ANAHEIM, Calif. (BP) – Online hotel registration opens Friday, Oct. 1, for the 2022 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting June 14-15 at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Online registration will be available at sbcannualmeeting.net beginning at 8 a.m. Central Daylight Time, with the discounted convention rate available until May 16.
California Southern Baptists showcase diversity, with 12 languages and 51 nationalities counted among the 147 churches in the Orange County Southern Baptist Association, according to Director of Missions Mike Proud. Statewide, Hispanics are now the largest ethnic group, the 2020 U.S. Census notes.
“The annual meeting will be an amazing opportunity for Southern Baptists to encourage and join the work of God that is happening in California,” SBC President Ed Litton has said. “It also excites me for Southern Baptists to see the vast mission field of our most populous and diverse state.
“For better or worse, California sets trends for our nation, and we need to seize on the tremendous potential in planting churches that will impact the spread of the Gospel across our land.”
“Jesus: The Center of It All” is the 2022 annual meeting theme, anchored in Colossians 1:15, which describes Jesus as the image of the invisible God and the firstborn over all creation, with all things in heaven and earth created by and for Him.
Gateway Seminary President Jeff Iorg has encouraged Southern Baptists to visit the seminary in the days surrounding the meeting, at its Ontario campus, which is within 30 miles of Anaheim.
“The most unique thing happening at Gateway this year is we’re capitalizing on all of you coming to visit us and specific strategies to make sure that we take advantage of training our people and exposing so many Gateway folk to the Southern Baptist Convention,” Iorg said a week ago, “and then hopefully giving you a new vision, a new image, a new impression of what God is doing through Southern Baptists across California and the West.”
Rooms are available at 20 hotels, many of them within walking distance of the meeting site. Both the Anaheim Marriott, the official convention hotel, and the Hilton Anaheim are adjacent.
Online registration is encouraged, but reservations may be made by phone at 864-580-4468 with wait times anticipated. Reservations canceled on or after May 16, 2022, may result in a penalty of one night’s room and tax.
