Thursday, June 2, 2011

SBC Annual Meeting in Phoenix Cancelled

Well, not really. But I don’t recall any SBC annual meeting that has such little interest.

One has to be honest about a few things in SBC life one of which is that there is absolutely nothing that will ever cause an SBC annual meeting to be cancelled partly because pastors and denominational employees have expense money budgeted that absolutely must be spent.

What would the Red Lobster do without all those gluttonous, rotund reverends squeezing in their booths?

How could the brethren survive without all that backslapping and lying about how great it is to see each other. The best quote about the SBC annual meeting I’ve ever heard is that the meeting is where folks greet you with a big smile and firm handshake while looking over your shoulder for someone more important than you.

Where would pastors be without this backdoor job fair?

I will make some predictions nonetheless:

The Acts29 network will take some shots somehow, some way. After all, what good is demonizing something or someone if you’re not going to follow through on it?

Bryant Wright will be reelected. He certainly has been quiet.

Kevin Ezell, the man with the SBC’s toughest job, will be praised as a shining knight who is rescuing the moribund and problem-plagued NAMB. But look for him to be vilified in the hallways by some of the brethren who, presumably, like the old NAMB with it regular meltdowns.

Lamentations will be generously but gratuitously ladled upon the messengers about how the SBC is dying.

Phoenix will be ridiculously hot. Plodder recommends not taking an afternoon to see the desert botanical garden nearby, although it is a nice place…unless you are hungering and thirsting for your first heat stroke.

Resolutions will generate some degree of indignation and pontification. I’m not sure but that the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship took the better way by eliminating them.

A couple of nutcases will get to a microphone. This is how Wiley Drake, our top generator of deep feelings of buyer’s remorse, got to be known.

A multiplicity of motions will be made – some interesting, some intriguing, some absurd but some that are probably helpful. The Order of Business Committee will try and bury almost all of them.

A mere cursory visual survey of the convention hall will confirm that SBC pastors are the most obese group of folks around.

Plodder regrets that he will not be present but there is a Red Lobster here that I can visit to try and get in the mood.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

William,

I regret we won't have fellowship in the Sunbelt. I was looking forward to coffee and sweat with you.:^)

I'm interested in your first prediction:
"The Acts29 network will take some shots somehow, some way. After all, what good is demonizing something or someone if you’re not going to follow through on it?"

Since I (and perhaps Tim Rogers) am about the only SBC blogger who publicly criticizes our flirtation with A29N, I'm wondering if you sorta-kinda had my posted criticisms in mind when you suggested the network being demonized, or were you just expressing yourself generally?

Anyway, have a hot NE Georgia day, brother.
With that, I am...
Peter

William Thornton said...

I didn't have you and Tim in mind, Peter, but if you two want to buy the anti-Acts29 franchise for the entire SBC, it might come cheap. :)

I am aware that you have some serious objections, which for the most part I do not dispute. I don't dispute that there are legitimate concerns, but I get the general feeling that Acts29 has morphed into something reflexively demonized around SBc insiders.

...but if I were there I'd volunteer to second any motion you might want to make.

Anonymous said...

"I move we wish Godspeed to A29N and commend them to God's sovereignty in starting all the exclusively Reformed and elder-ruled churches God decrees without the use of SBC monies"

Do I hear a second? :^)

Grace, brother.
With that, I am...
Peter

William Thornton said...

If you're invoking God's sovereignty, why bother with any motion? ;)

Anonymous said...

My favorite motions that pop up every year are the one about choosing an "official" Christian flag and the KJV-only one trying to get Lifeway to discontinue the HCSB.

William Thornton said...

I don't recall those but do recall others far more bizarre, like "Fairness in hiring of NFL referees." No joke.

I don't know many KJV-only folks in the SBC.

Jonathan said...

Random association: Read today's (6/9) BP column about rejecting the cult of self. Then read yesterday's article about who to follow and how to follow them on Twitter during next weeks SBC annual meeting in Phoenix.

To quote that great theologian Larry the Cable Guy, "I don't care who you are, that's funny".