Should Anything Change About the NACC?

September 17, 2008

Mark A. Taylor

Organizations & Events Conferences & Gatherings

Mark A. Taylor reflects on NACC viewpoints, conference costs, cultural shifts, attendance concerns, and whether the North American Christian Convention can remain sustainable for future years.

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NACC Viewpoints and the Future of the Convention

Mark A. Taylor reflects on varied responses to this year’s North American Christian Convention and the questions they raise about cost, attendance, cultural change, and institutional loyalty. The article considers whether the NACC can remain sustainable while preserving its unique value for Christian churches and their ministries.

The NACC report includes perspectives ranging from preserving the convention as it is to combining it with the National Missionary Convention.
Cost, attendance, cultural trends, and institutional loyalty all shape questions about the convention’s future.
The article affirms the NACC’s value while asking whether enough people will continue to sustain it.

By Mark A. Taylor

This year’s North American Christian Convention report offers several different perspectives with conclusions that range all the way from “We need this convention as it is” to “We should combine it with the National Missionary Convention.”

We didn’t anticipate or dictate what these writers would say. We simply asked each one to comment on this year’s gathering and then to make suggestions for the future.

Cost Versus Value at the NACC

Cost versus value is an issue mentioned or implied by many of their conclusions. Is the convention worth the price our movement invests in it? Is it worth the cost to the individuals who attend it? Is lowered attendance a reflection that some (or many) have decided to spend vacation budgets or convention allowances elsewhere?

Allan Dunbar shares convincing testimonies from attendees who say the convention contributes something unique to their faith and ministries. Surely it could do the same for others who haven’t decided to pay the price to attend it. What if we could find a way to lower that price without compromising that impact? Wouldn’t this attract many more to the blessings the convention offers?

But there are problems.

One is the economy, with rising costs for everything from travel to convention centers.

Cultural Trends and Conference Attendance

And a couple of cultural trends have come into play. We live in a day when “one-for-all” is passé, and niche music, fashions, marketing, and entertainment flourish. General all-purpose magazines have gone out of business, and general all-audience TV networks have lost their prominence. Can we buck that trend with our general all-church conference?

(Note that two conferences mentioned this week, the National New Church Conference and the National Missionary Convention, each promise a specific focus based on a narrow purpose. Each also, I suspect, achieves a good measure of the “connecting” that is the NACC’s mission. And the registration fee for the Missionary Convention is a fraction of the NACC’s.)

Meanwhile, we see a lack of institutional loyalty on every front. This is reflected in Christian churches by the waning interest of people in the pew to rally around “denominational” enterprises.

In fact, many of “our” institutions survive today by finding significant support from believers in other Christian groups. (For example, check the church backgrounds of the incoming freshman class at your favorite Restoration Movement college.) But reaching out to denominational folk isn’t the NACC’s mission, and no one is suggesting that should change.