It’s time to use superlatives; the 2009 SBTC annual meeting was the best of the 10 I’ve attended. I missed the first two and might be inclined to discount the first one because of the unique nature of an inaugural meeting. All that aside, I’ve never been to a more upbeat, enthusiastic Baptist meeting. Even the mood of folks clustered in the hallways was exuberant. In one sense it was puzzling. The occasion was not as unique as last year’s 10-year anniversary celebration. It wasn’t the largest meeting we’ve had, though our attendance was well within the average range for our meetings.

It wasn’t until we saw hundreds of people Tuesday night walking down the hall toward the decision counseling room that it became clear. The atmosphere, the unity, the harmony, and the harvest signaled a movement of the Lord during our convention meeting. Something was in the air. Something was in our hearts.

I know several editors will say something similar about their own meeting this year. They’ll be sincere and I’d be happy for them to be right about an unusual blessing of God on their meeting. I’ve come back from our own meetings happy and grateful for what went on. I truly think this is different, though. Consider a few happy aspects of our meeting.

We didn’t have a fight. Some conventions will either have an open disagreement or use the bully pulpit to brush aside disagreement during these important two days. Some messengers will go home believing that they were abused by the majority or chair. Except for one amendment to a resolution related to the Cooperative Program, we had no closely contested question. And that one wasn’t the cause of hard feelings. I saw state staff members vote on both sides of that question. Both sides were trying to say, “We’re fans of CP and this is a good way to express it.” Those who lost the vote moved on and enjoyed the rest of the day. Some conventions will address or ignore significant fellowship questions within their bodies. We didn’t have such a question before us. 

We didn’t cut our budget. I don’t brag about the mercy and provision of God. It’s not something we can earn or arrange. The fact is, some of our sister conventions have been roughly handled by the economy. Some have cut staff positions; some have reduced their budget plans by double digits for consecutive years. An awareness of God’s provision for our cooperative work in Texas buoyed the spirits of messengers and convention workers alike. Our financial report was neither dull nor discouraging—quite the opposite.

We didn’t come to a fork in the road. Some conventions are being driven by financial hardships or multiple visions for the future to reconsider the future of the work of their state conventions. Our convention has moved pretty successfully from rapid growth in ministries to constant reconsideration of how we’re organized for ministry. I don’t think a single annual meeting has passed without noting new ministries, reorganized ministries, or reconfigured resources. It may be a blessing of being only 11 years old but it lends a constant aspect of freshness to what happens within our fellowship.

We didn’t just talk about evangelism. Our own state version of Crossover has been a good idea. It has encouraged some churches and each year presents the gospel to someone who’s not heard it before. Like the SBC’s Crossover event, ours varies from place to place depending on the churches and associations that partner with us. This year was unique. It was a different kind of event. Working with Lubbock area churches, our evangelism staff hit the sweet spot with the Team Impact and Johnny Hunt evangelism rallies Tuesday night. The preparation and choice of evangelists drew thousands of people to the civic center during the last session of a business meeting of conservative Baptists. There are a lot of unexpected blessings in that fact. Those scores of our messengers who prayed with the hundreds who responded to the gospel invitation were jubilant to be so used of God. That kind of experience will bring unity and excitement to a Baptist meeting.

This blessing was, I think, based on earlier ones. Our 2009 meeting was the 12th story of a foundation that was laid in 1998. God gave the increase this year by his provision of people and resources in previous years.

Our unity is based largely on the fact that we are a confessional fellowship. We don’t have widely divergent views of biblical authority, local church practice, or our relationship with other Southern Baptists, because the essential aspects of those questions are answered in the statement of faith affiliated churches affirm. Churches also make a commitment to cooperative missions when they decide to be part of our convention. That question is settled from the start. I still believe that other state conventions, our national SBC for that matter, would benefit greatly from making their fellowships confessional in nature. Until that happens, they’ll be divided from time to time regarding things about which Southern Baptists broadly agree.

Our financial stability is greatly aided by the convention’s early commitment to adopt only those ministries requested by affiliated churches. This decision allows us to keep our staff numbers, thus our administrative costs, smaller relative to conventions of comparable size. Some of our insulation from the financial downturn comes from the steady increase in our number of affiliated churches. Part of this growth is the fruit of the continued priority of church planting and part of it comes from churches drawn to an efficient and confessional state fellowship. We are solid now because our core values were solid in November of 1998.

Likewise our insulation from the vision crisis some state conventions face is aided by the fact that our convention was begun by reformers who have not stopped reforming. The transition from our first generation of leaders to our second generation effectively transferred the essentials of our first principles. It’s another blessing of a newer convention but if we continue to keep our values and our practice lashed together, one day we’ll be as fresh and unified in vision 50 years from now.

Our sister conventions don’t disregard evangelism. We, like they, have also worked earnestly to help churches to be more effective in their evangelistic outreach even as baptism numbers remain smaller than we hoped. The creativity our convention has had to use during the development of its ministries has nonetheless been used of God to reap a harvest on more than one occasion. Evangelism is a priority of the SBTC and that priority shows in both our budget pie chart and the convention’s organizational chart. Our evangelism staff, like all our staff, uses a wide variety of tools in order to serve the needs of diverse churches and to reach people in diverse places and from diverse backgrounds. The SBTC is still committed to crusade and event evangelism, for example, though not only to crusade and event evangelism. One person accepted Christ in the hallway even while hundreds did the same thing in the Exhibit Hall during our evangelistic rallies. The dynamic nature of our convention requires your staff to constantly seek new ways to do the basic things. While no one thinks the Lord is required to respect our cleverness, thinking strategically and working hard seem to be things the Lord expects of his servants.