Everything's (not) big in Texas
By Tony W. Cartledge
BR Editor
The old saying claims that everything's big in Texas, but that didn't apply to attendance at this year's annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, in San Antonio.
Texas did host the SBC's largest attendance ever back in 1985, when 45,519 messengers attended the meeting in Dallas. And, almost 33,000 attended the 1988 meeting in San Antonio. Both meetings were held during the height of the famous "SBC controversy" as conservatives successfully sought and gained control of the Convention from more moderate leaders.
This year, however, the controversy index was relatively low, and just 8,618 registered messengers attended the meeting, comparable to the 8,600 who attended in Indianapolis in 2004. Registration officials said 7,396 people pre-registered online, though just 6,430 of those made it San Antonio.
When North Carolina hosted the meeting in 2006 - for just the second time in 80 years - there were 11,639 messengers, just two short of the 2005 total in Nashville.
Of the 8,618 registered messengers, the largest number, as expected, was from the host state of Texas, which has two state conventions and sent 1,592 messengers.
In a somewhat questionable arrangement, executive director Jim Richards (who was running for first vice president) of the smaller Southern Baptists of Texas Convention brought greetings on Tuesday morning, while Charles Wade of the older and larger Baptist General Convention of Texas was given a spot to welcome messengers on Wednesday morning.
For comparative purposes, when the meeting was held in Greensboro last year, North Carolina churches sent 2,801 messengers, nearly double the number of Texans who attended in their own state.
And, while the two Texas conventions sent just 540 messengers to Greensboro last year, North Carolina sent 626 messengers to San Antonio, just behind Tennessee's 652. Georgia sent 600, and Florida 522.
No matter where the Southern Baptist Convention meeting is held, you can count on Baptist State Convention churches being in the top three in sending messengers. Add that to 2006 totals showing that North Carolina contributed more to the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong mission offerings than any other state convention, and one could argue that Tar Heels are about the most supportive Southern Baptists around.
