Baptist Assembly

We spent the weekend in Bournemouth. Not for a holiday - but to attend the Baptist Assembly held at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC ) there. My wife got chatting to a man on Waterloo Station as we waited for the train. She said what we were going to and he asked where it was being held. When she told him, he expressed surprise and said, "I didn't know there were so many Baptists!" Well, he was an Anglican ...

It was, as usual, an inspiring time. The band who led the sung worship were brilliant. I was struck by the girl singer with dark hair, as her hair alternated between straight and curly each day. I really don't know why I notice these things, is it a gift?

Kingsley Appiagyei is the new president and in his address he quoted Marcus Antonius who said, "The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues." That reminds me, I mustn't spend too much time blogging.

Nigel Wright led a seminar on what makes a Baptist Church Baptist. He started off by discussing what were the minimum requirements for a church to be a church. These he called the ecclesial minimum, a useful phrase to pop into a conversation when you want to impress. As we split into small groups for discussion, our ecclesial minimum was "a community gathered for trinitarian worship" I thought it sounded good. Nigel's basic definition was based on Matthew 18:20 where Jesus said, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them." I was a little shocked to find at this point we were using bigger words than Nigel!

His 'Baptist' minimum was believers' baptism plus congregational government plus religious freedom. The 'congregational government' bit implied the church meeting, which he described as a "high risk zone"! But we're trying to create a spiritual unity there, he continued, "We know how to winge, we need to learn how to love."

Pat Took's Bible study was, as ever, helpful and inspiring. We were looking at Matthew chapter ten where the disciples were sent out with direction from Jesus. They were to go as mendicants (I had to look that word up when we got back!). This was radical. She asked, how can we be 'radical' when we are homeowners? It's a tension, she admitted!

We were all given a jute bag to carry around our papers, made by Freeset, a company from Calcutta which provides hope and employment to women who had been trafficked into prostitution. A brilliant way to help others.

We were also able to calculate our carbon footprint caused by our journey to the Assembly, and offset that by giving an amount of money to a scheme which plants trees. As we travelled by train, our offset amounted to 10p! Not many trees for that, but we did give more than that!

So a great weekend, only spoilt by our hotel fiasco ... which I'll tell you all about another time.