The Baptist Steering Group - September 2015

General Secretary Lynn Green shares key messages from the September gathering of the Baptist Steering Group

Our vision that emerged out of the Futures process made it clear that “…there is a clear commitment to develop a visible model of collaborative and collegiate leadership that is not seen as representing any component group within our Baptist Community, but genuinely and visibly speaking for every part of it.” 

“In particular we want a common recognition of leadership that brings together local, regional and national expressions of Baptist life in common purpose.” 

The Baptist Steering Group (BSG) was created to bring “around the table” representatives of Colleges, Regional teams and Specialist teams in order to offer organisational leadership and co-ordination. 

It is very encouraging to see how this vision for collaborative working is beginning to take shape across Baptists Together and it is good to see the BSG getting into its stride as we lead and co-ordinate our priorities and projects as a movement.  It is great to see each member bringing their unique gifts and insights to the team.

In our September meeting we …

• prayed, with John Claydon leading us.
• heard the initial findings from the Ignite project team about the future of ministries and how we will support them. Using the feedback from BSG the Project team will now further refine their ideas and will be presenting to Council in October so that we can agree our broad strategic direction and prioritise further work that will be needed to implement our vision in this area.
• were encouraged to hear that 684 churches have participated in the Fit4Mission survey – thank you to all of you! Stuart Davison presented the initial results of the survey and we had some discussion around these. Again, there will be a presentation at Council in October so that the wider wisdom of Council can be offered to the Baptists Together Mission Forum as they develop responses to these insights.
• met with, and listened to, three ministers from the Southern Counties Baptist Association and had a really helpful discussion about what they value about being part of Baptists Together and how they play their part as leaders and churches.  It was encouraging to hear from them their commitment to interdependence and covenant relationships within Baptists Together.
• revisited the project proposals for Collaborate, which is a team developing Baptists Together database connectivity. Some earlier questions from BSG were clarified by the project team and so now BSG were excited to release the project team to get on with the job and help us realise the potential of technological connectedness as an expression of our interdependence!
• reflected on giving for the year to date and noted that many churches would be setting their 2016 budgets in the next few months. We decided to take the opportunity to communicate our vision for “growing healthy churches in relationship for God’s mission” to churches through Associations and on the Baptist Together website so that leaders and churches are inspired to release the resources we need for the vision God has given us. 

The Revd Lynn Green is General Secretary of our Baptist Union