The convention in Anaheim this June looks like an important convention:
- Contested presidential election, though the expected nominations are not in
- Perhaps contested nominations and reports
- Sex Abuse Task Force report and recommendations
Perhaps other matters will bubble up in the 133 days until the opening gavel. The takeover group is actively touting the meeting and pumping attendance.
I ain’t gonna make it. Looks too expensive to me. Have you guys budgeted for this?
Flight + hotel + food + incidentals for the beloved pastor and his wife looks around $3k to me, more if you wanted to come earlier for the PC. In retirement, no church pays any of my bills. I pay them all. But even when I was active I never pastored a church that budgeted $3,000 for a convention. At times I might have asked and gotten agreement but most of the time budgets were tight and it would have been unseemly to ask for that amount. I took what was reasonable and supplemented it and made it work.
Even if you stayed at the fabulous Hotel Lulu for $154 per night, plus add-ons I suppose, you’d be spending a lot of money.
I suggest declaring the area around the convention center the Baptist Autonomous Zone and pitch a tent. Stay for free. There’s precedent on the west coast for that, eh? You could bring your own pillow and teddy bear.
Our system is: show up, get your ballots, be in the convention hall and vote your ballots. No proxy voting. No remote voting. No mail in ballots. No ballot harvesting. No electronic voting. No voting from the bathroom or exhibit hall. No dropping your ballot in the bucket in the hallway. You gotta be in the hall at the time. If you don’t like it, tough.
There are “haves” and “have not” in the convention. Institutions necessarily send a lot of their employees because they work during the meetings. Important committees and people have expenses paid. Big churches don’t quibble with their pastor and his entourage about expenses. They get paid. Maybe there’s a pool of funding for ordinary pastors out there but I never found it.
Expense keeps messengers at home. That’s life. We don’t have a $40 minimum wage where unskilled fast food workers get paid like skilled trades people and small church pastors don’t have a right to an unlimited convention expense account. Tough.
I’ll follow along on social media.
Lord willing, I’ll inflict my presence on the 2023 annual meeting in Charlotte, unless I have something better to do.
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Ask my kids. They all drove cars I bought for $3k or less. That’s making choices.
