Can’t get a crowd at any national SBC event these days? (William Thornton)

William Thornton is the inimitable SBC Plodder.

“No one goes to the convention anymore,” laments some of the brethren who have been around long enough to remember the sardine days where 20,000, 30,000, and 40,000 messengers could pack into a meeting venue.

Not quite true. It’s just that the crowds are heavily diminished. Here are the past five years:

2010 Orlando 11,070
2011 Phoenix 4,814
2012 New Orleans 7,814
2013 Houston 5,103
2014 Baltimore 5,294

Toss out Orlando, the attendance bump for which we can thank Mickey Mouse. Look askance at New Orleans because it’s a nice venue with the crawfish, beignets, and all that. That leaves SBC attendance in the 5k range. Pretty low for a denomination where millions gather each Lord’s Day to worship in almost 50,000 churches.

Consider this: The North American Mission Board’s SEND NORTH AMERICA conference scheduled for this summer already has over 7,200 registrations. Toss out maybe a couple of hundred unpaid registrations and that is 7,000 registrants paying $129 per person (early registrants paid $89) to attend.

The SBC annual meeting costs zip, only food, transportation, and lodging, nothing to attend.

So, why would seven thousand Southern Baptists pay good money to attend an SNA conference when the SBC meeting is free?

There are a lot of reasons why in 2015 Southern Baptists aren’t that keen to attend the SBC annual meeing and slap backs, glad hand, and engage in the annual bragfest with old friends.

It’s boring.
There’s nothing much going on these days.
Folks don’t see much value in attending.
Nothing much will change in the old ship SBC.
Neither my presence, my vote, nor my voice count for much in the SBC.
Decisions are pre-made by an oligarchy of SBC grandees and conventions just ratify them.

In contrast, NAMB’s SNA conference engages enthusiastic participants who have an interest in planting churches. Church planters, potential church planters, churches that are interested in sponsoring a church plant all are eager to attend.

Of course, the goal is not to have a rousing conference with a great attendance. The goal is to plant churches. So far, SNA is young enough not to have a reportable track record of churches planted and a record of how they are doing, but Southern Baptists are engaged in the process.

Factor in the reality that a vocal segment of SBCers don’t really like NAMB and the attendance figures are indeed impressive.

Suppose, pastor, you have a modest budgetary item, say $1,000, to spend on conventions and conferences. How would you spend it?

Many are choosing to forego the SBC annual meeting for SNA or other opportunities.

Why?

You tell me.