2009 SBC Annual Meeting Review, Part 2

Some will regard this particular post as a delving into trivialities. Nevertheless, we all do well to remember that each individual messenger’s experience of a particular convention will not necessarily consist of the things that will mark the history books. We do well to set aside a moment to consider the messenger-experience of the Louisville convention.

First, most messengers will note how much more difficult the annual meeting becomes when the site makes it impossible to walk  between the meeting hall and the various primary hotels. In this regard, our visit to Louisville involved unfavorable shadows of Greensboro. Bus routes predictably were overwhelmed at peak moments. Compounding this problem was the fact that Louisville experienced abnormally uncomfortable summer weather during convention week. One local weathercaster announced to Louisville, “The relative humidity today was 200%—don’t ask questions, folks; just take my word for it; I’m a professional!” Long waits in shade-less areas during intensely hot conditions made for some unpleasantness.

I’m thankful to note that the personnel running the shuttle buses were the epitome of Southern hospitality, even if several of the ones that I met hailed from the wrong bank of the Ohio. And by-and-large the messenger body, ebullient for whatever reason, laughed off the inconvenience and bound together with one another in camaraderie during the inconveniences.

But I’m in favor of our strongly biasing convention sites toward convention centers with many hotels within walking distance. Especially since some of the events will inexorably take place in the convention hotel, this is important. Oh, and restaurants—don’t forget to put us near some restaurants. We fared just fine (we have a tradition of staying in some sort of an extended-stay property every year and eating out of a Sam’s-Club-stocked refrigerator for the week), even pulling off a third birthday party for Sarah along the way, complete with cupcakes. But I think most of the messengers would conclude that a makeshift food court is no replacement for holding the meeting near real bona-fide restaurants.

If we were going to be inconvenienced anyway, I think it might have been fun to have had SBTS put us all up in dorms and student apartments, let us eat in their dining hall, and then have the meeting in chapel. OK, I’m entirely being facetious about that. But I will opine that it would have been nice to have been located closer to the seminary campus. That wasn’t possible, because the only other available Louisville venue was downtown (also not particularly close to The Beeches). Nevertheless, I can dream. The point of going to Louisville was that Southern is there, yet I’m betting that a great many of the messengers never got to set foot in the House that E. Y. built (and RAM saved from itself). That’s a shame.

But, of course, I visited the campus, and I stopped by Cave Hill Cemetery to visit J.P. and John and Basil (as well as poor Clyde T. Francisco of Broadman Commentary infamy).

Second, was it just me, or was the exhibit hall very sparsely populated with exhibitors this year? The aisles were wide and some of the exhibits expansive, and still it felt like the exhibits could have fit easily in the youth activity room with plenty of space left over. I’ve always enjoyed the exhibit hall as much as the convention itself, but it disappointed this year, in my opinion. Did anyone else see it differently?

Third, the stage layout was different this year. The choir area was behind a scrim, directly behind the pulpit. The staging area was deeper this year rather than wider (a song from Preschool Sunday School echoes in that sentence somewhere), and I really liked that. I mean, although I wouldn’t have predicted that such a trivial thing would have made much difference at all, I REALLY liked that. It made the convention feel less like a three-ring circus (and I’m talking only about the physical layout here…be nice, folks) and more like the kind of uniform platform layout that most churches have. Good job folks (Clark Logan, I presume?)! Hold onto that layout and let’s see more of it.

Fourth, web services available in the weeks prior to the convention have made registration a cake-walk. If registration took you longer than five minutes, start to finish, then you either are very unlucky, or it’s your own fault.

Fifth, the convention debuted a new system of so called MOB-boxes this year. I don’t remember what MOB stands for, and it is possible that I’m even getting the name wrong altogether. I’m talking about the electronic boxes at each microphone used by the people on the platform to determine whom to recognize at which microphone for various items of business. In the past, the chair would call out “Microphone 1, do you wish to speak for or against the motion?” Now the language from the platform is the quite different, “Microphone 3a, you wish to speak against the motion?”

This is important, because in the past the person at the front of the microphone line has been able at times to determine the destiny of all those behind him. Although the previous generation of MOB boxes were able to record in a rudimentary fashion that there were people waiting there to speak both for and against the motion, various factors could upset that idyllic scenario (subsidiary motions that reset the system, for example). At least once in recent conventions the platform asked something along the lines of, “Microphone 10, do you wish to speak against the motion?” only to hear a voice reply, “No, I wish to speak in favor,” and then the platform moves right along, when all along the next person in line at microphone 10 actually DID wish to speak against the motion and was the actual target of the President’s question.

Now, all of that is solved. Now, the chair recognizes Microphone 10b, an actual person (the second person in line at microphone 10) rather than just a queue of people. The system appeared to work flawlessly. I give it a 10. Of course, I only saw it from a distance. As fetching as I look on the Jumbotron, I nevertheless sat in my seat and was a good boy this year (even if not everyone else was). That’s so much the worse for those of you viewing the feed at home who didn’t get to see me at all.

Furthermore, a big shout-out to Dallas area resident Barry McCarty. Great job, as always, sorting out the particulars of Roberts’ Rules. Sometimes you almost see McCarty slip his hand up the back of whoever is holding this year’s gavel. I wondered aloud on Twitter during the proceedings whether McCarty can do it while drinking a glass of water.

In summary of the second part, in spite of the weaknesses inherent to the location, it was an enjoyable annual meeting for Southern Baptists. The third and final part of this review will consider the actual business transacted at the meeting, which (to give you a bit of a preview) bore a striking resemblance to the Exhibit Hall—sparsely populated.