by Dave Roberts » Tue Dec 14, 2021 11:36 am
Part of the SBC polity problem is that within that system of smaller churches, often those churches have never been represented at an SBC meeting simply because the church budget does not have the finances to be represented at an SBC meeting. I grew up in an association that prior to 1979 had never had more than 3 or 4 of its churches ever sending messengers. They might send them to the local association, but they did not send then the the SBC or even to the state level. Suddenly the pressure to send messengers meant that people who had never been to a convention or understood anything about its polity were turning up to save the SBC without ever knowing any of the particulars, only that they believed the SBC needed new saviors, and they would come to save it. Now some have managed to step up to the EC, and they still have no idea how to lead at that level. The "small mindedness" of which you speak is exactly what sent some of us over the edge. Also, CBF has suffered from the fact that numbers of churches that thought like CBFers are still in the SBC not knowing even what the differences are, except as promoted by some very biased sources. Interesting these days to watch from a distance.