Who's watching Southern Baptists debate their future?

What if the Southern Baptist Convention, the USA's largest Protestant denomination, had a contentious annual convention to set its path for the future -- and no one paid attention?

The SBC has gathered in Orlando to confront its flat numbers (although the rate of baptisms bobbed up slightly this year) and furiously debate the way it funds evangelization and missions (the "Great Commission" to bring people to Christ).

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But unless you are tuned in on Baptist Press or Twitter, it's hard to find coverage. The wires services are walking the beaches of Pensacola with President Obama and religion reporters -- what's left of us -- are hobbled by lack of travel budgets and the rigidly local focus of many media.

You can watch on streaming video or you can track the hot speeches by checking Twitter for #SBC2010. (I think Baptist pastors are handed "smart phones" with their ordination -- they're major early adopters of technology.) Influential Albert Mohler, head of Southern Seminary, is tweeting up a storm. Some examples:

The real question for the SBC today is not the fear of the unknown, but whether we will try to live in denial of what we do know.

We know that business as usual will not work, nor will doing a little bit better. The coming generation sees that clearly. Do we?

Here's a snip of a speech by Steve Gaines, pastor of the Memphis-area Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., that should give you a fast mood check of the conference. He called it, "Portrait of a Dying Church," and hammered home that the SBC appeared to by dying in its sleep. According to Baptist Press, where conference news is posted regularly, he said

Churches are not excited about their ministry like they once were and members "dabble instead of do," Gaines observed. It is time for churches and the Southern Baptist Convention to wake up, Gaines said. "There are still people who need to hear the Gospel."

Gaines mentioned that while he supports the proposals of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, what is really needed is "a red-hot, Holy Ghost revival from God."

But, given the steady decline in all denominational allegiances turning up in survey after survey, and the long-standing resistance most believers have to personal evangelism, do you see a rosier future for the SBC?