Well it didn’t quite make it to sunny with a high of 75 at the beach this week. It was only about 70 both days–a bummer, I know.
It’s always good to see old friends, and I’m amazed looking back at how many people were there that I knew–from church growing up, from working over the past 7 years with Impact Virginia!, old family friends (not that the friends are old, or that my family’s old…). And meeting some new people too.
The keynote speaker during the two-day conference/va baptist annual meeting was Leith Anderson, the pastor of Wooddale Church in Minnesota. I missed his first two messages because I was too busy catching up with people. But I caught his last one. His point: our sole purpose in life is to make God look good, to enhance the reputation of God. Nobody will want to be a God-follower if we’re making God look bad. Pretty good thought. [side note: Leith is taking over as President of the National Association of Evangelicals after Ted Haggard’s incident last week…].
In other ground-breaking news, the representatives from each church voted on the VA Baptist budget for the year–delegating finances to missions, staff positions, church plants, and partner institutions. Alumni and supporters of one institution was upset that they weren’t getting as much money as last year (over $300,000 to less than $150,000…I will give it to ’em, that was a big drop). So in order to not raise the budget, they just decided that they still wanted their $300,000, their institution was better than two of others, and so they recommended taking more than $150,000 from those two schools and giving it to their beloved college. Why is it that some people are so greedy? All 3 schools are educating young leaders. If they had really needed the extra $150,000+ they should go out and fundraise it. Churches shouldn’t be their crutch to lean on… Enough ranting.
