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.