American Baptists in the Southwest

This past weekend was the annual mission conference and the first meeting of the new association of American Baptists in the Southwest. It was an important event for me and for Cambridge Drive Community Church as we try to discern God's yearnings for us in the coming days. When the ABCPSW withdrew from the American Baptist national body, that left those of us who wanted to remain in the national body homeless. So a new association is being formed here which will receive services from the Los Angeles city society. There is also the option of joining with another region that is further away. The proximity of LA is a strong incentive to be part of the new association so we're looking carefully... and that led me to attend the meetings Friday and Saturday.

Tony Campolo spoke and while I'd heard some of the stories before Tony is always encouraging and challenging. Workshops with some of our ABC missionaries where very good. The piece that struck me most was the make-up of the attendees. As one would hope, the Los Angeles region of the denomination is extremely diverse. This was reflected in the crowd. I doubt that any racial or ethnic group made up more than 50%. There were Anglos, Asians, African Americans, Latinos from a variety of different cultures all together in worship. In one of the sessions, we sang the song below and as I looked around, tears came to my eyes. Take a listen...