4,000 ARE EXPECTED AT BAPTIST GATHERING; CONVENTION LIKELY TO STATE OPPOSITION TO GAMBLING ISSUE

The anticipated 4,000 people attending this week's Missouri Baptist Convention can join a Baptist credit union or subscribe to the state's Baptist weekly newspaper, Word & Way, or sign up for ministerial workshops on how to handle drug dependencies.

The convention, which begins today at the Show Me Center, has attracted about 50 exhibitors who are lining the concourse to promote their programs and gently hawk their wares.

Inside, the powers of Missouri's largest Protestant church group representing nearly 630,000 members will conduct a business meeting built around approval of a $15.2 million budget.

"Messengers" delegates elected by the convention's nearly 2,000 member churches and missions also are expected to endorse a resolution opposing the riverboat gambling initiative on the November ballot.

That probably will be the convention's only foray into politics or perhaps even theology.

"In Missouri, the questions tend to be over methodology rather than theology," said Philip Poole, director of public relations for the MBC.

The recession has hurt the state's Baptist churches. "I don't know of any denomination in Missouri that has been recession-proof," Poole says.

"We've been lucky it has not been any worse that it has been."

This might be the first year in the past seven that the convention is able to meet its budget, though Poole says it never has operated in the red.

Staying current with the times and making sure churches are in tune with the public's needs are part of the agenda this year.

A. Jack Green will talk about changing trends in child care. Rex Campbell, a sociology professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, will address the convention on demographic and psycho-graphic trends in the state.

Campbell's information will be helpful "so we can target our message," said Poole. "It's part of the marketing."

He said the data will help them "develop programs that will appeal to the emotional as well as spiritual needs of the church."

Thirty-five percent of the convention's budget goes toward ministries and ministry support services maintained by the Southern Baptist Convention.

The remainder supports the state's four Baptist colleges, the Missouri Baptist Convention's own ministries, including home elder care facilities in Ironton and Chillicothe, and children's homes in six different locations, including a counseling center in Dexter.

Other speakers will include Vernon Armitage, pastor of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Liberty, one of the fastest-growing churches in the state; and Tillie Burgin, minister of missions for First Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas.

Burgin began her ministry by visiting apartment-dwellers. She now has a full-fledged ministry concentrating on alcohol and drug rehabilitation and working with 20,000 people per week.

The convention officially will begin at 7 tonight with the "Parade of Flags." Featured will be the 191 flags of the countries and states home to Southern Baptist missions.

The convention will conclude with a 7 p.m. concert Wednesday by Christian recording artist Ken Medema. The concert is free and open to the public. "That is our gift to the community," Poole said.

The convention has not been held in Cape Girardeau for the past 15 years because the facilities here could not handle it, Poole said.

The MBC is spending about $70,000 on the convention. The economic impact on the community, of course, is far greater.

The Cape Girardeau Association of the MBC alone represents 30 churches with 12,000 members. However, not all of the area's Baptist churches belong to the convention.

Poole expects a crowd. The convention normally books 400-500 motel rooms for its annual get-together. He says nearly all 800 rooms in Cape Girardeau are dedicated to convention-goers as far as he knows, and that some are staying in Jackson and Sikeston.