I had an idea last night that I want to share. Was it a good idea? Well, I guess you good folks will be the judge of that. You may tell met that it is a hare-brained idea. But, I’m going to put it out there anyway.
Here it is: let’s run a regular guy, a pastor of a normal Baptist church, as the president of the Pastor’s Conference for 2012.
I have to admit, I’m looking forward to “Aspire,” the 2011 SBC Pastor’s Conference. There are some speakers I am excited about hearing. I don’t share the concerns of some of the regulars here at SBC Voices, but am of the opinion that it will be inspirational and informative. And, I love the idea of an offering that will support mission work to an unreached people group. So, I’m not among the voices that are unhappy about Vance Pitman’s work as Pastor’s Conference president.
But, a lot of our regulars here, both contributors and commenters, do not share my view. Several have expressed some strong disagreements with what is going on. There was even some talk a while back about having an alternate Pastor’s Conference in Phoenix. I think that may have died down, but it is safe to say that there is some growing dissatisfaction with the general trajectory of the SBC Pastor’s Conference. Different people have different complaints. Such as:
- That the podium will be dominated by the younger, hipper wing of the SBC.
- That more traditional, cooperative, denominationally supportive pastors are almost wholly absent from the podium.
- That most of the pastors who are speaking lead churches that give nothing or almost nothing to the SBC missions through the Cooperative Program. (If I was going to complain about something, that would be it.)
- That almost all the speakers are from megachurch ministries.
- That the podium is disproportionately Calvinist.
- Add your complaint here.
Of course, no one agrees with all of these complaints. These are just the ones I have been hearing.
Actually, I think the ennui and angst began last year. I went to Orlando determined to vote for the GCR (don’t tell Howell Scott). But we did not have a Pastor’s Conference last year, we had a two day pep rally for the GCR. Some sermons (like David Platt’s) were excellent, but others were little more than high-pressure salesmanship preparing for the vote that was to come on Tuesday. It was crass. Frankly, it made me want to vote against the GCR even though I supported the concept. I hate high-pressure salesmanship and I believe that last year’s conference has left a lot of people with a bad taste in their mouths.
So, is there anything that we can do about it? Of course, we can complain about who is selected. We can complain about the choices they make. I guess that is what we bloggers do best (and I think there is some value in bloggers raising dissent). But is there something more, something productive that we can do? I believe there is and I actually think it is doable! All we have to do is decide on a regular guy, a pastor from an average Southern Baptist church, and run him for the SBC Pastor’s Conference presidency.
Here’s how we might do it. It’s not rocket surgery or brain science.
1) We choose a candidate for the presidency of the 2012 Pastor’s Conference.
The key here is choosing a good candidate. He must be a man of high character, who has demonstrated a commitment to the SBC and to cooperative ministry within it, someone whose SBC bona fides are action, not talk. He would need to be the pastor of an average SBC church (oh, say, averaging 500 per Sunday or less). He must have a strong track record of Cooperative Program giving. He must not be a partisan in any of the key debates that go on in SBC life. Whether he is a Calvinist or non-Calvinist, he must be someone who is not a partisan in that debate – neither a cage-stage Calvinist nor a rabid anti-Calvinist. He could be young or old, contemporary or traditional, but he must be someone who is respectful and inclusive on these issues. You get the picture? None of these details are set in stone. The key would be finding the right man and not simply following a set of rules. Like the Pirates’ Code, these are more like guidelines than actual rules.
Before anyone asks (if anyone would) I am not going to seek to be nominated. I’m a lousy administrator and putting something like this together would cause me ulcers and aneurysms. Plus, since I am making this suggestion, it would look like self-promotion if I were the candidate. Someone else will have to bear this standard.
I have a couple of ideas for candidates, but the issue is not the name, it’s the concept. If there is support for the idea, we can talk through a candidate later.
2) We announce a platform for the 2012 Pastor’s Conference.
I would make the following suggestions, though if there is a positive response to this idea, then we would hammer the parameters of the platform more carefully.
- A simple theme, like “How regular pastors can lead regular churches to reach regular people in regular cities.” I know, it’s corny, but I’m an Iowan. But it would be a simple conference to encourage pastors in the work we have to do.
- All speakers for the Pastor’s Conference will be from churches below the megachurch threshhold. I’d go lower than that personally. I’ll bet there are some good preachers who haven’t hit the ecclesiological big-time yet. Just because the normal stars would not shine would not mean that the preaching couldn’t be powerful and inspirational. But frankly, some of the megachurch pastors have larger staffs than the membership of a lot of churches. They live in a different world than we do. I think it would be good to hear from pastors who are in churches like the ones we serve!
- All speakers would be from churches that give at least 6% to SBC causes through the Cooperative Program. If I remember correctly, that is the national average. So all the speakers would be above average in CP terms. For years, the above average CP churches have been preached to by below average CP churches. Some might argue for a higher standard (or lower), but I just chose 6% because it is the average.
- We commit to a lineup of speakers which is diverse: geographically diverse, racially diverse, and methodologically diverse. Some would wear ties and coats and others would wear Hawaiian shirts and sit on stools! We would make sure to demonstrate our commitment to racial diversity. Let’s live out that which we discussed. And yes, I understand the irony of recommending diversity while excluding the large church pastors and SBC stars who have dominated the podium at other conferences. But as Rush would say, “We ARE equal time!”
- Nothing that is going to happen on Tuesday will affect what we do on Sunday and Monday. We won’t promote any candidates or movements at the conference. We will simply have preachers preach to preachers about preaching, and pastors speak to pastors about pastoring. The Pastor’s conference should be about encouraging and inspiring pastors, not about mobilizing them for some agenda. The goal would be simple, to have a conference in which the only agenda is to encourage and motivate SBC pastors.
- We announce that a special offering will be taken up. It will go to the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention.
3) Then, we promote the idea.
We can make use of blogs and other electronic media to put this idea forward. You young whippersnappers can tweet your tweets, or twitter your twitters, or tweet your twitters, or whatever you call it. We can talk to people in our associations and state conventions. We get out the word. Grassroots. And, when we get to Phoenix, we talk up the idea. I don’t know if you can hand out fliers at the Pastor’s Conference – I’m guessing you can’t. But we have a lot of means available to us to get the word out.
We all talk about the SBC being a grassroots convention. Well, folks, we are those grassroots. There are no luminaries that blog here. We are the average joes of Southern Baptist blogging. Let’s use the electronic media, our personal networks and every other available means to promote this idea.
Is It Workable?
Yes, it CAN work. Will it work? I don’t know. I could see a lot of people getting behind it. I’m not even among those who are upset about this year’s lineup. I think Vance Pitman did a pretty good job of choosing speakers. But I think it would be fun to have a grassroots Pastor’s Conference.
So, tell me what you think. Is this just a dumb idea? Those sometimes come to me late at night after I had Mexican food for supper. Maybe those enchiladas were backing up on me last night when this idea hit me. But if you don’t like the podium trend in recent SBC conventions and conferences, why not change it? I think the time is right for something like this. We have the means available to make a real effort here.
So, tell me what you think. Be kind. I’m emotionally fragile.
Don’t know if I will be able to make it to this year’s convention (trying to watch how the economy impacts our church and I would rather steward resources for ministry than convention, but…) however I would through my support, as meager as it might be, behind this.
That seems to be one of the flies in the ointment here. A lot of the SBC Voices contributors and commenters seem to be indicating that they will not be in Phoenix.
Yep. Maybe, if there be not enough of us in Phoenix (or enough of y’all, I won’t be there), we can re-evaluate and consider New Orleans. I’d definitely agree with your ideas on this. I think the 6% number on the CP is logical, too. If we’re wanting to promote the CP, above average is a good descriptor. That way, if average goes up to 8%, the next year, you adjust. One thought I would ponder: the lineup at the SBC Pastor’s Conference isn’t very different from nearly all the conferences I see ad-fliers for. Should that be the case?… Read more »
That’s what I’m thinking. The SBC Pastor’s Conference is a (duh, wait for it) conference for pastors who are Southern Baptist.
*throw, not through…
“But we did not have a Pastor’s Conference last year, we had a two day pep rally for the GCR. Some sermons (like David Platt’s) were excellent, but others were little more than high-pressure salesmanship preparing for the vote that was to come on Tuesday. It was crass.”
While I did not listen to every speaker last year, I thought 2010’s Pastor’s Conference was great, and was anything but how you describe it. There really was only one sermon that bothered me that I heard, but it had nothing to do with the GCR at all.
Maybe I painted too broadly with that statement. But there were several messages which seemed to be high pressure tactics and pro-GCR propaganda.
It was the feeling I got.
That was the feeling I got last year as well, but I went in with an irritation with the GCR to begin with, so I assumed I was just grumpy.
Dave, Great idea and great article, even if you would not allow me to get a sneak peek 🙂 As my son and I missed a connection in Houston and had to spend the night, thus missing Sunday night and most of Monday, I cannot comment on those sessions. The one session I did make — Monday night — had a definite pro-GCR feel, but like Doug, that may have been because of my opposition to the GCR and because of my general grumpiness from having to spend the night in Houston. While I plan on being in Phoenix this… Read more »
Dave, You wrote: “Of course, no one agrees with all of these complaints. ” Uh, I’m a little embarrassed here, but I read through the list twice and I actually do agree with every single one. By the way, it’s nothing personal with Vance. He’s just carrying on with the new trend in our denomination. Having said that, Dr. Brad Whitt has led a state Pastor’s Conference in the great state of South Carolina, where they don’t put up with things like people who steal copper wiring. He’s qualified, he’s young and he’s not a Hipster Evangelical but a Fried… Read more »
Rick, don’t stress.
“No one” knows everything—-so you’re in great shape.
The only disagreement I don’t agree with (huh?) is the predominance of Calvinists. Not because there’s not a predominance of Calvinists, but because Calvinists don’t bother me as much as they used to.
Stupid? No. Idealistic? Yes. The victory in these things is in the saying, the objecting, the doing, not in the results. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t live to see the end results (even just to-date as of now) of what he did; he was just doing the right thing at the time. Rabbit coming up: when Jimmy Swaggart had his first downfall, and the AoG recommended a course of action, he refused and took his church out of the denomination. I wrote him a letter and told him I could not see “success” continuing in his ministry when he refused… Read more »
You all are abutto run into the old boy’s network. I think the South and Souterhn Baptists in particular invented it. If you make it in you get to have some of your ideas adopted. Don’t make it, and you will be on the fringes for the rest of your life. Have fun. Chow!
Ok, so no nominating Dave.
Do we need to go to an email discussion, privately, to contemplate who, then?
Anyone?
I have a few ideas, but I don’t know for sure. I guess that step one is to gauge whether anyone actually thinks this is a good idea. Then, if we decide that it is, then we can find a candidate.
Dave,
Great idea! But… after just finishing 16 years as a DOM, here is why I fear that it will not work: no, “celebrities” no crowd. Period. This has been a constant disappointment to me. BTW, I would love to attend such a conference which also featured some faithful and fruitful bi-vocational men!
Pick your worst enemy to nominate—he, his church, and his descendants will be ruined financially for generations to come. Do you know how much the SBC charges the Pastors Conference each year? The offering comes nowhere near to covering the cost. The president basically pays for the conference.
I thought of nominating you…
I think that this year, Pitman got a lot of sponsors to defray the cost. Of course, if there are not luminaries, the corporate money might dry up.
Dave, I like the idea. There are a lot of small churches that give a lot to the cooperative program. My church gives 16%, plus another 2% to the local association. I’d be happy to support electing an “unknown” to lead the pastor’s conference. I would love to see someone in leadership that has had success in leading his church to be personally evangelistic; instead of having his church building being the social center of his community. This is my big issue with the mega church pastors being paraded in front of us as examples to follow. My tiny, poor,… Read more »
This is off topic but thought I would ask a question. I have been wondering what the percentage of people who go to the annual meeting are denominational employees, seminary profs, and DOMs? What percentage of lay people and pastors will actually be in Arizona this summer? Are there any statistics on past years? I wonder how many denominational employees and such would be there if they had to pay there own way.
*their*
No idea what the percentages are. Lots of denominational folks there, many are working booths much of the time. Lay people? That’s almost impossible to tell.
I’m sure there are statistics available. I just don’t know them.
I think the Pastor’s Conference lowlight for me was in St. Louis when the SWAT team repelled down from the rafters while we all waved little U.S. flags. I decided to quit attending the P.C. after Nashville, and haven’t really missed it. Since I haven’t attended since ’05 and don’t intend to attend in ’11, I’ve stayed out of this discussion until now. I chime in now only to make this one point: I think those complaining about this year’s lineup should consider who Vance beat in the election. If Vance hadn’t won, the lineup might have fewer Calvinists, but… Read more »
I missed that one Stuart. I’d like to hope that you are making that all up.
And you might very well be right about the conference that would have been!
Okay, here is what I’m getting so far. First, a lot of people sympathize with my idea. Second, there have been some legitimate negatives raised. Bart says it is cost prohibitive – whoever was in charge would go broke. I generally assume that Bart knows what he’s talking about. Several have made the observation that without star power, few people would come. I think there might be something to that. The solution to that might be to add a few luminaries. Invite a David Platt type and perhaps one or two of the old guard types. Maybe we don’t have… Read more »
Dave, Your idea is a good one, despite the obstacles that would have to be overcome. But, if it is decreed to be, it will be.:-) As an inconsistent 5-pointer, I do truly believe that if God opens the door for this type of Pastor’s Conference, that all of these negatives or obstacles will be removed. Money for the Conference? Last I check, God owned it all! I’m sure there a few State Conventions and/or individual “sponsors” that would be more than willing to partner with this type of Pastor’s Conference and help defray the costs. I think Dr. Barber… Read more »
New Mexico is stunning. I (and if you’ve seen a picture of me, you will find this hard to believe) completed a couple of marathons in New Mexico in 2007 and 2008. It’s called the Bataan Death March Memorial in White Sands. Driving to El Paso (where we stayed) through Santa Fe and Albuquerque is like being on another planet when you are from Iowa.
Bataan Memorial Death March.
Dave, Whether you realize it or not, you were right near where I live. White Sands is 20 minutes west of Alamogordo. We love White Sands. I often tell people we have some of the most beautiful beaches — just without the water! I think the Bataan Memorial Death March is coming up in the next week or two. One of our students will be participating this year. This year is obviously too late, but if you ever come back out for that event, let me know and we’ll schedule good, ole-fashioned revival services you could preach at. That would… Read more »
If you are driving from El Paso to White Sands, don’t you go through Alamagordo on the way? I know we came in from the west on the highway (was it 70?).
Dave,
You probably came up I-25 from El Paso to Las Cruces and then west on Highway 70 to White Sands. That is the long way. You can come up U.S. 54 North from El Paso to Alamogordo, which is about an 1 1/2 drive from the Airport. When you get to Alamogordo, you then would head west on U.S. 70 about 15 more minutes to get to White Sands.
Yeah, that is exactly how we came. Interstate to 70.
Surely Pastors aren’t only going to show up for celebrities, are they? Really? We who want to insist that our congregations should show up for the Word to be preached wouldn’t blow off hearing the Word just because the preacher isn’t a great light of the modern American church? As to cost: a chunk of that cost has got to be involved in using the main convention hall, the high name speakers, and all the tech stuff. Perhaps there would be ways for lower costs, but who knows? And if it really is that the President of the Pastor’s Conference… Read more »
I think if we did a regular guy president, the off site thing might have to happen.
But going off site would drastically reduce the attendance.
I just don’t know about the attendance thing.
And…yes, and don’t call me Shirley.
The SBC Executive Committee charges the Pastors’ Conference. They just voted to increase the amount. I can’t recall how much. You can find it on Baptist Press. It is astronomical (I’m not suggesting that the number is inflated…such facilities are difficult to book). I’d support this idea: Create a conference that is more substantive and more dialogical. As an example, consider the Patterson-Mohler debate of 1996. That is the PC item that has generated the most buzz in recent memory. Baptist churches once-upon-a-time gathered in their conventions and authored “circular letters” representing the fruit of discussions that the churches’ messengers… Read more »
That would be a fascinating idea. I’m not sure how many messages there are at an average PC, but it seems like it might be about 12. Take the book of Ephesians, or Colossians or 1 Timothy or whatever and break it up into 12 segments and preach through the book over two days. That would be cool. Or have a series of hot-topic debates/forums. Bart, actually, when I first thought of this idea, your name was one that came to mind. I know you are a little more partisan on a few issues and you probably don’t completely share… Read more »
Dave,
I’m actually not even going to Las Vegas. Unless we’re going to return to the days of R.B.C. Howell in 1845 (just a Church History guy trying to temp you into solving a history riddle, there), I’d say you ought to look for somebody else. 😉
Bart—
Thanks for the info. I’ll look that up in Baptist Press. Honestly, the only thing I’ve ever heard before about costs is that the sale of the tapes/CDs of the services are used to help cover them. One of those questions I’ve never asked–how is the whole thing paid for?
Ok, found it.
$38,000 this year, $50,000 next year if I’m reading it right.
Just thought I’d save the rest of you the searching.
I don’t know if that includes costs for speakers or just the facility. I’m with Bart that those facilities are quite expensive—it may just be the cost of the extra day, then the Pastor’s Conference has to fund the speakers beyond that. I can’t find an open accounting of those. Of course, I don’t know where to look for it. It may be in the annual of the SBC, but I don’t have one.
Has it occurred to anyone else that the Pastor’s Conference funding system flaw might just be driving our unfair system of denominational representation? By requiring the President (or his church) to pay for it, the funding system has a “built in” bias that will always keep MegaPastors in control of the convention. The MegaPastor gets famous at the Pastor’s Conference, thus gaining the exposure needed to be elected to a major SBC office. This answers the question: “Why is a Pastor who gives 1-2% telling a room full of Pastors who give 8-10% that they need to give more?” It’s… Read more »
One thing no one seems to want to address is how Sovereign Grace Theology is evangelistic. I would like to see something on a more positive note like how the Theology mentioned is the theology tht produced the First and Second Great Awakenings and launched the Great Century of Missions. Any one interested, and, if so, how would it be implemented?
I’d arrive a day early and spend an extra night to attend a conference like the one Bart described regardless of whether or not the president is a regular-guy-10-percenter or a mega-guy-2-percenter. As to the money, unless something has changed or unless each president handles it differently, I believe that the “honoraium” for SBC speakers typically has been the privilege of speaking at the PC. The “honorarium” for non-SBC speakers has been actual travel costs plus the privilege of speaking at the PC. Maybe something is different now, but usually the majority of the cost was not tied up in… Read more »
I would hope that’s still the case. This comes back to that whole “Transparency” issue–when information isn’t disclosed publicly (and maybe it is, but I don’t know where to look), people start guessing.
And guess wrongly as often as rightly.
The cost of the facility is easily what the numbers given by the EC are. Convention facility with space enough for 10k? The SBC is probably still covering part of that cost if the PC is paying $50,000.