Aside from the oppressive Houston humility, er humidity, the SBC should be a good one

While I doubt anyone would confuse the humidity at an SBC meeting in Houston with humility, the former obvious from one's first morning breath, the latter always in short supply amongst our struttin', backslappin', gregarious brethren, I am optimistic that the annual meeting will be good.

Here are a few things I read in the tea leaves from afar, no benefactor having offered to pay my expenses to attend the meeting (second consecutive year this has happened).

Elections

• Fred Luter will be reelected as president and will deliver a stem-winding, corn-shucking, rip-roaring sermon.
• Bart Barber will be elected 1st VP. He is a sensible, reasonable, quality pastor.
• Jared Moore, whom I know from SBC Voices, will not be elected 2nd VP but will continue to grow in knowledge and grace as he ages and works toward an advanced degree. He is a serious minded young man. Try again.

 The Calvinist Report

• It will pass easily but there is really nothing controversial in it and it requires no action.
• Various SBC luminaries will offer comments filled with sweetness and light.
• An outlier messenger or two may get to a mic and ask a dumb question, but that's the SBC.

 Peter Lumpkins' resolution on Sex Abuse (look for my article later today on the subject)

• Will be buried in the resolution committee and not reported out to the floor with the reason offered that the SBC has addressed the issue in previous resolutions.
• An attempt to put it on the floor for a vote will fail.
• The SBC will have missed a good opportunity to get ahead of a scandal that will embarrass some of our prominent leaders.

 The statistical report

• There will be hand-wringing, weeping, and gnashing of teeth over the sharply lower baptism total for 2012. 
• God will be blamed for this in that He hasn't sent revival.
• Pastors will be blamed for this for not witnessing.
• Jerry Drace, president of the SBC Evangelists group, will blame pastors for not using vocational evangelists.
• No one but Kevin Ezell will be able to say they are doing something that might change the downward trend.

 Boy Scouts

• Boy Scouts will be beaten up.
• The near defunct and moribund SBC Boy Scout alternative, Royal Ambassadors, will be touted. 

People-watching

• Look for the mega pastors and mega wannabees to be wearing suits or at least dress shirts with cufflinks. See how they strut (you could strut like that with some practice, get a full length mirror).
• Observe carefully how many of the Reverends are embarrassingly rotund. Follow one to lunch and find out why.
• Be sure and not miss the miscellaneous business sessions because that is where you will be entertained by a few oddball messengers offering oddball motions. Hey, it's their right.
• Lament the lack of tonsorial enhancement, toupees. Thirty years ago there were no shaved heads and hundreds of toupees. Now, scarcely a toupee to be spotted and shiny pates everywhere. 

I regret not being able to attend but, Lord willing, I will make Baltimore next year.

Have fun, after all, you are on an expense account.