I’m sitting here in the enormous Orange County Convention Center meeting hall in Orlando, FL where earlier this afternoon SBC messengers packed the place and overwhelmingly voted to approve the report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (GCRTF).
One would hope such strong support for the GCRTF report to be a reflection of a true passion for the work of our International Mission Board (IMB) in leading SBC churches to fulfill the Great Commission.
Yet the testimony of the thousands of empty chairs that surround me now do not support such a conclusion.
On the platform at this moment Dr. Jerry Rankin and our missionaries are presenting the 2009 IMB report. The IMB is the very heart of Southern Baptist’s response to the Great Commission. The absence, however, of a great majority of the messengers present for the vote earlier today seems to suggest that the GCRTF report failed to generate a resurgence of enthusiasm for the IMB and its work . . . . at least among the messengers here in Orlando. I wonder: Where are they now?
