Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Isn't There Another Way?

The workshop that was conducted by Tommy Estes, Bill Kuykendal and Robert Wallace was excellent. I'm not sure if this was the first ever workshop at an MBA meeting. To my knowledge it was the only one. Maybe someone will straighten me out on this.

The Eastern Baptist Association in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, etc., have been conducting workshops for their pastors and messengers for years. They have streamlined their meetings and made sure that the people go home with something they can use.

The Texas meeting could be much more enjoyable by having several workshops on several subjects every year which would help equip and inform the pastors and messengers of how to do more effective ministry. There would be less boredom and fewer sleepy messengers.

It was really hilarious that someone on the platform humorously noted that there were several sleeping (me too) during the afternoon session (that's when all of the reports are given). Personally, I believe it was a shame that we should be subjected to the reading of reports for an hour and a half when the same reports could have been printed and made available for our personal reading for a later time. With the reports in hand we could take them and read them to our churches. We wouldn't be sleeping during a workshop and we would have something of value to take home with us.

Traditionally we have always read these reports at our meetings, but do we have to keep on doing this? Isn't there another way?

2 comments:

Kevin Higgins said...

Great thoughts Bro. David. I agree with you about the benefits of the workshops and the reading of the reports. My favorite example is at the national meeting when the missionary report is read to us on three different occasions over two days. Maybe the problem isn't just an unwillingness to consider something new. I wonder if we're not terribly lazy too. It would take forethought to prepare written reports, and it would take personal initiative to read them. Still, I agree with what you've said. Good stuff.

Bro. Wes said...

I have noticed that at the California state meeting, if these things were implemented, the "jobs" of a lot of people would be done away with. A lot of people that look forward to doing their parliamentarian moves wouldn't have as much to do and look forward to. This I see as a problem to the changes that need to be done because unfortunately the meetings are too much of a part of some pastor's lives. I think it would be a great idea to have some workshops instead of a bunch of resolutions that people think are so important.