Welcome to the conversations that matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We are going to get to the question on most

Southern Baptist minds and that is who to vote for for the Southern Baptist Convention

President next week on Tuesday afternoon.

Convention, I believe starts Monday.

There's a lot of activities surrounding it.

So I was hoping maybe on your drive there

to be able to talk to you about some of the issues that I perceive and give you some

context and maybe perspective on them or maybe you know you're already there and on your morning walk or

something I don't know what all of your circumstances are but I would really love

to have an opportunity to share with you a few thoughts and I want this to be

encouraging too I think one of the things

It can be dismal if you study history at all and if you know the situation the southern Baptist are in right now

It may feel hopeless in some ways and the big thing I want to

stress is that the Southern Baptist Convention in any Paracharch ministry any

denomination any association any any entity. These are things that are not

technically the church. They exist to further the mission of the church, to

help the church, to assist. And I understand there being a lot of emotional

connections to the convention, Christmas offerings and other traditions

that people have grown up with, legacies going back generations. I think I am the first one in my own family on

my father's side, at least, to not have been raised in a southern Baptist church.

It was more of a non-denominational Bible church.

But that's because my dad during the time

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