Why wouldn’t all of us be in favor of expanding participation for voting for the SBC Annual Meeting by having satellite meetings, perhaps at your local Baptist associational office, where folks who can’t make the annual meeting in Dallas or Phoenix or Nashville or Indianapolis could cast their vote? It’s tough to address some populist ideas because the presumption of greater participation always puts you on the defensive, having to explain why more people voting is a bad idea.
Well, it is a bad idea but I offer a bit more about it. I have speculated about that as a way to increase attendance (Can’t get a crowd at the annual meeting?) which has been in the neighborhood of five to seven thousand for the last seven year or so. Orlando had 11,070 back in 2010, the last time the five-digit barrier was broken. Here’s a site that gives an attendance list for the last half-century.
The idea has been discussed here and elsewhere in the run-up to the convention this year in Dallas. Location makes a difference. There will be more in sultry Dallas than in overbaked Phoenix. Controversy and contention always bring out the Baptists as well. I haven’t seen any attendance predictions but will make a wild conjecture that attendance in Dallas will be 11,352. We’ll see what kind of prophet I am. Probably not so good.
Reaction to my March 17th article (Satellite SBC meetings and remote voting: The best terrible idea around) on the subject included a request from a commenter (Randy Seale) to see an Executive Committee study on the subject that I mentioned. I suggested he email the Executive Committee, which he did. He received some information and shared that with me. Here are some of the points made in that email from the Executive Committee.
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The issue of annual meeting decentralization has been raised and examined by the Executive Committee many times, including in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1997, etc. and most recently in 2011, which was reported to the Convention’s messengers in 2012. [For that report, see page 127-8 of the 2012 SBC Annual.] The Executive Committee declined to take further steps in this direction and offered these reasons:
- the simplicity of conducting business at a single site is preferable to the complexity of doing so via innumerable and complex off-site computer configurations;
the Convention has a continuing interest in positively affecting various regions of America with as great a physical presence of Southern Baptists as possible during the Convention’s annual meetings and ancillary events such as Crossover; - the dependability of conducting business at a single site is superior to “distance” messenger participation because of the susceptibility of the technology to interruption or failure, which would negatively and significantly impact the meeting, its actions, and the relationships of those involved;
- the present “public” method of casting ballots involves some level of “in-person” and “eye-witness” assurance that ballots have been received and cast only by qualified messengers, and is therefore preferable to any other system which would permit an individual to receive and/or cast a ballot privately and electronically from a remote location without accountability;
- ministry and service opportunities and resources are now well-conveyed by high exhibitor participation, which would decline if attendance were to become less concentrated;
- fostering and strengthening relationships with and between various affinity groups that schedule their meetings to coincide with the Convention’s annual meeting is best accomplished by encouraging the physical presence of messengers;
- the funds required to undertake the study and then for any implementation would likely be substantial; and diverting missions offerings to pioneer the use of such technology (there being no known model for web-based constituent participation in any similarly-sized, deliberative body) would be an inappropriate prioritization.
The SBC has traditionally taken a course of great care and caution in adopting new paradigms, not wishing to invest ministry resources in untested or unproven methodologies before other organizations have worked through whatever challenges may exist (both anticipated and unexpected). Said a different way, the SBC has shown little interest in being a proving ground for innovation, deciding instead to be extremely frugal in applying its ministry resources (money), waiting to employ new processes until they have been thoroughly tested elsewhere.
…No similarly-sized, fully accessible and participative (open mics), parliamentary controlled and unscripted, deliberative body is yet known to have successfully adopted a multi-site format and maintained its character.
…It is probable that the issue will be formally raised by motion again in the future, but whether it is or is not, the EC will continue to have the possibility in its “peripheral vision” as technology advances.
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My SBC colleagues may not like the Executive Committee’s response to distance voting but no one can complain that they have ignored the matter or that they will not respond to requests for information about such things. Randy Seale should be thanked for taking the time to ask. He got answers.
Satellite voting would allow for more participation, but beyond that, it would be a bad idea.
Any serious organization that is going to have input, meets. The major political parties, large publicly traded companies etc. Why would anyone attend a meeting, if you can attend remotely?
Why have a meeting a church? A pastor could preach and music could be performed in a studio, and then transmitted to followers. Come to think of it, that is what happens sometimes.
Deliberation, discussion, meeting people, happens best when we meet live.
Add to this the solemnity that comes with going to a meeting, casting a vote etc. That is a solemn act. Everything could be run by voting on our cell phones. Maybe it will come to that one day, but I doubt it.
Plus there are the attendant concerns of the technology failing or being “hacked” or interfered with. Think of all of those important votes during the CR. What if every one of those votes had been done over the internet? Would we have the confidence that the results were accurate? We still hear complaints about the Presidential election in 2004 (remember the claims that the company Diebold was underhanded or interfered with etc.?) and we are still arguing about the so-called “Russian hacking” of the 2016 Presidential election. I believe it’s bunk, but the point is the argument is being made. having voting remotely etc. would open the door to that argument.
I agree with you. It’s a well intentioned idea, but a bad one.
Now, in my opinion, the Convention could be streamlined. Reduce the sermons to 1 – by the President of the SBC. Have a minimal amount of prayer, special numbers etc.
We could adopt the budget, have the election of officers, approve the Committee on Nominations report, and hear agency reports – in no more than 2 sessions – each 1/2 of the day.
We don’t need all of the hoopla, and the jumping from business deliberation to a song and prayer time – 50 times during the convention.
We don’t need a Resolutions Committee. Since these resolutions only express the will of people attending that convention (and those in the hall at that time), they are of little value anyway. They are can be unnecessarily divisive, which does not help our cause.
If the convention were shortened, more people would probably attend.
Wow! Thanks William and Randy.
Like you said William – people may say they do not like or agree with the executive committee’s findings… But they cannot honestly say that it has not been diligently considered repetitively over the years… And they even said that it is in their periphiel vision today – which means they’ve still not forgotten about it as a potentiality in the future.
As for me – I agree completely With their assessments… Especially a reluctance to use cooperative program missions money to make the Southern Baptist convention guinea pigs in search of a “solution to a problem” that many don’t feel we have.
The executive committee’s response to Randy very aptly illustrates many of the reasons why this idea is a bad one.
Props to Bro. William for posting this and the EC for their prompt and well-written response.
IMO, with more and more ‘minority’ churches being started, it behooves us to make the SBC annual mtg as accessible as possible (even if in only certain parts). I’ve only attended one annual mtg. For those who attend regularly, would it overwhelm our meeting site, accommodations, etc if everybody showed up who could show up?
After all these discussions, and they stretch back over a couple of decades online, I’m inclined to think that satellite meeting locations will never be accommodated but that distance voting will get a closer look. My informed opinion is that such would greatly intensify political shenanigans and prove a detriment to our cooperation.
My churches were average sized churches. If I wanted to make the convention the church would work with me to accomplish that. I see small and average size church folks at every convention. The costs aren’t prohibitive (although for the out-of-south locations) they do price some out but that’s just every few years. The rotation around the places where most SBC churches are located (Dallas, New Orleans, Nashville, Birmingham, Atlanta, Orlando, Greensboro, Louisville, St. Louis, Kansas City) put the convention within driving distance for most SBCers.
William,
Your informed opinion is dead on. These ideas – while at first glance and from a populism standpoint seem like good ones….I agree with your statement here:
“My informed opinion is that such would greatly intensify political shenanigans and prove a detriment to our cooperation.”
At first glance, the distance/multi-site/tele-convention seems to be an answer for decreasing gifts and several other issues because after all, technology is getting cost-effective as well as more stable. However, I applaud the efforts of the EC in this matter because they have taken their responsibilities seriously and, no doubt, have poured over the long term impact of this concept. Candidly, it seems to me that the way the SBC is set up (although I am a firm believer in the use of technology) it is difficult for me to see a day or a way that, under our current structure, this could be an serious option. We are the “CONVENTION” only a couple days a year. It seems important that we are together and can (for lack of a better word) “look each other in the eye, ask each other questions, and do it face to face.” I applaud us for continuing to look into the new ‘paradigm’.