How to Call a Meeting

Some weeks ago I read something complimenting President Carter about knowing how to call a meeting. The kudos went out over calling a national meeting that received nationwide press coverage and invited tens of thousands. It noted the speakers that were committed to come, President Carter himself, President Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore to name the most popular. Of course there were other political leaders and activist along with a few well known preachers such as Joel Gregory and Tony Campolo. All total, it looks as if 15,000 registered for the national event.

If this meeting means that President Carter really knows how to call a meeting, Don Cass is to be highly commended. Don is the director of evangelism for the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention and each year calls a meeting called an Evangelism Conference. This year the theme was When Time is No More and included various sermons dealing with themes around the second coming of Jesus and the end of the earth. As I search for news articles I am coming up short. Evidently Don didn’t know that you should publicize a Baptist meeting via the secular media. I have seen no reports of attendance but I do know the numbers were several thousand. Having attended for the last three years, it was easy to see the crowd this year exceeded previous crowds. The time has come to move to a larger venue. The facilities of First Baptist Church of Euless have been outgrown.

Imagine this; a meeting publicized within Baptist circles and not reported in the secular media drew several thousand perhaps 4000 or more. The SBTC today reports 2002 churches as cooperating. Let me see, that is close to 2 from each church based on pure guesses. Even if the attendance was half the 4000 it would still be 1 from each cooperating church. The NBC meeting boasted 30 Baptist Conventions as participating and it is plain that they did not draw any where close to one person from each church. As a matter of fact, the BGCT lists over 5000 churches and one from each of their churches would have likely doubled the attendance in many of the NBC meetings. Who knows how to call a Baptist meeting? I think Don Cass knows how to call a meeting.

Already Don is calling another meeting for next year. Having outgrown FBC Euless, the new home will be in the Tarrant County Convention Center. It will be exciting to see the list of speakers who come together to preach on the subject of the Holy Spirit. Now what do I choose? Do I choose to encourage the members of the church where God has allowed me to serve to attend a meeting about the environment or one that encourages evangelism? Well, if I believe the answer to man’s problems on earth can be solved by science I will go to hear Al Gore, if I want to see the souls of men saved in my community and the moral pollution cured, I think I will go to Fort Worth on Monday after the third Sunday in February of 2008.