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Looking to Louisville…
Posted by Dave Samples in Baptist Life
I was one of the first to call in and get my hotel reservation last week through the “Greater Louisville Convention Visitors Bureau”. That’s right—at 7:00am sharp—I was on the phone making my hotel reservations for next summer’s SBC. I’ve got to tell you that I have not had a good track record for acquiring SBC lodging. To begin with, I usually wait too long to get started which means that all of the good picks are already taken. I remember Salt Lake City all too well. Two of my buddies were going with me and budget considerations were extremely tight. We ended up at some shady dive that featured fresh chalk outlines each morning. It was hard to tell the difference between gun shots and cockroaches being nailed by shoes.
Then there was the time that my wife and I showed up in Dallas only to be informed that my reservations were for the wrong days. The hotel graciously provided space at a sister hotel…about 45 minutes away. In recent memory, Indianapolis featured construction on the new Lucas Oil Stadium that made it virtually impossible for the airport shuttle to get to my hotel. There’s nothing like hiking several city blocks on a warm humid day with your luggage in tow. Speaking of hiking in humidity—distances are actually farther in San Antonio than the maps seem to indicate. I guess that’s why I like Colorado so well—we all fit into one hotel!
With that in mind let me play the role of travel advisor and see if I can help you with your accommodations for next summer in Louisville. To start with—you must act NOW if you hope to get something through the official SBC housing channels. Perhaps you are waiting because you don’t have the money to put out for a deposit at this point. Though the housing folks will ask for a credit card, they will not put any charges on it until late May and so you can buy some time if you are like me and aren’t able to commit any pesos as of yet. Many of the churches that I have served just aren’t able to commit several hundred dollars for an event nine months out. You can access the housing information for Louisville at the convention website: www.sbc.net.
So what’s it going to cost to attend the SBC in Louisville? The good news is that the hotels are priced fairly reasonably for Louisville. Most likely, this is because the convention is being held at the Kentucky Exposition Center which is not located in the downtown area. There are many other ways to book your trip to the SBC other than through the housing bureau. I have used online search engines and internet hotel and travel providers to secure accommodations in the past with some success. The “Google” street view feature allows you to “be there” in terms of seeing the exterior of hotels and estimating walking distances.
My budget flying out of Denver looks like this: Lodging–$600, Travel–$200, Rental Car–$200, and Food–$150. I’m planning on the trip to Louisville costing about $1,200. The cost is prohibitive for MOST of our Southern Baptist churches. Until another way to participate is created, participation in the national convention will continue to decline and the voice of the churches will continue to be diminished. The political process that our nation is going through at this time demonstrates for us the power in voices coming together and saying the same thing. I’m convinced that the only way significant changes, such as online voting or regional conventions, will come about is by pastors and churches insisting that changes be made. I am certain that if thousands of emails and letters begin to show up at the Executive Board offices in Nashville calling for alternatives—then alternatives will be found. Until then—most of us will have to decide whether we want to use our hard-to-come-by travel dollars for the convention or other causes like a mission trip, a pastors’ conference, or even a vacation.
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My parents are in Louisville (well, just south of it) so I will be staying with them if I can attend.
Wouldn’t a simulcast of the convention be cool? It surely could make some sort of difference in the amount of people being able to “attend”.
Be blessed,
Sallie
Sallie,
Maybe your parents can make a little extra dough by renting space to cheap pastors…lol.
The convention proceedings are already broadcast live on the web. The change would be to allow people to not only watch but to also participate without traveling to the convention city.
Thanks for the comment…
–Dave
Re: The cost is prohibitive for MOST of our Southern Baptist churches.
I would guess – and it’s just a guess – that most messengers are pastors and their church picks up the tab for all or part of the expense. Lay members, at least at the churches I’ve been a member of, are expected to foot the entire bill by themselves.
For me to attend a convention I would have the same $1200 you mentioned plus (since I’m self-employed and don’t have a paid vacation) lost earnings. Others would have to commit half their annual vacation: a big family sacrifice.
An alternative means of having our annual meeting is important if we’re to increase the number of ministers attending. It is imperative if the goal is to increase broad-based attendance by the laity.
Brother Dave,
I think you bring up a great point. Technology should be an advantage for the SBC and allow many more messengers to take advantage of their association with other SBC affiliated churches through the convention. It should not be difficult to coordinate onsite and electronic voting to increase participation.
Blessings,
Chris
Bowden,
I believe that you are correct to say that most of the messengers are pastors and that their churches pick up the tab. I would agree that it is much more difficult for a layperson to attend. However, keep in mind that 60% of our SBC churches have fewer than 300 members and 44% have fewer than 200 members. Is a 200 member church going to pay $1200 to send their pastor to the SBC? I don’t think so. Half of our 400 churches here in Colorado have bivocational pastors who will most likely never attend because of the reasons that you have so clearly stated. I am pleased that our new president, Dr. Johnny Hunt, has stated a desire to see attendance increased. I can only hope that a serious study of possible alternatives will be on the way.
Perhaps some type of “counselor” discount would be appropriate…
Chris,
Travel is an issue in my state–impossible at certain times of the year. Many, if not most, of our state convention committees now meet by conference call. It’s a great saver of time and expenses. We don’t take all that many votes at the SBC. Wouldn’t it be cool if hundreds of thousands of messengers were able to vote from all around the world simply by getting online? My goodness, even my fantasy football league has that kind of technology.
Dave,
I laughed when I read the fantasy football comment!
That is a new way of thinking about the SBC.
I haven’t heard this discussion before, but it makes sense. There is room for abuse from the outside, but not a deal breaker, just something to think about.
I could see two levels of participation online:
1) A caucus-type of meeting at the many State headquarters that could actually interact (in the Audio-visual sense) with the central SBC meeting.
2) An in-home, individual link which could not really interact, except by posting comments like this, but could certainly follow the feeds and then vote on matters.
I wonder how much this would cost?
I wonder how much more input we’d get from this?
I nominate Dave Samples to do a cost-benefit analysis.
Is there a second?
Shane,
As to cost, my FFL costs less than $200. The easiest way it seems would be to provide online voting accessible from any computer. Messengers would have to register ahead of time (we already have this happening online now) and be given an ID/password much like I used to write this post. That way, misionaries in West Africa could participate alongside church planters in Washington state.
Thanks for checking in, Shane..
Dave,
We have, according to the SBC website, “more than 42,000 churches” in the convention. The bylaws state that each church is entitled to (1) messenger plus an additional messenger (up to a maximum of 10) for either: a)each additional 250 members, or b)every $250 given to the Cooperative fund. So even the smallest church is eligible to send the full complement of 10 messengers if they gave $2250 – that’s just $187.50 per month – to the CP ($250 x 9 = $2250).
That makes for a potential pool of over 420,000 messengers.
12,000 messengers – which would be a really good turnout – represents just under 3% of the total possible.
Three percent!?!? I’m under no illusions that changing the format to a regional or online venue would dramatically improve the attendance: I don’t think we’ll ever see anything approaching half or even a quarter of the potential pool turning out. But with so few people making decisions for the entire convention, it seems like ANYTHING we could do to improve participation would be a no-brainer.
Brother Dave,
Your right,…it would not be a difficult endeavor. I work in the IT / Data Center world that deals with millions of transactions a day. It is not anything that many of my friends on the Lifeway IT Staff could not handle with the right budget and planning.
Participation alone would easily finance such an endeavor and provide a reasonable service for those associated to the convention.
Let me know if you need some help…
Blessings,
Chris
I may actually attend my first SBC meeting this year, simply because it is being hosted here in the Bluegrass State. But in years past I was either bivocational, on mission trips, or not willing to give up vacation with my family.
Some of us have advocated a digital gathering for the SBC for a couple of years now.
What would be the most effective way to get the word out and stir up a grassroots effort? Could we do some sort of on-line petition here on this blog and give people the opportunity to add their names? Or is something like that too “cheesy?”
Any ideas on the wording of a potential petition? Or any other ideas? Let’s quit griping about it and do something. I’m ready. Maybe we have the environment here on this site to bring this out and compel leadership to look and consider it. Who knows?
Bowden, The SBC is one of the few organizations that is consistently under-represented by its members. The current system allows a few to speak for the many. I wouldn’t pretend to speak for the 42,000 SBC churches but it would be nice if they could speak for themselves.
Chris, I don’t think that there is any doubt that technology is adequate to make online voting possible. I’ll text in who won the debate after it’s over but I can’t express myself at the SBC without spending $1200. I’m certain that with geeks like you in the convention we can pull this off–technology is not the problem. (I’m using geek in a very positive smarter than I am kind of way).
Geoff, You da man! There was a motion brought a few years ago to this end that was, I believe, declared out of order. I brought a resolution last year that did not make it out of committee. I was later told by the chairman of the resolutions committee that it should have been a motion and not a resolution. It seems that it will be rejected by the authorities above us regardless. There may need to be constitutional changes to even make it possible. The only way something like this will even be considered is if someone like Morris Chapman or our president, Dr. Johnny Hunt get behind it. I promise you this, get the churches involved personally in the convention and you will see CP gifts skyrocket.
–Dave
Dave,
Let’s get an on-line petition going. I know that John can figure out a way to do it. Can you word your resolution in a non-resolution fashion (none of the whereas statements …)? Let’s get this ball rolling and get the word out. Grass roots is the only way that this is going to happen … and only if we can generate some news.
ok…I’ll dust the resolution off and reword it.
For those who want to take a look, we had a good discussion of the issue back in May here at sbcIMPACT!. Is there a way to provide the link, Geoff?
I almost forgot about that! You did have the resolution here, didn’t you?
Here’s the link!
Send me that re-worded “petition” statement as soon as you have it.
This is Shane from post #7.
I just read the article and the posts from earlier this year, and boy, I feel like I’m late to the party!
These are great ideas.
I’m all in. Just tell me where to sign.
Together in the Task,
Shane
And finally…I received this by email from one of my friends/church members who reads sbcIMPACT! I quote with her permission.
“I was seriously thinking about commenting on your SBC Impact thing today. What is the incentive for an average lay person who has no real hope of attending a convention to become interested in the SBC? Ultimately, we have no power to make any changes which makes it difficult to find a reason to become invested in it.”
Just one more excellent reason to find an alternative to the way that we do business.
Dave — I didn’t know that they were on the web! Thanks for sharing that tidbit
If my whole family goes home, there probably won’t be a room left to rent..lol..
God bless,
Sallie
Perhaps, you should call it a “RESOLUTION” for online voting for SBC referendums and convention attendance and submit that for a vote. That would be totally SBC
God bless,
Sallie
Guys,
Great idea and I’m sure we could get much support behind this especially given the economic downturn and raised gas prices. Count me in. In fact, I would be glad to talk with the Network of Baptist Associations (that’s 1000 ADOMs) about it. We have a meeting in January in TX and could bring it up there and get them to support it as a group, which I think they would.
Roger,
Now, I’m getting excited about the possibilities. That would be a tremendous boost to have the Network of Baptist Associations onboard. Good idea!
Sallie,
–Dave
I wonder what the attendance would be like if paid convention employees were not there? Take away seminary, agency, and state convention peeps and how many would be left?