about how to get messengers to participate in the entire meeting. They did not stay to the end when it was four days long, and they don’t today when it is two days long. 
  
Still the goal of the annual meeting is the same as it has always been. In an atmosphere that recognizes the lordship of Jesus Christ, Baptists gather to do the necessary business that allows us to work together to spread the gospel at home and around the world. 
  
This means holding entities accountable for the work accomplished during the past year. It means electing trustees and directors to oversee the cooperative efforts of Baptists as expressed through SBC entities. 
  
It means adopting a budget to provide resources for the work Baptists do together. It means taking biblical stances on public issues that will inform others about Baptists’ understandings. 
  
It means times of inspiration as we are reminded of what we are about and why. It means discussions and debates as messengers work out common understandings.
  
Schedules change but the importance of the work done within those schedules does not. The annual meeting of the SBC is an important meeting. 
  
It is worth participation from every cooperating church. 
  
If it is not possible for your church to send a messenger or messengers, be sure and pray for those who do gather in San Antonio to look after the well-being of the work Baptists do together through the Southern Baptist Convention.