A New Day in the SBC...

The Southern Baptist Convention has been meeting this week in North Carolina and it has been quite different from previous conventions. The national SBC has gradually developed sort-of-a status quo inner circle that has maintained control of the organization for many years. In the past pre-selected nominees are put forward for key leadership and are rubber-stamped by the convention. This year, due in large part to SBC bloggers, the convention has passed over the "official" nominee and has elected a relatively unknown pastor to serve as president--Frank Page. It's always refreshing to bring new leadership and perspectives into an organization like the SBC. In recent years, our national denomination has not been accomplishing its purpose quite as effectively as it might and it has become pretty political some of its leadership seeming to be primarily focused on keeping a strangle hold on power. Several bloggers have done a wonderful job of reporting about the convention. If you are interested you can read more about the convention at Art Rogers blog: http://www.twelvewitnesses.blogspot.com/. All of the convention sessions are archived at http://www.sbc.net/. It would be well worth your time to go and watch the Wednesday morning session when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice spoke to the convention. I found her speech to be extremely inspiring. There is some music at the beginning of the clip that you can fast forward through to get to Dr. Rice's comments. Following the applause at the end of the speech...the crowd breaks out into "God Bless America".