San Antonio…

June 11th, 2007 | Posted in » Baptist Issues, My Life / Family

Many of you may have noticed that I’ve taken somewhat of a sabbatical from SBC matters here at Toward the Goal. As a result, some of you may be wondering… are you going to San Antonio? Of course, if you’re there, you may know the answer by now, because you’re wondering… where’s John?

Simply put… I’m not going this year… I’m skipping San Antonio.

My reasons are varied, but if you’ve followed my blog, you may be perceptive enough to already know why I’m not going this year:

• Family… it wouldn’t be fair to my three children (or especially to Nancy) for me to skip town for a week to attend the convention.
• Work… it’s very busy. In looking at dates earlier this year, I expected the convention to conflict with a business trip. That conflict didn’t materialize as I had expected, but work is still busy enough that I really can’t afford to take a week off right now anyway.
• SBC politics… things seem, to me, to have gotten vastly out of hand recently, and I’ve been frustrated. To be honest, I’m not sure that I want to be part of that world in any way, shape, or form right now.

So what does this mean? In the grand scheme of things… not much. But if you’re looking for the video interviews that Micah and I put together last year, or for new thoughts and photos from my convention experience… well, you have my apologies, but you’ll just have to find that kind of thing elsewhere this year. (Not that my efforts were all that significant or meaningful anyway.)

The worst part about this, and the one regret I have about not going? I’m not going to have the opportunity to see all the wonderful friends I met and hung out with last year… and I’m not going to have the opportunity to meet and fellowship with all the new folks I’ve become acquainted with through the blog world this year. It’s people that make the SBC great… and it’s people that I will miss.

Anyway, my hope for San Antonio? Unity. Maybe it’s just my perception of things… but with the division and debate of the last year, it would seem to me that above all, we need unity.

I pray that God will move amongst Southern Baptists in San Antonio this year, giving all attending a sense of urgency about the lostness of the world we live in. I pray that He’d help all of us realize that we need Him, first and foremost, if we’re going to make a difference in reaching the world, but that also, we need each other. The task is too big for us individually… it may even be too big for us corporately… but it’s definitely too big for us, as Baptists, if we keep warring against one another. May God move amongst Southern Baptists, prompting us to lay down our swords, reconcile our divisions, and work together under His guidance to spread the hope we have in Jesus to the billions of people in this world that live condemned… having rejected, ignored, or worse… not having heard the saving message of Christ.