I attended my first annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention when I was nine years old. Our family drove from Paris, Texas, where my Dad was Associate Pastor at First Baptist Church, to Chicago, Illinois.\u00a0\u00a0We stayed in a hotel that was taller than anything I had ever seen. We met in a convention center that seated more people than I had ever seen in one place.\u00a0\u00a0We saw pastors and church leaders of all sizes, shapes, and attire.\u00a0\u00a0My dad may have been the only one wearing Cowboy boots with his suit and tie.\u00a0\u00a0Motions were made, seconded, and passed or failed, none were unanimous, except one motion that we pray for rain (The whole country was in a drought.).\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0A few men preached.\u00a0\u00a0I was neither impressed nor bored by any on them.\u00a0\u00a0I had already heard more sermons than some would hear in a\u00a0\u00a0lifetime.\u00a0\u00a0Messengers got mad and disagreed with each other, then held hands and sang, \u201cBless be the tie . . .\u201d My favorite time was in the display area.\u00a0\u00a0All kinds of organizations, schools, and agencies, gave away ball point pens, note pads, and candy.\u00a0\u00a0Some folks from Wisconsin gave away cheese and apple slices. My Dad shook a lot of hands.\u00a0\u00a0I think he knew everyone there.\u00a0\u00a0In a few days we drove back home.\u00a0\u00a0This week, I will attend another annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.\u00a0\u00a0My Dad won\u2019t be there, but there will be Cowboy boots.\u00a0\u00a0Most of the other names and faces will be different.\u00a0\u00a0Nearly everything else will be similar to Chicago.\u00a0\u00a0Long live Southern Baptist!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I attended my first annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention when I was nine years old. Our family drove from Paris, Texas, where my Dad was Associate Pastor at First Baptist Church, to Chicago, Illinois.\u00a0\u00a0We stayed in a hotel that was taller than anything I had ever seen. We met in a convention center…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3681"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3683,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions\/3683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}