Where else could we be?

By Nate Adams

On the cover date of this issue, I should be in New Orleans at the 2012 Southern Baptist Convention. A number of you will be there too, and I look forward to seeing you following the Pastors’ Conference Monday night, at the IBSA reception for Illinois Baptists and friends.

But I’ve also talked recently with people who will not be with us at the Southern Baptist Convention, and for pretty good reasons.

For example, our middle son Noah will be a senior next year at Judson University. He serves part-time during the school year as youth minister at Calvary Baptist Church in Elgin, and this summer he is doing a 10-week internship there.

During the week of the SBC, Noah will be leading his first World Changers youth mission trip to Owensboro, Kentucky. His three-van caravan will stop here in Springfield to pick up four students from his home church, Western Oaks Baptist Church, and to spend the night at our house. The next morning they will head out for Kentucky at the same time we leave for New Orleans.

I asked Noah if he would like to attend the national SBC with me, and then found that for a number of reasons that was the only week his group could participate in a World Changers project. He grinned at me and asked, “Missions or meetings, Dad – which is more important?”

In another conversation with a leading pastor in our state I asked, “Will I see you in New Orleans?” He too replied that his church’s summer missions plans would find him in Chicago that week. For several years, his church has partnered with smaller churches in the Chicago area. This pastor personally leads a sizable group of all ages from his church to lead VBS, perform manual labor, and assist fledgling church plants.

I think my pastor friend may have thought I was implying that he should make the SBC a priority, and so he started to explain why they needed to do the mission trip that same week. “No explanation necessary,” I assured him.
And then, remembering the conversation with my son, I followed up with my own grin. “I mean, which is more important, right?”

I don’t mean by either of these examples to imply that attending the national SBC is not important. I mean, that’s where I’ll be, and important things transpire there. But important things will transpire in Owensboro and in Chicago that week too. And part of me wishes I were going to be in one of those places as you read this, instead of New Orleans.

Maybe it’s a good question for us to ask ourselves this summer, as we plan our various conferences and vacations and weekends and even our church activities at home. Where else could we be? Is where we’re planning to go simply serving ourselves, or our families, or even our churches, or are we going somewhere to actively carry the Gospel or serve someone in the name of Christ?

I’m going to conclude that it’s reasonable and even potentially important for me to be at the SBC in New Orleans as you read this. The relationships and decisions that take place there can significantly impact our work together as Illinois Baptists. But while I’m in those meetings I may occasionally be looking out the window and praying for the groups I know that are doing something that perhaps is even more important.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association.