I want to extend to you a personal invitation to join us for the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Tucson, November 13, 2009. We will be meeting with the great people of Emmanuel Baptist Church at 1825 N. Alvernon Way. Here is the schedule and agenda for the one-day meeting:

10:00 a.m.: Leadership Conference in Worship Center led by Dr. Jeff Iorg.

12 noon: Lunch provided by ASBC Disaster Relief Team and Mission Fair Begins

1:00 p.m.: Interactive Mission Fair and Small Breakout Sessions (a great time for fellowship and learning)

3:00 p.m.: Business Session (time for electing officers, adopting the annual budget, any other items of business to be considered)

4:00 p.m.: Mission Rally: Theme for 2010 is God’s Plan for Sharing – Arizona Style!

5:00 p.m.: Adjournment of annual meeting: God’s grace on your journey home.

This is our second year of changing our annual meeting to focus more on the mission aspect of our work rather than a two-day business meeting. The response from last year’s meeting was excellent. We have done some fine tuning for this year based on the responses we received. If you did not attend last year, here’s what you can expect:

First, you will have a lot of face-to-face time with harvest-field missionaries. The Mission Fair (from 1-3 p.m.) is a time for you to browse the booths and attend short (10-20 minute sessions each) breakout sessions to learn what God is doing through our mission efforts in Arizona. This aspect is a come-and-go affair, so you visit with those you desire and attend the small-group breakout sessions you have an interest in.

Second, expect to spend some relaxed time in fellowship with friends and those you don’t get to see very often. There will be no pressure to either attend every session, hear every report, or simply dismiss yourself for personal fellowship. This structure supports your time of renewing or making new friends.

Third, expect to have more face-to-face time with the ASBC staff. Since we will not be so engaged in a two-day business meeting, we will have more time to visit with you about your questions and your ministry. This will give us opportunity as a staff to concern ourselves with what God is doing in your life, and not seem rushed to get to our next report on the platform. Of course, all of our annual reports will be loaded on our website and made available for you two weeks prior to the annual meeting. We want to be held accountable, and so we want to post our reports on the Web and then stand ready to dialogue with you personally about any part of our reports should you want to discuss them.

And fourth, we will be able to accomplish all of the ASBC constitutionally-required business in one hour. Just think, we will be able to do in one hour that which often took us two days! In fact, last year it only took us 42 minutes! Now, let me say, if there is a need to extend our business time in order to address important business issues, by all means we will do it.

Bottom line: It is now a great annual meeting of focusing on the harvest field that begins in Arizona and spreads to the world! I hope to see you there …