Very light reading on CBF, not much from ABP

[Sandy]

http://www.abpnews.com/ministry/organiz ... ces-change

I think ABP's coverage of the SBC carried more details, and more information, than this does.

[Dave Roberts]

[Dave Roberts]

I had the chance to spend a little time with my son who was involved in the General Assembly. He seemed quite pleased, especially with the preaching and with Suzi Paynter. Of course, there are no resolutions at CBF, so the actions taken don't make good press. The restructuring was overwhelmingly adopted to give CBF a greater flexibility without having to bring a 69-member coordinating council into every situation. He felt Paynter struck the right tone for her inaugural. I have also heard from two other folks who were there who were pleased. Some 2,000 were in attendance, and if you look at the pictures, there are as many under 40 folks in them as those of us over 60. I think those young faces speak well for what CBF is about.

[William Thornton]

Hmmm, the CBF attendance is about half of what the SBC attendance was in Houston. The CBFs budget is a tiny fraction of the SBC budget. CBF churches are but a sliver of the total of SBC churches.

I think it is fair to say that CBFers appear to be more interested in the future of their organization that do SBCers do theirs. Part of the reason why might be that the CBFs long term prospects are less assured than the SBCs.

Whatever...I wish my mod lib friends well for their future.

Look for a piece from me in hte near future on how the SBC could benefit by stealing a few of the CBFs ideas.

[Dave Roberts]

William, cross-fertilization between SBC and CBF ideas could benefit both. The SBC is not the devil--sometimes it just acted that way back in the fight. The best thing the SBC could grasp is the effectiveness of a global perspective in missions which means that someone serving in an Arab country might be assigned for a time with refugees from that country who have come to the US, or a Spanish language leader from this country could be placed in a Latin context for a time. No more dividing the world.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Can't handle good news Sandy? Is it possible it was just a great meeting and that there was little negative to comment about? or is it only journalism if it runs down the organization?

[Sandy]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Sandy, I'm sure cost could be a factor. I always remember the larger churches sent more messengers than the smaller churches because of cost. I'm just wondering if William thinks satisfaction with the SBC or something else, like apathy is at work. It seems like a very very small attendance for a congregational denomination with 45,000 churches. That comes to only about 1 messenger for every 10 churches. Are less than 10% of the churches sending representatives now?

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Dave Roberts]

It's funny how it cost the same thing to attend a CBF General Assembly as it does to attend the SBC. If there were 2,000 registered in Greensboro, as was reported in ABP and Sandy is right that there are only 1,800 churches supporting CBF, that means there was an average of more than one person per church attending. I'd say that's strong interest in what's going on, IMHO.

[William Thornton]

[William Thornton]

While I don't think the attendance at the SBC and CBF are completely comparable, it's no secret that the SBC attendance has been meager for years, necessitating a good bit of hand wringing. This year an SBC VP was elected with just a few hundred votes. My conjecture is that low attendance is due to:

1. It is expensive.
2. Younger pastors don't see value in attending.
3. It is boring as all get-out.
4. We just don't show up for all that strutting and backslapping like we used to.


I plan, tentatively, to attend next year in Baltimore.

[Dave Roberts]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Sandy]

[Dave Roberts]

[William Thornton]

[William Thornton]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]