NAMB Conference to be Held at Opulent Ritz -Carleton?
The SBC’s North American Mission Board (NSAMB) is using mission dollars paid by the cooperative program to host their weeklong annual meeting of state Baptist convention directors at the opulent Ritz-Carleton Hotel in New Orleans, a 4-star luxury hotel in the French Quarters, according to a report by NAMB Whistleblower.
At the Ritz, rooms usually go for between $400-500 dollars a night but can be had for as “little” as $305 a night if booked six months in advance. Space for meeting rooms is negotiated based on location and services provided, such as group size, catering options and group rates with hotel packages. Still, given their room rates, prices would be at a premium.
Their choice to stay at the lavish Ritz-Carleton is a slap in the face of faithful Baptists who have been giving for years, only to have it squandered away without concern for the sacrifices that went into producing that dollar and then giving it. Even if they managed to negotiate steep discounts, the optics alone are astonishingly bad.
NAMB has historically been a secretive and non-transparent organization that has grown fond of spending other people’s money without accountability. Without fiscal restraint or control, we have come to expect nothing less of them.
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