SBC This Week

Laura Erlanson (00:01)
Welcome to SBC This Week, a weekly news roundup of the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as interviews with top church leaders. I'm your host today, Laura Erlanson. I am joined by someone most listeners will recognize, the OG SBC This Week host, Jonathan Howe. Hi, Jonathan. You're back. Just for today, Brandon is out this week.

Jonathan Howe (00:19)
back I'm back yep so yeah just for today Brandon

Brandon's out he's in South Dakota visiting family and I'm filling in so big shoes to fill Brandon's like a size 12 or 13

Laura Erlanson (00:29)
Yeah, it's good to have you. Yeah.

Pretty big, pretty big. Well, it's good to have you. Good to have you back on the podcast. And we're going to talk a little bit later on about a survey that you did recently, right?

Jonathan Howe (00:42)
Yeah. So

about a week and a half ago, we sent out a survey about the annual meeting and had some thoughts and trying to get some, information from folks that are coming. So, that had been, and it gets some fascinating results to share with you at the end. We'll go through those. some things I think are not surprising. Some maybe a little bit surprising. So I think.

Laura Erlanson (00:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I was

very interested to see the statistics from that survey. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (01:05)
Yeah. So I shared some of those with you this morning and

you saw those, I think for the first time, the results. So, not going to go over everything cause that would just be boring, but there are a few things we wanted to pull out and talk about. I think it's a, it's, good as the guy who's kind of quote unquote in charge of putting on the annual meeting. It's good for me to be in tune with what folks think. And then also realize maybe where there's some information gaps and places we need to.

Laura Erlanson (01:09)
It's true. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (01:31)
educate people, let them know what's going on and why we're doing some things. So we'll talk about that at the end.

Laura Erlanson (01:35)
Yeah,

it's very interesting. Some results that were expected and then some that I was like, I wouldn't have thought that. yeah, it is.

Jonathan Howe (01:41)
Yeah. So, but this has been a big week SBC. It's a, got two of these big weeks a year. This has

been the week of prayer for North American missions, kicking off the Annie Armstrong Easter offering season.

Laura Erlanson (01:52)
Yes, and we had, we've been running stories every day in BP this week. NAM always sends us some fantastic content for their week of prayer. And this year was no different. Beautiful stories, beautiful photos, just some really great features about what church planners are doing all around North America. So I'm just going to list them real quick. We had six stories. We're running the last one today as we speak on March 7th. We're going to run that this afternoon or later, a little bit later today.

A military town in North Carolina, a Mormon stronghold in Utah, a border town in Texas, a remote tiny town in Wyoming, a poverty stricken neighborhood in Michigan and a diverse city in Canada. So features from all of those places in this week's week of prayer emphasis. And I would just encourage anybody to go read these pieces and pray for these missionaries. It's really impressive and exciting what they're doing.

Jonathan Howe (02:48)
Yeah,

I think you described every town in Wyoming, by the way.

Laura Erlanson (02:51)
Yeah,

remote tiny town. Yeah, get in line. Yeah, right. I'm warm and strong hold. Yeah. True that, true that. Little redundant. Sorry about that.

Jonathan Howe (02:55)
I kid, I kid, I kid. And also Utah, you described every town in Utah. My Mormon stronghold in Utah. Yeah. There we go. But yeah, so it's,

but it is exciting to hear the stories and read the stories of the lives that are being changed through church planning and our North American missions, either chaplaincy or church planners and the missionaries we have all across North America. And, you know, it's always fun to highlight them this week as we kick off.

Laura Erlanson (03:15)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (03:22)
That any Armstrong Easter offering season got a long Easter offering season this year So I'm expecting a big offering got a lot a lot of promo time, you know Easter's late. So the 20th of April so Yeah, yeah got a sponsor this week on the podcast and happy to have the Israel Ministry of Tourism on board with us. They are excited to present touching time It's a whole new program by the Israel nature and Park Authority

Laura Erlanson (03:26)
It is, Easter is late, yeah. That's right.

Yep, it is late this year.

Well, we have a brand new sponsor on the podcast. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (03:51)
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Zippori the ancient capital of the Galilee known for its stunning mosaics and the fascinatingly layered history of Beit She'an throughout this unique experience if you're interested in traveling to Israel you can visit holy land Israel travel and begin your spiritual journey today That's holy land Israel travel to begin your spiritual journey to Israel today and they got a lot of information over there on the website There's a whole section actually for pastors

That walks you through their whole program and how to take your church or a group from your church and things like that So really cool or you you've been to Israel. I think right you've not okay. You've been in the Middle East but not Israel Yeah I volunteer as tribute. Yeah

Laura Erlanson (04:57)
I have not, I have not, no. But right, I would be willing to, just as an SBC this week,

yeah right, press junket or something, I'd be happy to volunteer for that. So just putting that in there.

Jonathan Howe (05:08)
Yeah.

Yeah. Second week

of June is wide open for you. You know, you take off.

Laura Erlanson (05:16)
Perfect. Okay, well...

Jonathan Howe (05:17)
Yes, that's awesome. So thanks again

to our friends at the Israel ministry of tourism. They're on board for a couple of months and, glad to have them on as a sponsor, but to the news, Laura, we go, we start, we got some state exec news starting in Arizona.

Laura Erlanson (05:27)
Yeah, lots. Yeah.

Lots of news this week. Lots of SPC news this week. Stuff happens, you know, it's crazy. It's feast or famine. feel like so yeah, Arizona, David Johnson, we had a couple of state exec announcements last week, we had a new exec starting and then one one announcing his retirement. And then again, this week, we have some transitions in state exec. So yeah, starting with errors. Well, they're coming. They're coming and dropping. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (05:34)
Thank

Yeah, Lance Caddell.

Drop it like flies, Laura. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, that's true.

That's true.

Laura Erlanson (05:56)
Arizona's David Johnson has announced that he is planning to retire. He has been executive director of the Arizona Mission Network of Southern Baptists since 2013. And he announced this week at their annual meeting in Phoenix or his executive board meeting that he is planning to retire. But he is going to stay on until a successor is named. So no date yet on that.

retirement, but he said, I want to express my gratitude to Arizona Southern Baptist for the trust they have placed in me 12 years ago for their support and prayers during these years. It has truly been a privilege to serve our churches and the people across our state. And just some pretty glowing comments about him. I've heard just great things about him over the years, but specifically a pastor of a church out there, Calvary Baptist, a pastor, Chad Garrison said that David Johnson has been a blessing.

for Arizona Southern Baptist. has led with integrity, compassion, vision, excellence, and we are better because of his leadership. Another pastor who's the current president of the convention, Mark Muclo, said, there is no way that I or anyone else could possibly calculate what Dr. David Johnson's contribution to Arizona Southern Baptist has been for the past 35 years. Because before he was state exec, he was a pastor out there for a long, time.

Jonathan Howe (07:14)
Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's

been deeply involved in the ministry in Arizona. And, actually I was emailing with him this week about an issue out, a church had contacted us and he jumped right on it and took care of things. And it's like, perfect.

Laura Erlanson (07:22)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. That's awesome.

I got to talk to him a little bit back at our EC meeting, not this past one, but in September he was here and he and I talked for a good while and it was, I don't think I'd ever talked to him before. It was really, it was really neat to just to talk to him, get to know him a little bit. So yeah, congratulations to him. And we'll be praying for Arizona Baptist as they select a new leader out there.

Jonathan Howe (07:32)
Yeah. Back in September.

Yep. Yeah. They'll

form a search team and get somebody in there in the next few months. So, all right. Up to the great white North where, Randy Covington announced that he is, he has resigned, resigning the end of March, following a February 19th statement that he gave in response to the, church where he is a member whenever they were deemed not in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist convention. the, resignation was submitted on February 27th.

Laura Erlanson (07:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (08:17)
They don't have an interim yet up in Alaska, but Randy will be leaving that post at the end of the month, which is a few months earlier than his expected departure. He had already announced his retirement effective of September of this year. But the taking us back to the reason for the resignation, some comments that he made after Rabbit Creek Church, where he is a member, was removed from the convention deemed not in friendly cooperation said he wanted to take this opportunity to sincerely

Laura Erlanson (08:29)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (08:45)
apologize for a statement he made to Baptist Press, quote, I deeply regret the impact it may have had on our community. I sincerely regret the statement, quote, in the quote, they do not have egalitarian views referring to his church, which is a personal opinion and should not have been made on behalf of the Alaska Baptist Resource Network. I allowed my frustration and emotional bias toward my church, Rabbit Creek Church, to cloud my better judgment. It's important to clarify that I do not support the Baptist Women in Ministry platform or its visions, values, materials or events.

I'm also, or I'm sure that I can also speak for the ABRN in this regard. Please know my love for Alaska Baptist churches and their pastors is genuine and deep. so yeah, Randy Covington, just, you know, he'd already announced his retirement. It looks like just going to be a little bit earlier than expected. So we'll be praying for our friends up in Alaska too, cause you know, they were in the process of forming a committee to, you know, bring in a new exec and now

Laura Erlanson (09:26)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, just a little bit earlier than anticipated, yeah.

Jonathan Howe (09:44)
you know, that timeline gets shifted on them.

Laura Erlanson (09:46)
Yeah, and I would assume they would probably have an interim, you know, by the end of the month, they probably would have named an interim by then, just somebody to fill the gap. So yeah, we'll be paying attention to that and having stories in BP, I'm sure. No. I mean, as long as it was from like, you know, June to September, but anything other than that in Alaska, I'm out, I think.

Jonathan Howe (09:53)
Yeah. I do not volunteer as tribute for that. I've done my one interim duty and

You

Yeah, I'm out.

So, but yeah, so be praying for our friends up there in Alaska as they go through that leadership transition. So, Laura, we got some news from the Department of Justice investigation into the SBC Southwestern. Remember Matt Queen had pled guilty to that. We got a sentencing this week.

Laura Erlanson (10:19)
Yes.

We did, and this is a story we've been following now for over a year, updates periodically about this. And this is a result of the Department of Justice investigation into some SBC entities regarding sexual abuse. And the charge was for falsifying documents and basically lying to federal investigators. And he pled guilty to that charge. But then we also had a story a couple of weeks ago about the plea for leniency in the sentencing.

because, just for various reasons, he had really nothing to do with the, with any sexual abuse. And he had, had just had said in his plea for leniency, just the mental state that he was in at the time. And, and he confessed to doing it before anyone even knew. And so it just had a lot of reasons why he felt that the sentence should be, should not involve prison time and why his, his attorney argued for that. And so sure enough, that is indeed.

what happened. So he gets six months of basically house arrest, home confinement, and then six months beyond that of probation. then, yeah, that's what I was actually asking that somebody else that the other day. Yeah. But yeah, you're right. Okay. And then $2,000 fine. And so I would assume that this

Jonathan Howe (11:34)
Okay, so those are overlapping. I didn't understand that in the original thing that I read from. Yeah, okay. I was wondering about that. Okay. All right.

And court mandated

mental health care.

Laura Erlanson (11:53)
Yes.

And you could imagine if you're being investigated for something like this that you would have some pretty strong mentally emotional reactions to that.

Jonathan Howe (11:57)
Yeah.

I mean, have that

regardless and I'm not being investigated.

Laura Erlanson (12:07)
Well, So yeah, a court mandated mental health evaluation and treatment. And his attorney said, Dr. Queen is thankful that he will not serve time in prison and will seek to use his time under home confinement to help others. And so this, would hope, closes what I'm sure has been a very painful chapter for him. He has to get through the next little while of sentencing and paying for it.

but then it'll be over. And so that was a good development there this week. And then Southwestern released a statement about the sentencing, Southwestern Seminary. Since November, 2022, Southwestern has fully cooperated with the Department of Justice investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention's response to sexual abuse. With the criminal justice process now complete regarding the charges against Matt Queen, we are hopeful that the investigation will soon reach its conclusion, allowing all parties to move forward.

Our prayers for McQueen and his family, as well as all others involved in this process, continue. Southwestern remains steadfast in its commitment to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of all members of our community, taking every possible measure to prevent sexual abuse and harassment.

Jonathan Howe (13:17)
Yeah, all right. Well, I'm with them. I hope this does wrap up that chapter over at Southwestern and also across the SBC. yeah. All right. We'll stay in Texas. Guidestone trustees met this past week and celebrated. They also recognized Pastor Jamie Brock and Concord Baptist Church in Chieftain, Florida with the second annual John and Teresa Amber Award. It recognizes and celebrates the top giving normative sized church. So those with up to 100

Laura Erlanson (13:23)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, in the SBC at large for sure. Yep.

Jonathan Howe (13:46)
people in attendance each week, the Normative Southern Baptist Church for their financial support of Mission Dignity. And so it's pretty cool to see that. And John Ambrow, remember the longtime director of Mission Dignity and had a stroke a few years ago and kind of medical forced into retirement because of that. And it's neat to see that his name and his legacy lives on in this award. So really cool.

Laura Erlanson (13:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That's right.

Mm-hmm.

It is. It is. And I love that

this church, know, small church under a hundred people, but they are a bigger supporter of mission dignity, which is sort of the heart of Guidestone. I think I've even heard Hans Stilbeck say that several times, that mission dignity is the heart of what Guidestone's all about, taking care of those. Yeah, taking care of those servants. I loved this part of the Guidestone story. In fact, as soon as I read it yesterday, when we got the story in hand, I emailed.

Jonathan Howe (14:25)
Started as the annuity and relief board.

Laura Erlanson (14:37)
our friend Roy out at Guidestone, I said, hey, you're going to have a story, a further story about this part, right? And he said, yes, actually we're working on it. So, so Guidestone vice president, Tim Sturr introduced trustees to something called the start well initiative. And they'll begin a pilot program about it, of it in Tennessee and Kentucky this year. And it will provide eligible ministers with relief for medical and education debt, guided education toward financial, physical and mental wellness.

and one-on-one financial education for pastors. And so that sounds like an amazing program. so, and Roy did assure me that they're working on it for like a more, a fuller story about this program. So be looking for that.

Jonathan Howe (15:09)
Man, that's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think people forget about all the resources that Guidestone does have for pastors. They do a lot and you can find out more about that over at guidestone.org slash pastor. You can go to that website at Guidestone. mean they do a ton for pastors. We got an interview with Hans Dilbeck coming up on the road to Dallas soon. That's going to be coming up in a few weeks and he talks about all the things that they're doing. It's just you don't realize how big and how well that they are.

Laura Erlanson (15:22)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (15:45)
They're helping churches and pastors. You know, they get a lot of, you know, pigeonhole, I think, into like just financial or just insurance type stuff. But they do so much more. So really cool to see that. All right. Speaking of financial CP receipts were below budget in February. Once again, just off of 7 % below the same number from last year. Southern Baptist gave just over 18 million through the cooperative program in the fifth month of the fiscal year. We're almost halfway there. End of March will be

Laura Erlanson (15:55)
Yeah, that's right. That is really good.

Jonathan Howe (16:14)
the halfway point in the fiscal year. Year to date, CP receipts are below budget by a little under three and a half percent. And, you know, the monthly giving amount was budgeted, like I said, 19 million. The giving amount was just a little bit over 18 million this month. So we continue to keep an eye on that as we get toward June, whenever we pass the budget at the annual meeting. And for next year, it's going to I think the budget is going to remain flat 190 million for next year as well. So

Laura Erlanson (16:15)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Jonathan Howe (16:44)
That's the plan right now.

Laura Erlanson (16:44)
Yep. Yep. You got to come to Dallas to vote on that budget. Yeah. Everybody get ready to go. Yeah. I love this.

Jonathan Howe (16:48)
Yep. So really cool thing happened this week for Southern Baptist

first vice president. and, and he shared with me, I texted him the night after this and he said that following what we're going to talk about, he actually got a ticket to the state of the union, get to stick around and go to the state of the union that night. So, so tell us what Brad graves was up to this week, Laura.

Laura Erlanson (17:05)
Wow, that is so cool.

Well, our first vice president of the SBC, Brad Graves, who's an Oklahoma pastor, received an invitation from Senator James Langford, I believe, who was also an Oklahoma Baptist, to pray before the Senate. And so he did earlier this week, March 4th, he offered the opening prayer in the U.S. Senate. And he said, I've been praying, this is part of his prayer, I've been praying for every man and woman in the Senate chamber to come to know the love of God.

Jonathan Howe (17:25)
Open the Senate in prayer.

Laura Erlanson (17:39)
I pray that every family represented in this room would experience the love of God, and I pray for every American citizen to understand the depths of God's love for them." I'm like, that's a beautiful thing to pray in that chamber. He's pastor of First Baptist Church of Ada, Oklahoma, and he told us, he told Baptist Press in an interview that he said, one day you're just praying in your closet, and the next day you're praying before the most powerful legislative body in the world.

I love that. He's praying in his closet. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (18:08)
Yeah. And, and the timing too, like he had it on the day of the state of the union and, know, just

lucked into a ticket for that night and everything got to go to that and man, that's kind of a neat day, man. It's kind of like a pinch me day there for him. So.

Laura Erlanson (18:17)
Very cool, very cool. I would volunteer to do that too, by the way, if anyone's, for real. And

he got to take his 15 year old son with him too, which I just thought that's something that kid's gonna remember the rest of his life. What a cool thing. Yeah, I loved what he said too. He said, I don't wanna sound arrogant, but the only thing that qualifies me to pray is that I pray. I'm like, hey, that's how it is. There's nobody, I've heard Joe McKeever, longtime Baptist press cartoonist, he says this a lot. He said,

Jonathan Howe (18:29)
yeah, you know it.

I mean...

Laura Erlanson (18:46)
Anytime I see somebody who claims to be an expert on prayer, I just scoff. I said, the only thing that makes you an expert on prayer is just to pray. So I feel like Brad Graves is kind of echoing that. That's right. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (18:56)
Yes. There you go. We're all experts. Maybe.

Yeah. So, that wasn't the only thing coming out of DC this week had a, executive order on IVF, passed by president Trump.

Laura Erlanson (19:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, really good analysis piece here from David Roach talking about just the lack of regulation in IVF and I think Southern Baptist maybe even ones that weren't all that read up on IVF last summer we kind of all got educated a little bit with the resolution that was passed and then the the discussion surrounding that both before and after that the adoption of that resolution about IVF and Brent Leatherwood, ERLC president

said, and then instead of rushing to expand or subsidize these technologies, our leaders need to ask better questions about this entire field of medicine. Does this truly build a culture of life or does it undermine it? Are we plotting down a path towards designer babies and disposable lives? Some estimates show there are more than a million pre-born lives frozen in clinics across the country. Is there a pathway for these children to live? Are there ways to bring all of this into alignment with God's design?

for procreation and for family. And so the Trump order that you talked about, the executive order basically is just to enhance protections for access to IVF and to ease the unnecessary statutory burdens to make IVF treatment more affordable. And so it's popular. Most people are very supportive of IVF, but I think maybe people just haven't thought about the implications of what all it means to have these

hundreds of thousands or perhaps even over a million frozen embryos just in a state of limbo. And so it'll be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years. We also talked to Andrew Walker in this story, who's of course that Southern professor there, theology, but also is this year's resolutions committee chairman. And so I don't have any idea if the resolutions committee is thinking about submitting another resolution about IVF, but Andrew Walker told us about this story.

Jonathan Howe (20:55)
Yeah. Yep.

Laura Erlanson (21:07)
that we should be hoping for policies that regulate the IVF industry. What people don't understand, the IVF is kind of the wild, wild west of artificial reproductive technology. And there are very few controls and regulatory policies surrounding it. So yeah, we'll see what happens with that.

Jonathan Howe (21:22)
Yeah. All right.

Yep. So speaking of the annual meeting and things that happened last year, the law amendment, what was known as the law amendment is actually the Sanchez amendment to the law, you know, motion that he made was, you know, did not pass last year. They needed two thirds, but there is going to be an effort to resurrect that this year. There are

Laura Erlanson (21:29)
Yep.

That's right.

Jonathan Howe (21:47)
there was an open letter posted this week, Juan Sanchez involved in that again, about the desire to bring that back again for our review this next year at the annual meeting in Dallas. So that is probably on the table, you know, obviously has to be made, you can't just, you know, say that and it happened. So we'll have to keep an eye out on things in the proceedings in Dallas to see if that

Laura Erlanson (22:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (22:15)
amendment is made or you know potential amendment to the Constitution and what happens after that it would you know right now there are standing rules in place that refer everything regarding governing documents to the executive committee and that would so that would have to be you know suspended yeah there's a lot of things that have to happen yeah so and then get to two-thirds this year get a two-thirds again next year that kind of thing so well you know we'll just kind of wait and see on that obviously I think a lot of this

Laura Erlanson (22:25)
Mm-hmm.

Right, it's like a procedural maneuver that they would need to do, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (22:43)
unsurprisingly coming in the wake of the news last week about New Spring Church in Ederson, South Carolina and the woman that they have on staff as a teaching pastor. And so this is kind of an outflow of that and you know we'll wait till June to see what exactly happens, what exactly the wording of that motion is.

Laura Erlanson (23:05)
Yeah, once again, make your plans to be in the room. yeah, yeah. And speaking of those who show up, let's talk about the survey. Yeah, what do people that come to this thing really want?

Jonathan Howe (23:08)
Yep. Decisions are made by those who show up.

And speaking of showing up, there we go. Well done, Laura. Yes. we.

Yeah, so we sent out the survey to our big list. We have a big list, email list here at the executive committee and it Southern Baptist Church is from all over represented in that is a huge list and with 3000 submissions on the survey. So more than enough to be statistically valid, right? You know, 55 % of participants were pastors.

Laura Erlanson (23:36)
Wow. Yeah, that's awesome.

Jonathan Howe (23:43)
Another 23 and a half percent are in denominational work. So basically four out of five of the people that are coming to the annual meeting are quote unquote, I think we would call working in ministry. So in some capacity, they're on church staff, they're working at a seminary, working at an AMS, something like that. They're in ministry about 20 % or not. That tracks with everything that we have on our post-event surveys that we do. So the question was, what is the thing that motivates you?

Laura Erlanson (23:52)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (24:11)
to come to the annual meeting. Like what motivates people? I mean, it's an obvious investment, an obvious time out of your year, out of your life. So what motivates you? And the top response, it was basically pick as many as you want, or up to three, I think it was. But to participate in convention business, what we just talked about, the amendments to the Constitution, the motions, the resolutions, the things that we discuss a lot, officers, voting for officers.

Laura Erlanson (24:29)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, officers, yeah.

Jonathan Howe (24:37)
And I think that's a good reason to come to the annual meeting because that is what the annual meeting is for, right?

Laura Erlanson (24:43)
Yeah, it's not called the annual conference. It's called the annual meeting. It's a meeting. It's a business meeting, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (24:47)
It is, it's a business meeting. It's the world's largest deliberative body. Uh,

and you know, the business is done in the room and it's done for two days straight. And you know, people come, they plop down and they sit there and they vote and you know, pay attention. And, and I liked that. liked the fact that we have more Southern Baptist now involved in the annual meeting than we've had in the last 15 years. Um, so, you know, they, come to do that. They come to.

Laura Erlanson (25:09)
Me too, yeah.

Jonathan Howe (25:13)
Also, 61 % said that they came to hear from SBC leaders and speakers and another 60 % said they came to connect with other pastors and church leaders. I think that all tracks with what we, if I asked you the three things, that's what you would probably answer because we know that people, you know, it seemed as a family reunion. It's, you know, people come to do business and they come to see the preaching and hear the preaching and whatever it may be and see speakers and go to events and things like that. So obviously I think those were

Laura Erlanson (25:23)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (25:43)
expected results from our survey, right? All right. Next question was there the next thing we're going to talk about what part of the meeting excites you the most. Now, this one is the one that I was a little surprised about. And there was maybe some recency bias in this one because this was taken like the day or day after that there was a lot of hubbub about what we just talked about the the new spring news that came out last week. So I think there's a little bit of recency bias in this, but

Laura Erlanson (25:45)
for

Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (26:12)
at the same time. They were chosen, asked to choose one thing. What's the thing that excites you the most about the annual meeting? The business sessions and voting, which I'm like, you what's wrong with you if that's, that's the thing. I mean, I like it, but like, I don't know if it excites me the most, right? It does, but oh, yeah, it can be, but I was like,

Laura Erlanson (26:23)
Yeah.

mean it kind of tracks it kind of tracks with the first question though I mean if that's the reason you come but is it exciting yeah maybe not so much it can be yeah I like it I think

it's cool

Jonathan Howe (26:39)
I yeah, but I don't know if exciting is the word I would use networking and fellowship opportunities. Honestly, that's what I expected to be the top one. And it was a very close second. And then you got worship and preaching sessions. then surprisingly, I think, and we'll talk about this a little more at the end, the pastor's conference, only 14 % of the people say that that's the thing that they are excited about the most at the annual meeting. So the pastor's conference has long been a standing tradition. And, you know, we've seen and heard from heroes of the faith and

Laura Erlanson (26:41)
You're right.

Jonathan Howe (27:08)
at the pastor's conferences over the years, you know, less than one in six say that that's our, know, really one in seven say that that's what they're excited about. So a little surprising there, I think. But, all right, let's see on to the next question here.

Laura Erlanson (27:18)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, interesting. Yep.

Jonathan Howe (27:28)
75 % of the folks say that they would follow the convention online if they couldn't make it still. I don't think that it was surprising at all. People are really engaged. I know that because I've seen the live stream numbers, right?

Laura Erlanson (27:35)
No, I think that really tracks people.

Yeah, yeah, people love watching it. I mean, I know people at my church that watch it that aren't able to make it or whatever. Yeah, there's lots of people watching for sure.

Jonathan Howe (27:47)
Yeah. So they

follow it a lot of different ways and we even see this with that. I mean, it's, your Superbowl week. Basically, you post around 80 stories that week. there's a lot going on in our traffic shows that right. there's always a huge spike in traffic at Baptist press. So I think it's pretty obvious that if people aren't there, they're still following along online.

Laura Erlanson (27:56)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's

very true.

Jonathan Howe (28:14)
Some more info on

the pastors conference. The priority, it was asked, you know, what's the priority of the pastors conference to you? 38 % find it important. 37 % didn't. So it was basically split. And then there's 25 % that are indifferent. They're like, yeah, take it or leave it. Which again, I thought that was interesting that, you know, only three, you know, less than four in 10 folks really find the pastors conference as an important part of their week. So a little surprising.

Laura Erlanson (28:24)
Yeah, kind of a tie.

Mm-hmm. Well, some people don't even get there.

Yeah, until like Monday. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (28:43)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, and that's part of the thing too. They come in on Monday

night because they're coming for Tuesday and Wednesday. And I think it does track with attendance. Last year we had 14,000 messengers and guests in Indianapolis. The average attendance at the pastors conference because we actually scanned people last year when they came in the door, 3,400 people. So, you know, about a quarter of the folks that were there actually made it into the pastors conference on average. So, you know, a little interesting number there.

Laura Erlanson (29:00)
Hmm.

Yeah, that's interesting. I do think a lot of those people just

not being there yet. Yeah, which is maybe them not making it a priority like like they're saying, you know. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (29:12)
Yeah, I think there is a part. Yeah, I mean that that tracks right?

If you're not getting there before it starts on Sunday night at 630, then you know, is it really a priority? So it's fascinating result there. All right. What would make the SBC annual meeting more valuable to you or for you? And one of the things was the top answer and they were all kind of really bunched together. The three things that people really want that would make it more valuable.

Laura Erlanson (29:40)
Yeah, they're all about the same percentage, yeah.

Jonathan Howe (29:42)
Yeah, is more opportunities for discussion engagement, changes in the business session structure and more training and breakout sessions.

Laura Erlanson (29:50)
Hmm. So it is kind of... Yeah, me too. Mm-mm.

Jonathan Howe (29:51)
So what I found interesting is the training and breakout sessions because there aren't many of those. And,

you know, a quarter of the people are basically saying, Hey, we would actually like that. We would like to have more training and breakout sessions. So.

Laura Erlanson (30:01)
Yeah, yeah, that

isn't so it is be more like a conference and not just a meeting, but interesting.

Jonathan Howe (30:06)
Yeah, so maybe wanting some, you know,

we had the SIN conference back in 2021. Whenever we're in Nashville, there may be some still, you know, some recency bias in that wanting some more of that. Who knows? So that's just an interesting thing. this is the part that I was really, you know, there were bits and pieces of this whole survey that I was really interested in. But these pieces at the end were the things that I was really wondering about. And if they would

Laura Erlanson (30:33)
Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (30:34)
line up with my preconceived notions and they did. Do financial considerations impact your ability to attend the SVC annual meeting? Yes, about half the people say yes. Financial considerations are a factor in whether or not I go or don't.

Laura Erlanson (30:36)
Yes, they did. Yeah, me too.

Yeah,

I'm actually honestly surprised that it was only half. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (30:52)
Yeah, well,

I mean, that's a fair point. you know, it, it is significant, I think for everybody. a lot of churches do put it in their budget. So maybe it's the reason that it's not a huge factor because the church has taken care of it. But if you're having to debate on, we, need a new Baptist tree or the Baptist tree to be in fixed, or I can go to the annual meeting. That's a, that's a tough pill to swallow there, you know,

Laura Erlanson (31:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

That's true, because you just know that your church is in the budget and you can do it. yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

Right,

or the kids can go to youth camp or the pastor can go to the annual meeting or whatever.

Jonathan Howe (31:22)
Yeah, something like that.

and I know a lot of churches are in that predicament, you know, they have that debate and that discussion every year. So it's something that they have to deal with. And so more along those lines, what are the costs or the biggest barriers? And this is the one I think a little bit surprised me. The hotel and lodging costs are a bigger barrier than the travel expenses. So once you're there is a bigger barrier than getting there.

Laura Erlanson (31:26)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I thought that was interesting too. I think a lot of people drive and so driving a cost is sort of negligible. Whereas once you get there, you got to stay in hotel and that's very expensive. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (31:53)
Yeah, yeah, and that's possible. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

and we'll talk a little bit more about that. I got some some other thoughts, some extrapolations, if you will, from this when we get to the end of the survey here. you know, those I think I expected it to be flip flop, but that was me. But, you know, the next question, what are the most important factors a city should offer when hosting the annual meeting? And obviously, I think based on the previous answer, this should be no surprise. Affordable hotel and lodging options is number one. And then

Laura Erlanson (32:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (32:28)
Easy travel accessibility number two and the safety and walkability of the area. So no surprise that in a group of people who are mostly concerned about hotel and lodging costs being the barrier for them, that that is the thing that they want most from a city. So and then speaking of the cities, which cities? So I asked people if you had to pick three cities, where would you go? know, what three cities would you want? A little surprised by this.

Laura Erlanson (32:44)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (32:56)
I did not expect Nashville to be number one, honestly. And number one by far, like not even close.

Laura Erlanson (32:58)
Yeah, I'm really surprised and it's number one by a huge margin. Yeah,

I'm surprised by that too. I mean Nashville is awesome. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. And then Orlando.

Jonathan Howe (33:05)
62 % said Nashville.

I mean, I like it. It's

a good town. You know, it's where we live. So and then Orlando and Dallas, I think there's some recency bias in this one a little bit because some of the cities we haven't been to are way farther down. Cities were headed to in the future. I will tell you right now that when you go to Dallas this summer and then you go to San Antonio in twenty twenty nine, you are never going to want to go to Dallas again after going to San Antonio. yeah. yeah. yeah.

Laura Erlanson (33:23)
Yeah.

really? Just the better

convention center and all that?

Jonathan Howe (33:37)
Oh,

it's, it's just the setup is fantastic. It's so good. And I think part of it is that people just haven't been to these cities and experienced a conference in these cities in recent years. And that's why they're so far down the list. mean, we, look at the list and, you know, San Antonio sitting there in middle to the end. Uh, think 97 was the last time we were there. No, 2000, 2007. I'm sorry. 2007, 2007 or 2005, somewhere in that range mid 2000s. I think it was the last time we were there.

Laura Erlanson (33:40)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It has been a long time.

No, because we did one since I've been at BP. I was going to say, yeah, that sounds more like it. Yeah.

You know, my favorite

convention center is Phoenix, and it's way down here on the list. Yeah, it's way down here.

Jonathan Howe (34:08)
Phoenix and it's a third from the bottom. what I

found out and I did not expect this Laura, people hate Houston and not just the Astros, they just hate the city. mean like.

Laura Erlanson (34:16)
Yeah

I

am not a fan either. I'm not a fan. The traffic.

Jonathan Howe (34:22)
I used to live there.

I'm not a fan either. mean, I've kind of like, wouldn't be in mine. Yeah, but whenever you get there, you're downtown, you're there. but it's, last time we were in Houston was 2013. So it's been a while since we've been there. Again, I think there's some recency bias. Indianapolis, very good city, great city, very good conference city. didn't, I expected that to be at the top. Yeah, Orlando I expected to be at the top because

Laura Erlanson (34:26)
just navigating the city is very hard.

Well, yeah, I guess. I don't know.

Great convention center. of the hotels being right there, so convenient.

Jonathan Howe (34:53)
It's Orlando and who doesn't like going to Orlando? People that, that hate fun maybe. yeah, I know. so, and you know, what, what was really surprising, you know, kind of foreboding, think that Salt Lake city was the bottom. And I think part of that is just people haven't been to Salt Lake city. It's a city that you just don't go to like you.

Laura Erlanson (34:57)
Yeah. Yeah, rainbows and puppies, you know, people that hate that stuff.

Yeah.

That's true. You're right. I think there's a little bit of bias for places we've already been.

Jonathan Howe (35:20)
You have to have a reason. Salt Lake City is not one of those things where you're just like, Hey, let's just pop over. know, it's, it takes a flight for most of our people to get there, like 95%. And there's really not a whole lot of interest for us to go there for. Like, you know, I go, hey, I love it. I love it. I went to the, Utah, state convention. I've been there three or four times the past few years. And this past year was in salt.

Laura Erlanson (35:28)
Yeah, pretty long flight too.

Right. But it's beautiful. People that haven't been, that have never seen it, it's beautiful.

Jonathan Howe (35:48)
And I went over to park city one night after they were done, you know, we're done, you know, in the afternoon, the pastor's conference, Hershel York was preaching, um, hung out with him for a little bit, listened to him preach and then that night had free. So we went over to park city. Absolutely gorgeous. It is, it is one of my favorite places to be. And it was empty because it's the fall and snow season really hadn't started yet. Um, you know, it's whatever. And, oh man, it was just such a great town.

Laura Erlanson (36:13)
Yeah, it's just

stunning. So yeah, it's worth it. It's worth it to go to these places just to see the country. It's beautiful. Yeah, absolutely.

Jonathan Howe (36:18)
Yes, coming 27 because it's going to be really cool and the

weather out there. The last time I was in Salt Lake before this was in May. May, Laura. It had snowed the night before.

Laura Erlanson (36:34)
my. That's a little much for me.

Jonathan Howe (36:36)
The weather, it was 40 degrees.

It was 40 degrees in May. And I was like, this is awesome. Huh? Well, but you think about June, it'll be like 60. It'll be gorgeous. Yes, better than Houston and Phoenix. You're over here asking for Phoenix and all the things.

Laura Erlanson (36:40)
Yeah, you're not really selling it now. You're not selling it for me now. Yeah, June will be perfect. That's true. That's true. Better than Houston for sure. Which is like 100 degrees and 100 % humidity. I

don't mind the heat in Phoenix. I really don't. If it's not humid, I don't care. I don't care. No.

Jonathan Howe (37:00)
That's cause you sit inside all day, but

yeah, it was a fascinating, little thing here in Kansas city made it can see somewhere we haven't gone in a really, really long time and, a city that is not really on the docket right now, right now he says, but I will actually be there in about three or four weeks, given it a look-see, for a potential for the future. We, we shall see about Kansas city. it's.

Laura Erlanson (37:11)
Yeah.

yeah?

Okay, get some good

barbecue.

Jonathan Howe (37:30)
It's just barely big enough, maybe, for us. That's part of the problem. And that's what I wanted to talk about here at the end here, is that, you know, what does this tell us? What do these things tell us? All right, so let's, a couple things. We'll get back to the cities in just a minute. But first of all, the pastors conference not being a priority is a little bit of a concern to me. Like, what does that mean for the future of the pastors conference? Because the people putting on the pastors conference do a ton of work and put in a great effort.

Laura Erlanson (37:33)
Yeah.

It is, our choices are limited, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (37:59)
And Heather Jansen, who's been kind of the logistics person behind that the past few years, fantastic to work with, does a great job putting on a great conference. It's just not being attended though. So what does that tell us? I don't know. But I do know one thing too, the realities of the economics of the pastors conference are difficult. I've seen that up close and personal. We've had discussions, we had discussions about that at the executive committee meeting a couple of weeks ago about the economics surrounding the pastors conference because

Laura Erlanson (38:18)
Mm.

Yeah, because there's

no budget. There's nothing in the budget.

Jonathan Howe (38:29)
Well, they're, you know, they have to raise everything. Yes.

And the EC subsidizes a bunch of it. They, give the executive committee or the SBC, whatever they pay a hundred thousand dollars for the space, but they still have to raise that and all the money that it takes to put on the conference. you know, there was an effort a couple of years ago to put together an endowment for that, but that didn't really get off the ground too much. and you know, what does it mean for the future of the past? I don't know the answer to that. but

Laura Erlanson (38:33)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (38:56)
I thought it was fascinating nonetheless, the results of that. But again, whenever the problem is, the more the convention grows and the convention has grown substantially from the mid 2000 teens, whenever we were running, you know, five, 6,000 people in Baltimore and Columbus and things like that, the cost for a big room to get production in a big room is a lot more than a cost for production in a very small room. I mean that

Laura Erlanson (39:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (39:23)
That just makes sense. You got to have more,

Laura Erlanson (39:24)
Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (39:24)
more screens, more sound, everything. It just takes a lot more and the cost goes up and it's not really proportionate either. It's kind of like a hockey stick. It's like, once you hit a point, it it jumps because you go from not needing this to needing all of this. And it really does jump. So that's something just to think through. And you know, another thing, there's a desire for breakouts and more learning times. I didn't expect that in the survey, but here we are. And then.

Laura Erlanson (39:28)
More personnel, yeah.

Mm.

Jonathan Howe (39:52)
As far as it goes to the cities, I think me as the guy that's quote unquote, I say in charge of it, putting it on, you know, I'm the one, I'm the guy, the face of the road to whatever thing we need. I need to educate folks more why we're in the cities we're in. I had a lot of questions and a lot of comments about, wish we went to smaller cities. I wish we were, you know, in, in small towns instead of big cities. So that it would be cheaper. It's like, but where are going to meet? Like if you want.

Laura Erlanson (40:09)
Mm-hmm.

Right, because you don't just need

a big room, need a big room plus thousands of hotel rooms close by.

Jonathan Howe (40:24)
Yes, plus thousands of

hotel rooms, plus a space for the exhibit hall. If you want a full convention experience that you come to expect and know, it takes really large space. Half a million square feet, 400 to 500,000 square feet at a minimum. That's the reason we had to move from Charlotte a couple of years ago when we went to New Orleans. That's another reason that I'm having trouble finding places for us to go in the future and why I'm going to Kansas City because it's really difficult to find space.

Laura Erlanson (40:43)
And we moved from Opryland. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (40:54)
The problem is it's a catch 22. You know, you have to trade off the convenience and proximity of being at the being near the convention center because hotels near those convention centers and major downtown metropolis areas, metropolitan areas are expensive. So do you want to be closer? Do you want to save money? because there's a trade off there. You can, you can go to the convention in Dallas, stay out by the airport or in Hearst or something like that. Waxahachie.

Laura Erlanson (41:11)
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (41:25)
West Texas, by the way, bring us a kolache if you stay there. Yes, bring us a kolache if you stay in West Texas, because Laura and I love some kolaches. But you can stay there, you're going to drive a long ways. And you can save $100 to $200 a night in hotels, maybe not $200 a night, because then you'd be paying like 10 bucks. And I wouldn't stay in a $10 a night hotel. But you can get a hotel room for $80 to $90.

Laura Erlanson (41:25)
Mm-hmm. West, Texas, yeah.

Please do.

Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Howe (41:51)
It's not going to be close. So it's just one of those things. It's a trade off. And I hate that. I wish there was a way that we could have. $110 hotel rooms right next to the convention center. It's just not going to happen, but we are doing, I tell you this right now, I'm doing everything I can in my power. Whenever we're talking to these convention centers to get these are in the hotels to get these prices down, we're doing everything we can to drive down the cost. But I mean, think about it. If you're a hotel, I'm going to sell 400 rooms and I can sell them at

Laura Erlanson (41:53)
Yeah, it's a trade off. Everything in life is a trade off. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (42:21)
$199 a night or $239 a night. What am I doing? Yeah. Why, why am I giving you $40 off? Like, I mean, I'm going to sell it one way or another. Why am I giving up 400 rooms at $400 or $40 a night? That's, that's like what? $16,000 a night. Why am I giving that up? You know? Um, so it's, it's an economic thing and it's a struggle, but we're doing everything we can just know we are doing everything we can to keep these prices down. There's a reason.

Laura Erlanson (42:24)
Right. Yeah, what incentive do they have to lower the price if the rooms are going to fill up? Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (42:51)
that we're not going to Atlanta. I'll tell you that right now. I'll just be honest here on the show. We went to Atlanta to look at it this past fall. It wasn't a good setup. First of all, the convention center, the setup isn't work, wasn't going to work well for us and what we do. just didn't work, but they wanted a hotel. The for this was for 2030. We were talking to them about 2030. The convention hotel would have been $379 a night and I told him to pound sand.

Laura Erlanson (43:18)
Holy cow.

Jonathan Howe (43:20)
I was like, there's no way, no way we're doing that to our people. I refuse to do that to Southern Baptist.

Laura Erlanson (43:21)
Man.

Wow.

You know, you make

me think I hadn't thought of this. It's interesting that Atlanta, it didn't even make the list of cities where people want to go, which is, that's interesting. Yeah, that's insane.

Jonathan Howe (43:33)
No, because we're not going because I'm not doing that to Southern Baptist. I refuse to do that to Southern Baptist. It's $379 a night

for the Cygnia right next to the Convention Center. And I told them there is no way in the world that I am bringing 20,000 people at those kind of hotel prices. I'm not doing that to us.

Laura Erlanson (43:52)
Yeah. Well, we're in

kind of a unique situation in what we're trying to do here, because we're trying to put on a as conventions go, ours is very big. But most of those really big conventions are put on by trade organizations or companies that have money. And we don't we're bringing in pastors, people in ministry that don't have $379 a night, don't have $379 for three nights of hotel room.

Jonathan Howe (44:01)
Yes.

Yeah, businesses that have a lot of money.

Yeah, that was

that was pre-tax by the way. I mean you're talking you're over $400 a night now and if you drove to Atlanta another $75 a night probably for parking. I mean you're looking at a hotel at $500 a night.

Laura Erlanson (44:21)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

that's insane. That's insane. Mm-mm. Nope. Wow.

Jonathan Howe (44:36)
No, we're not doing it. We're not doing it. I'm not

doing that to Southern Baptist. So I you know, that's one of those things that that that won't get out there and but everything but like look we These are the discussions we have and these are the the Decisions we have to make whenever we're talking about this So, you know, it's it's hard because hotels in the summer are notoriously high because Laura when do people travel the most?

Laura Erlanson (44:42)
So no Atlanta.

Summertime, yeah.

Jonathan Howe (45:03)
Summertime. So,

you know, it, our timing, it's good because we can have more people there because people have, you know, they can get off and kids are out of school and everything like that. It's great. It's also, again, it's like that trade off. You got to, well, it's going to cost more to travel because it's summer and travel costs go up in the summer. Same thing with gas prices. Why did gas prices always go up after Memorial Day? Because people are traveling all the time. So.

Laura Erlanson (45:12)
Yeah, kids are out of school, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Well, and in the

fall you have risks of hurricanes and in the winter and even early spring you have risks of blizzards and snow storms. It's like, Yeah, summertime is really the best time for sure.

Jonathan Howe (45:31)
Yeah. Well in school, mean like in church life is cranked. mean, there, there's no other option than June or July and that's when we

get, yeah. and the final thing that we, or two more things that we, that I gleaned from this again, I repeat it. People hate Houston and I think people also forget how little we go to the West coast. had a lot of comments in there about, why do we have to go out West all the time? Laura since 2020.

There since 2003 so 2004 on guess how many times we have gone out to the west coast with and I count Phoenix's West Coast You see my result here in the in the notes 22 years Laura we've been going we've gone out to the west coast three times Three times in 22 years. That's like 13 percent

Laura Erlanson (46:04)
Mm-hmm.

Well, I'm not gonna guess because I saw your results. Yeah, so I'm not gonna guess, uh-huh.

Three times. Yeah.

Yeah,

that's not a lot. Yeah. And there are actually a lot of Southern Baptists out west. People don't realize that, too. There's a lot of Southern Baptists in California, in Arizona, in New Mexico. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (46:24)
No, it's not. you know, it's just one of those people forget these things, huh? There are. Yeah, we had a

thousand something Southern Baptist from California show up when we were in Anaheim a couple years ago. Had a great attendance in Anaheim, 8133 people. So, you know, it's I think people forget there's a there's a recency, you know, we just went to Anaheim like we go the west all the time. Go to the West three times in 22 years.

Laura Erlanson (46:35)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, now we are going there again. pretty soon. 27. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Jonathan Howe (46:54)
We're going there in 20, you know, 27. So that'll be four times in 24 years, but

you know, here we are.

Laura Erlanson (47:01)
Yeah, that's really not, it's definitely the small minority of times. Yeah, yeah. And it's fun.

Jonathan Howe (47:06)
Yes, it is. All right. So that was

way too much on a survey, but some interesting stuff. So maybe you get a Baptist Press article about that later next week and you can read more about it. So.

Laura Erlanson (47:16)
Yeah,

yeah, I think that people would like to see these numbers for sure.

Jonathan Howe (47:19)
Yep.

All right. So that'll do it for the news and the discussion about that and bring us to my favorite part of the week this week in SPC history, Laura Mines.

Laura Erlanson (47:28)
Okay, this is a Dateline March 10th, 1978. This is the Baptist Press headline. Missionary hopes for easier year. Dateline is Jakarta, Indonesia. Clarence Griffin, Southern Baptist Missionary to Indonesia, hopes 1978 will turn out better than 1977. His problems actually started one day late in 1976 when he stopped at a traffic light in Jakarta.

Jonathan Howe (47:40)
Amen.

Laura Erlanson (47:57)
Indonesia's capital, and an Indonesian army truck ran into him from behind and crumpled his van. He was not injured, but that accident was a foreshadowing of things to come. In early 1977, while leading a youth retreat, Griffin accidentally walked through a glass door and had to have 13 stitches. In successive months, actually, my mom did that one time, walked through a glass door. In successive months, he suffered dengue fever.

Jonathan Howe (48:09)
gosh.

Laura Erlanson (48:26)
malaria, and typhoid. And finally, while playing catcher on a missionary team, Griffin caught a bad softball squarely in the eye. That eight stitch eye injury and a broken bone below the eyeball were successfully treated earlier this year. With eyesight repaired and enthusiasm unimpaired, Griffin continued to serve as urban evangelist in Jakarta, a metropolis of seven million. So that's it. That's the whole story. I just read the whole thing.

Jonathan Howe (48:51)
Man, you talk about missionary resilience right there.

Laura Erlanson (48:56)
So I had to look up

Jonathan Howe (48:56)
Incredible.

Laura Erlanson (48:59)
Clarence Griffin and the IMB on their website has an obituary for him. He passed away, went to be with the Lord October 11th, 2019 at the age of 87. So that really bad 40 years later, so that really bad year of 1977 apparently was.

Jonathan Howe (49:10)
Wow, 40 years later.

Laura Erlanson (49:19)
short-lived. continued into the mission. He retired from the mission field in the mid-90s, so he was still the he was there a total of 35 years in Indonesia. Clarence Griffin, he was a member of Taylor's First Baptist Church in Taylor, South Carolina, and his obituary said that in lieu of flowers, the family wanted people to give toward the Lottie Moon Christmas offering through Taylor's First Baptist Church. So Clarence Griffin, a hero,

Jonathan Howe (49:29)
Wow, that's incredible.

There you go. Man, your

Southern Baptist missionaries, folks, that is your Southern Baptist missionary right there. That is incredible.

Laura Erlanson (49:49)
somewhat accident prone. Yeah. I just loved that.

I loved that story. I'm like, golly, this guy can't catch a break. And yet he didn't. He was not deterred. Yeah. I love it. Well, Jonathan, thanks for being with me today. It would have been no fun to do a podcast by myself with Brandon gone. So, so I appreciate you being here and you're a pro. You could just do this in your sleep. So you make it easy. I appreciate it very much.

Jonathan Howe (50:00)
unfazed unfazed man

Yeah, enjoyed it.

Yeah. Yep. Well.

Sometimes yeah,

so again, we want to thank our sponsor the Israel Ministry of Tourism Don't forget to check out holy land Israel travel and begin your spiritual journey to Israel today That's holy land Israel dot travel Thanks again to the Israel Ministry of Tourism for being on board next couple of months here on SBC this week

Laura Erlanson (50:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and once again, we had more stories than we had time to talk about today. Don't forget about the Annie Armstrong Easter offering season. And another calendar note, March 16th is Church Planting Emphasis Day on the SBC calendar. So be looking for stories and items about that. And you can find all of that and much more at baptispress.com. Thanks for listening.