President's diary - April 2025
Preaching
It’s probably just me, but in my limited experience of being a guest preacher, I’ve only been invited on a couple of occasions to speak at services on or around the major festivals. Over the years I think I’ve spoken as a visitor on two Easter Sundays and a couple of Pentecosts. Lots of the invitations I do receive are to speak at Anniversary services. I’ve no complaints about this. This year, it meant that I could be at our home church in Burnham for both Palm Sunday and Easter.
On the former occasion, our pastor had clearly decided that things were chaotic enough this year without bringing a guest donkey into the mix. Instead, very large palm leaves were given out to eager volunteers, and these were waved vigorously during a couple of songs. I had to spend my time bobbing and weaving to make sure I stayed safe.
Easter was a lovely occasion. Our building was packed, and during the Lord’s Supper we ran out of communion cups. This is never a good thing really, but I can’t help feeling that there’s a sense of expectation and possibility about our congregation.
I was out and about on the two other Sundays of the month. My first April trip was to the church in Rawtenstall, north of Manchester. I was well looked after the evening before and had a lovely Sunday lunch – pie and mash, which are definite favourites – with the associate pastor, a former student of mine in Bristol, and his wife.
I had been asked to speak on the story of the council meeting in John 11.47 – 53. I imagined the full speech that Caiaphas might have made while asking the congregation to pretend that they were the council members. The worship space at Rawtenstall is set out with banked pews in a horseshoe shape, providing a great backdrop for the message. At the end I came out of character to talk about the people like Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate who thought their role was to judge Jesus. As we know, there is a sense in which they were judging themselves; deciding who they were, by their response to Jesus. We do the same.
The second trip was to Dorking, and it was interesting to be back in the south-east of the country. I spoke again about the transforming power of Messiah Jesus. It’s not a large church but seems to have a young and dynamic leadership and I got a strong sense of a vibrant spirituality and grounds for hope for further growth.
Teaching
I was very grateful to one of my friends in the south-east who, when he discovered that I was coming to Dorking, suggested that I might offer a day for local ministers on the Monday. So, I stayed over and in the morning drove to Walderslade Baptist Church in Kent to speak to the group of ministers and other leaders who gathered.
The theme I’d been given was Baptist Ministry for the Gospel in the 21st Century. This gave me space to talk about all my favourite things – what it means to be Baptist, what we understand by ministry, what the Scriptures say about the gospel, and how to minister well in a confusing and difficult climate.
Meetings
There were a couple of interesting online meetings during the month. One was a conversation with the national team on the Baptist Small Church Connexion. We were able to talk through some of the issues that are faced by the smaller churches in our networks and one outcome was that I received an invitation for the autumn to make a midweek visit to a church in the Poole area.
Later in the month I chaired an online meeting to advise on a proposed new MA programme at Spurgeon’s.
Former students
I am very grateful for the occasional visits I get from former students who seem determined to take care of me in retirement. The first is a pastor in Bristol who bought me coffee and listened to my rambling and the second is a pastor in the northern part of the Southern Counties area. We had lunch together after she’d spent 24 hours in the retreat house run by a Baptist minister who plays an active part in our church here in Burnham.
Short break
My wife Becca is one of those people who cannot see – or read about – a hill without needing to climb it or an island without wanting to visit it. So it was that we finally arranged to visit the island of Lundy. Becca was especially keen to see the puffins who nest there. She insists that their young are called pufflings. I find the name altogether too cute to be believable, but the internet insists that this is true.
Anyway, we arranged a stay in a hotel overnight outside Ilfracombe and booked tickets on the ferry to the island. We were at the hotel when we got a text saying that there were mechanical issues with the boat and that we wouldn’t be making the visit. We were offered the opportunity to rebook and we’re going back in June. Instead, we had a lovely day walking in the Heddon Valley.
Doctoral students
It’s a while since I agreed to take on additional doctoral students and so most of them are now approaching the end of their studies. One, who has written a very interesting thesis on the history and meaning of the Baptist Union Declaration of Principle, submitted his thesis this month.
Another, working on the way Luke presents the way Paul makes decisions in Acts, is making good progress though he has slowed a little since he was recruited at the Bristol college as a tutor. Nevertheless, he should be finished by the summer.
The ‘Quiet’ Revival
I wrote something last month about the good news we heard at the March council meeting, that the returns from the churches indicate that there was a considerable increase in baptisms across our union in 2024. I mentioned that I had met a number of people in their 20s and 30s who had joined some of our congregations. I was reluctant to say too much about this because the things I saw and heard about were all largely anecdotal.
Then, during April, I was sent a copy of some research carried out by the Bible Society. This suggests that the church in the UK is experiencing a degree of growth and that, in particular, people in their 20s are attending church regularly. The story was picked up on social media and in a couple of national papers.
Of course, this is not happening everywhere. I know a number of churches that are experiencing growth and its mainly older people who are new to the congregation. In other places, there has been no growth yet. I hope this won’t lead to despondency as people wonder why they are being left out, but that we will all feel encouraged to pray.
Over the years we’ve become very used to the idea that church attendance is in decline. The tide, we have been told, is going out. I think I’m right in saying that the high-water mark for Baptist membership came early in the first decade of the 1900s when our numbers reached just over a million. The overall population at the time was less than half what it is today.
I think our overall membership numbers are around 100,000, about a tenth of what they once were. This sounds like a remnant to me. It has always been my prayer that I would live to see the tide turn and our churches start to grow and to flourish. I know that I’m far from alone in this longing. I hope that our prayers are now being answered.
If they are, then we need to be prepared. Forgive me for mentioning it again, but one of my themes as this year’s President has been to encourage us to identify, resource and equip younger leaders in our churches. I feel we should be looking for the next generation of ministers for our churches, mission projects, church plants and chaplaincies.
If God grants the growth, let’s be sure we have the leaders we need to serve and to disciple the new people who join us.