NACC Kansas City: More Than Fellowship
This reflection on the North American Christian Convention highlights the power of connection and the importance of gathering as a movement. It also lifts up the convention’s emphasis on church planting and the decision to move future conventions away from the Fourth of July week.
- NACC remains a key place for connection beyond the main sessions.
- This year’s convention emphasized church planting, including ReachoutKC in Kansas City.
- Future NACCs will shift away from meeting around the Fourth of July.
By Mark A. Taylor
Maybe it’s the hugs I remember most: grown men on city streets embracing as though they were at a family reunion. Which, of course, is exactly what we call the North American Christian Convention.
It’s the connecting place, according to NACC publicity, and for many the meetings outside main sessions are the most important part of the week.
More Than Just Fellowship
It was true this year, July 3-6 in Kansas City, as much as any other. But the week was about far more than just fellowship.
This year’s convention lifted up the need for church planting and promised a congregation in Kansas City as one result. Troy and Janet McMahon are leading ReachoutKC, the church that will launch next March. They told their story at the convention, which gave 10 percent of its offerings toward the venture.
One of the hugs I received that week was from the daughter of an old friend. She lives with her family outside Kansas City and came to the convention especially to learn more about this new church. She met Troy and Janet, learned all the details, and attended one night’s main session.
“This was really good,” she said more than once while we were talking in the exhibit hall afterwards. It’s easy to forget how the excellence of NACC music and preaching contrasts with what many experience in their small church at home.
Attendance, Expectations, and a Scheduling Shift
Allan Dunbar announced that the week’s evening worship attendance had averaged 4,000 (this included 1,000 teenagers and several hundred younger children). Despite his assertion that this is “pretty good for Kansas,” several were disappointed at the empty chairs in the worship auditorium and many workshop rooms.
“I was expecting more,” an Ozark Christian College graduate said. Indeed, many congregations in the Ozark circle of influence are within easy driving distance from the convention center.
But one NACC leader reported some ministers had been discouraged or forbidden by their elders to leave home on the Fourth of July to attend the convention. “What we do in our community on the holiday is too important for you to be gone,” they were told. In response, the convention will abandon its practice of meeting around the Fourth, in spite of the fact that convention centers are usually free then. After the next two conventions, which are already scheduled, expect the convention to meet a different week of the summer.
A Forum We Still Need
I hope that helps, because we need a forum to discuss the ideals and vision that united us in the past and can frame our future. Of course, CHRISTIAN STANDARD serves that purpose too. But we also need something our magazine cannot provide.
Hugs.
Watch for complete convention coverage, coming in our September 23 issue.
Author: Mark A. Taylor
Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).
