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Did He Just Say That? - MBC Day 2

October 31, 2006

It's been an interesting day here at the convention. At first I thought it was going to be another day of cheesy lameness. What do I mean by that? Well, there seems to be some backwards cheese ball way of doing and saying things that has seeped its way into the convention. I am from the mindset that we should be doing everything with excellence and class and that we should have some definite leadership. That seems to be lacking. I'm not saying it to be mean, I'm just being real. If a person not associated with the MBC would visit I'm not sure what they would think about some of the disorganized and seemingly unprofessional way the convention seems to be conducted. The President and Vice President act as if they know very little about what is going on from the stage. I guess they don't know how to conduct a business meeting and know even less about how Roberts Rules of Order works. Maybe they do know it and are just nervous. Either way, there were a lot of mistakes made today and it seemed as though the parliamentarians had to stand next to them and whisper in their ear the whole time. That frustrates me. I think to be leaders in the convention is a privilege and a title that should be respected. If a person has the privilege to be elected as President or Vice President, then they should at the very least learn how to conduct such a meeting in a proper and orderly fashion with respect to the position and the rules by which the convention is run. It's like we have been winging it the last couple of years. That doesn't look good. I mean, we went through all the trouble in the conservative resurgence to gain back our convention and is this what we really want it to become? Is this what conservatives are all about? Is this what conservative leadership looks like? Come on. We need to conduct these meetings with excellence, it's only once a year!

Now that I got that off my chest, there were a few things of significance that took place today. Due to the single alignment issue that was passed last year in the MBC there were a group of churches that no longer qualify to be a part of the Missouri Baptist Convention. We were asked to vote to unseat all the messengers from these churches. This simply means we voted to take away their credentials and register them as guests and not voting members. I thought this was going to be a big issue, but it wasn't. In fact, I don't think any of the churches even showed up except for Third Baptist in St. Louis. They got up and said they were still praying for us and we said we are still praying for them and they handed in their credentials and that was about it. No discussion, no objections. I was surprised.

The next thing we voted on was to accept the nominations to the executive board made by the nominating committee. This became a fairly debated issue. Some wanted the nominations to not be accepted. Former MBC president Mitchell Jackson asked to remove the current president, Ralph Sawyer, from the executive board and replace him with Gerald Davidson who was speaking later that day. This became a slightly heated debate until Gerald stood up and asked his name to be removed because he didn't want to cause any division within the convention. With this whole debate there was some element of confusion and suddenly in the middle of it I think a little bit if internal conflict that has been going on in the executive committee made its way to the floor. Mitchell Jackson stepped up and aired out some dirty laundry. He asked the convention not to let Roger Moran be allowed to be a part of the executive committee. He said that Moran has been causing problems within the executive committee and that he was making things difficult for our executive director David Clippard. Unfortunately it was pointed out to Mitchell that Moran was not a nomination at all and Mitchell had made a mistake in thinking that he was. Mitchell had basically said all the stuff and then realized that we were not voting to nominate him anyway.

I felt really bad for him and he later stepped up "broken" and offered his heartfelt apology to the convention and to Roger Moran. Later when Gerald Davison got up to preach he declared that project 1000 is over and that the Missouri Baptist Layman's association needs to be shut down because the conservative resurgence is over and has been over. Roger Moran is the head of the Missouri Baptist Layman's association. So there are some conflicts that I guess I didn't know much about. It was kind of shocking that within a matter of minutes it all came flopping out.

Tomorrow we vote on miscellaneous business and a few other things. Until then, I must sleep.

Comments

Posted by: matt
November 1, 2006 11:26 AM

This is something I've been struggling with as of late. When I read this post all I could think was: Where was Jesus in all this? I noticed He wasn't mentioned in the post. That's not a comment on you, it is a comment on the convention. Did Jesus really want the church's time to be wrapped up with committees and conventions on a lot of stuff that doesn't really matter? It seems some things are backwards. We've taken people who ae successful in the corporate world and said "Hey, they made a lot of money, their successful, let's put them in a leadership position in our church." But the world's definition of success and the bible's definition are two different things. I guess I'm just saying this post sort of made me sad. How many hungry people could have been fed if the convention decided to take a break from the meetings and go out into the community and serve. Can you imagine the impact of an army of pastors all at the same time saying "We're from the Missouris Baptist Convention, how can we pray for you today?"

Posted by: Pressed
November 1, 2006 03:38 PM

It's not as if these are not good people and they don't do ministry. That is not it at all. There was a lot of preaching and we did praise and worship God. Jesus was a part of a lot of the stuff. The things that take place are all part of the vision of missions. The Missouri Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention exist as an agency for missions and there has to be someone running things. It doesn't just happen. So if we are going to have large agencies, schools, and large mission boards then we have to have conventions to make everything work. Just because there are committee's and other things of business that must be done doesn't mean that ministry is not being done.

I've heard the argument a lot that people just need to stop doing such and such and get out and witness and everything will be good. If they would just stop wasting time and reach the lost instead of doing all this other stuff they would be more spiritual and the kingdom would be better off. I think that is a bit of self-defeating argument. First of all, the assumption with that argument is that these people don't do any ministry or witnessing at all. That is not the case. The other things is, it makes the assumption that "instead" of doing other stuff we need to witness or do ministry. If that is the case then we need to get off this computer, stop typing about all this stuff and get out there and witness. We need to throw our computers away, quit our jobs, shut the convention and churches down, destroy our T.V's and movies, get rid of books, stop going to the movie theater, and just get out and witness and stop wasting time. Imagine all the people I could be reaching instead of typing on this computer and going to school.

The problem with that is it makes anyone who is doing anything other than witnessing look like their not a good Christian. That is silly. Just because a group of pastors get together once a year for a couple days doesn't mean they are not doing ministry, witnessing, or any of that stuff. I guarantee you the staff in our hotel were witnessed to more than once by several different people. In fact, today as I was walking out I heard one of the guys saying to the lady cleaning his room, "Is there anything I can pray for you about today?" So with 1000 pastors that may have been at the convention, I can tell you that an army of pastors in Cape were doing just that.

Now, I say all that to say this, I understand what you are saying, but we can't ignore the fact that in order for us to have schools like SBU and Hannibal. In order for us to support and give leadership to the Missouri Baptist Children's Home and to send missionaries, partnership in mission organizations, and do all of the stuff that the convention is able to do then we absolutely have to conduct business. There is no getting around it. There will always be people who have to work at some point and in the process not be out doing other things. Its the same for pastors, teachers, and other leaders.