Have You Registered Your Messengers for the SBC & How Many You Get to Bring Per Church

This year’s Southern Baptist Convention is upon us. Our Convention of churches will begin to gather June 14th. Has your church registered her full amount of messengers to send to the annual convention? And are you sure you have been allotted the amount you should actually be able to send? At last year’s SBC, there was a new measure passed that changed the messenger process to some degree. Now, most churches will be able to send somewhere between 2 and 12 messengers based on what they have given to SBC causes (or Convention Causes) this year.

Convention causes can include:

  • Cooperative Program gifts through your Baptist State Convention
  • Any other special gifts given to your Baptist State Convention for other causes
  • Gifts given directly to the Executive Committee in Nashville through the CP
  • Gifts given directly to NAMB whether through the Annie Armstrong offering or other special gifts
  • Gifts given directly to the IMB whether through the Lottie Moon offering or other special gifts

Now you need to make sure you have calculated all of these gifts together because the Executive Committee who oversees the messenger process and thus how many messengers you can see may not necessarily have a record of all you have given to SBC causes this year. As I went in to register the messengers from my church, I noticed at first that I was only allotted 2, but I also realized immediately that the numbers for what we had given that year were off significantly. I sent a quick correspondence to a friend at the Executive Committee and was told what I mentioned above that I would need to calculate for my church what we had sent to all of those causes in order to get the determined amount of messengers. So that may be you as well!

Here is what you need to do in order to register the right amount of Messengers:

  • Head to the Annual Meeting page – Click the link to register Messengers

Type in your SBC ID# – The site will want to make sure you are who you say you are so it will ask you from a list of churches to identify your church once you have entered your ID # (if you do not know your SBC Church ID# contact Deb Baca – dbaca@sbc.net)

At the top center will be a box labeled Your Church’s Name 2015 Information – Click on Update information if the “Total Undesignated Gifts/Receipts for year 2015” is not correct and if the “Total Gifts to Convention Causes & Entities for year 2015” is not correct

  • Note: This is what will be calculated as to how many messengers you can send and it is possible like with my church that some of these numbers may be incorrect if the Executive Committee does not have records of all you have given to SBC causes, which might be the case. To get your “Total Gifts to Convention Causes” just add up all the gifts I mentioned above as gifts to convention causes. I know this may be overly simplistic but I have grown up around the SBC and studied Convention structures for a while and I almost missed it.
  • Below the 2015 Information Box will be the spot for you to begin registering your messengers!

Make sure you take part in the processes of the convention to let your voice be heard. We hope to see you and your full count of messengers in St. Louis. And we hope to see you at our B21 Lunch on Tuesday as we talk with Danny Akin, Matt Chandler, J.D. Greear, Albert Mohler, Russell Moore, and David Platt about the SBC and it’s future. Register for that event here!

If you have questions please email us at Baptist21@gmail.com and we will get you in touch with the right people.