That was the challenge from the Revd Stuart Davison, regional minister team leader of the South Eastern Baptist Association in a session entitled 'Independent Baptists and other Oxymorons' on Saturday afternoon. He said the word 'independent' shouldn't even be in our Baptist vocabulary - it has been mixed up with autonomy of our governance structures.

He explained that maturity comes with interdependence, not independence, and recognising the need to work together. As a team leader he has seen more ministerial fall out caused by an 'independent spirit' - a minister thinking they can do everything on their own - than anything else.

And sadly, he continued, the word has gained a lot of currency in modern society, with people thinking they can do things on their own.

By contrast interdependence is both part of our heritage - the early Baptists worked very closely together - and is a common Biblical theme. 'So many expressions in the New Testament of what it means to be a Christian are about corporate identity,' said Mr Davidson, who quoted the Baptist principle 'Walking together and watching over each other' in the session.

'Surely today the world needs the church showing what community is, making sense of what being a mature people is.

'As Baptists we have to travel in groups. Baptists are called to travel in relationship with each other.'

The session heard examples of Baptist churches working alongside each other.

The Revd Jonathan Boyers shared how the urban church he ministers, The Peoples Church in Partington, had developed a Christians Against Poverty debt counselling centre alongside the larger and more affluent Altrincham Baptist Church. For different reasons, debt was a common issue in these two very different environments. But this wasn't simply a larger church helping a smaller church, but a mutually beneficial relationship that has seen the sharing of prayer, people, stories and funds.

There was the example of the North Oxfordshire cluster, a grouping of several churches that had led to the creation of a foodbank and support of a church plant alongside people on the margins, as well as a greater degree of fellowship among the churches in the area.

The session also heard how the North Western Baptist Association is partnering a church plant in Liverpool, the Melling Baptist Community Project, which meets in a pub and has established a community choir; and how churches in the Hove area had shared resources with the result they now had a youth worker and evangelist.

'How can we do more together?' ask Mr Davison, before concluding with an expression from Ernie Whalley's presidential address the previous night.
'Independence needs to be discarded in order to fulfill our mission mandate.'