Back to a Future
Memo to The American Baptist Churches General Board Executive Committee: The way to save money and streamline the work of ABCUSA is to return to the Annual Convention of previous days when the delegates (a.k.a. Messengers of the churches) set and/or responded to the agenda of the denominational staff and officers by voting to make the decisions that chart the course for the denomination.
The current super structure of the General Board and other ABCUSA organizations should be discarded. In its place the historic democracy of Baptist delegates of the local Baptist churches voting the policy and practices of the national denomination should be restored. It should be apparent to onlookers (as noted on a web site of importance to ABCers hisbarkingdog.blogspot.com) that one General Board meeting a year will most likely provide us with nothing more than a rubber stamp for the opinions and desires of denominational staff and officers. Such a rubber stamp process would merely increase the distance and disaffection between Valley Forge and local churches.
The former criticisms of an Annual ABCUSA Convention are no longer valid. It was once said that delegates from the area of the country in which the annual convention is held overwhelm the meeting giving a regional flavor to decisions. It was once said that it was too expensive for churches to send delegates to meetings across the country. In this age of the Internet those reasons no longer hold water.
Now that we are all so closely connected by Internet technology, a democratic vote of delegates from the churches is as accessible as activating your ISP. Setting up a nationwide Internet service to ABCUSA churches for democratic voting could be done at very reasonable expense to both the denomination and ALL churches who are a part of it. Identification numbers and passwords for church delegates would safeguard the annual vote, and insure that ALL ABC churches would have their proper tally of votes if they chose to vote them.
Let’s give the denomination back to the local churches. Let’s put issues before them and count the votes. Then we’ll really be the American BAPTIST Churches in the USA, and not be the American Baptist HIERARCHICAL Churches in the USA.
The current super structure of the General Board and other ABCUSA organizations should be discarded. In its place the historic democracy of Baptist delegates of the local Baptist churches voting the policy and practices of the national denomination should be restored. It should be apparent to onlookers (as noted on a web site of importance to ABCers hisbarkingdog.blogspot.com) that one General Board meeting a year will most likely provide us with nothing more than a rubber stamp for the opinions and desires of denominational staff and officers. Such a rubber stamp process would merely increase the distance and disaffection between Valley Forge and local churches.
The former criticisms of an Annual ABCUSA Convention are no longer valid. It was once said that delegates from the area of the country in which the annual convention is held overwhelm the meeting giving a regional flavor to decisions. It was once said that it was too expensive for churches to send delegates to meetings across the country. In this age of the Internet those reasons no longer hold water.
Now that we are all so closely connected by Internet technology, a democratic vote of delegates from the churches is as accessible as activating your ISP. Setting up a nationwide Internet service to ABCUSA churches for democratic voting could be done at very reasonable expense to both the denomination and ALL churches who are a part of it. Identification numbers and passwords for church delegates would safeguard the annual vote, and insure that ALL ABC churches would have their proper tally of votes if they chose to vote them.
Let’s give the denomination back to the local churches. Let’s put issues before them and count the votes. Then we’ll really be the American BAPTIST Churches in the USA, and not be the American Baptist HIERARCHICAL Churches in the USA.
posted by St. Louis K at 2:01 PM
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