Spring 2018

Dear Church Secretary,

Better Together: Baptist Networks Mission Initiatives Programme

Enclosed with this letter you will find this year’s Better Together Mission Voucher. I am delighted to say that the Voucher Scheme introduced after the 2012 Futures Process has proved so successful that giving to our Mission Initiatives Programme has grown considerably which means this year we are able to send every contributing church a voucher for £2500.

The scheme remains the same. The money must be spent on a UK mission initiative organized in partnership with others. You need to register your intention to use the voucher by the end of June. Then you have until the end of November to decide how the funds should be allocated. Any money not allocated by then will be saved and be shared among all the churches next year. The use of the voucher must be supported by a minute from the meeting where the use of the money was discussed.

Remember, the money can go to a Baptist project or to a project organized in partnership with other churches. Here are some of the different things churches have done with their money.

X Factor 2008 champion Alexandra Burke may not be known for her intellectual musings but in her latest single she grapples with the philosophical conundrum of an elephant being in the room but no-one managing to notice its very obvious presence. The said elephant is not of course an Indian or African mammal but refers to the idiom 'elephant in the room' in which a person deliberately ignores an obvious issue in their life.

As I reflect on my 20 years of Baptist ministry  the 'elephant' in my room' or  in the denomination's room, is the issue of ordination. I absolutely love the BBC 3 sitcom Rev but I've never truly felt comfortable with that particular moniker. The idea that being 'set apart' for a particular ministry should confer on me a special title with associated privileges  doesn't seem to me 'very Baptist'. One of the Baptist principles that has appealed strongly to me is that of an egalitarian understanding of a priesthood of ALL believers. Just recently at the church I attend, a covenant renewal service was held between four neighbouring churches. All the other churches are Anglican and it was interesting to compare our denominational cousins dressed in their ecclesiastical finery to our own casually dressed minister.   This was excellent as he stood out proclaiming a kind of sartorial dissent. But beyond that you would be hard pressed to tell the differences between the four congregations. It's always the minister who presides at communion at all the churches for instance. Can you genuinely have a priesthood of all believers where some are considered more priestly than others?

Throughout our history and various strands (Particular and General) we have taken a variety of views on the issue of ordination. But it was really in the 19th century and mid to late 20th century that it has cohered into the institution and format we now see, complete with elaborately worded liturgical services. Charles H Spurgeon himself was not ordained, describing the practise as the 'laying of empty hands on empty heads'.

A Parable:

On a cold but sunny afternoon last week I found myself at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC.  Arlington describes itself as ‘our Nation’s most hallowed ground,’ a place where the pride that many Americans share in their nation is visible and tangible.

Let me acknowledge, hopefully to save later diversions, that there is much about America, and the UK and most nations I know, that is not as we would like it to be. This blog is not a political treatise on national perfections and imperfections nor indeed a celebration of militarism.  What Arlington represents for me is the power of belonging to something we truly believe in.

Arlington is one of those places that remind me that Americans on the whole love their country, in spite of it’s faults. Some are cynical of course and cynics rarely make a contribution to the greater good. Sceptics do.  Critics do too.  But cynics don’t.  So even when Americans are critics of their own nation its because they long for it to be better, to live up to the high ideals that lie at its core.  That’s why times of critical reflection are important. Hard lessons need to be learned in order that the ideals we cherish continue to set a high standard for all our shared endeavours.

Arlington encapsulates so many of these ideals.  The overwhelming majority of graves are marked by identical white headstones, as simple as its possible to imagine. To those who knew the people behind the names, every person is unique but the message conveyed from seeing so many standing shoulder to shoulder in the last light of day, is that our strength is in our togetherness, not our aloneness. In an era when we celebrate celebrity, and too quickly measure unfavourably the ordinary against the exceptional, Arlington says that the ordinary is exceptional when it stands united.

John 15:1-5

As I have reflected on these images and this passage I have noticed these things…

• There is both a winter and a spring pruning for vines.  In the winter pruning you cut back hard and the result looks stark, almost brutal…
   
• In the spring pruning, growth is cut back in order to make sure that all the energy of the plant is devoted to producing fruit and not dissipated into lots of greenery…
   
• Notice who initiates the pruning…
   
• The source of our life and connectedness is in remaining in Jesus…
   
• The consequences of remaining in Jesus and letting the Father do His work amongst us is much fruit…

I come to write this piece from a perspective of seven years in leadership of the European Baptist Federation (EBF), made up of 55 member Unions and Conventions in Europe, Middle East and Central Asia.  I came to that task with the background of being a ‘cradle Baptist’ and serving in ministry in each of the membership categories of our Union; a local church, an Association and a College.

What my EBF experience has done is to enable me for the first time to step back a little from BUGB as I have entered into lives of other Baptist Unions.  The resulting perspective has made me more greatly value and appreciate some aspects of our life together in BUGB that may not be so present in other parts of the EBF.  These include the high standard of supportive care for ministers, our tradition of covenant relationships and community discernment of where the Spirit is leading us, and national Home Mission to support local churches to have ministry. 

But on the other hand it has made me realise that as the EBF member Union that has by far the longest history we have built up institutional ‘layers’ over four centuries, which are simply not present in most other EBF member Unions.   Some of them seem almost alarmingly light and adaptable in structure, in comparison.   And it must be said that sometimes where challenges and conflicts arise there are simply not the structures to deal with them, only the warring personalities!   But it is also true that when structures are necessarily light and material resources are few, the forging of collaborative relationships comes more to the fore as vital.