2011AnnuAl Review

Therefore go and make

disciples of all naTions, bapTizing

Them in The name of The faTher and of The son and of The holy spiriT, and Teaching Them To obey everyThing i have

commanded you. and surely i am wiTh you always, To The very

end of The age

T he pace of change in our society is breath-taking. Whether you are looking at science, communication, transport, health-care or family life the speed

of change is immense. Church life cannot remain unaffected by this, and God calls us to respond to this fast changing situation with agility and love. The Good News of Jesus Christ does not change – but our ways of working need to be continually changing in order to ensure that we are serving God effectively.

2011 saw many changes in the life of the Baptist Union – and the promise of more to come. As I have looked through this Annual Review I have been struck by the consistency of the theme of change. It’s everywhere! The closing of The Baptist Times after 150 years was a sad but inevitable product of the massive changes to the ways in which we communicate. Increasingly people use the Baptist Union website to gain information about our life together, and the closing of the weekly newspaper had been predicted for years.

There were also exciting developments in mission, and welcome changes to the way in which we address justice issues. There have also been fundamental changes to the

Baptist Ministers’ and Staff Pension schemes, and numerous changes of personnel.

The year also witnessed a watershed in our life, financially. Year by year we have had the privilege of seeing generous giving to Home Mission and 2011 was no exception. For only the second time in our history more than £4 million was donated and we are truly grateful. But the fact is that over a number of years the giving has failed to keep pace with inflation. At the Baptist Union Council in November 2011 the Treasurer confronted the members with the stark financial facts, and a Futures Group was established to explore the way ahead and to bring back firm proposals with a view to moving towards a balanced budget. Although this is bound to involve significant and painful changes to our life as a Baptist Union, from the beginning there was a passionate desire to ensure that any changes were shaped by mission.

Change is fundamental to the Gospel. When Jesus enters the life of an individual or a

community there is always change, and so we should neither be surprised nor daunted by it. We can go forward with confidence in a faithful God who, year by year, will not

only be with us in the change but will be constantly

transforming us.

Jonathan Edwards, BUGB General

Secretary

THE BAPTIST UNION IS CHANGING!

When Jesus enters the life of an individual or a community there is always change

> PrAyEr

In September BUGB General Secretary, Jonathan Edwards, urged Baptists to pray for each other and our future:

“I call the denomination to move forward in confident prayer. We have every reason to be confident in prayer because of the nature of our God. All too often our prayers are hesitant and decidedly lacking in confidence and the only explanation for that can be

that we are looking at ourselves and not at our great God. We live in challenging times and, humanly speaking, we can easily be robbed of confidence but not so if we keep our focus on God.

... We can pray confidently because God is God and he will never fail us. I cannot wait to see what the future holds. I know that there will be many challenges, and many obstacles will be put in our way. But I am confident that God will continue to deal generously with us.”

> PrESIdENT – PAT

At the Baptist Assembly in Blackpool at the end of April, Pat Took was inducted as President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. Since then Pat has been visiting churches and associations across the country and has been overseas to Lebanon with BMS World Mission.

“The Kingdom of God’s great ingathering will require of us all that we abandon key elements of who we are, aspects of our identity which shape us, traditions that we love, loyalties we hold dear. Our ultimate allegiance is not with anything but Christ.”

From Pat’s sermon to the Baptist Assembly on

Friday 29 April

GENErAl SECrETArIAT

> BAPTIST ASSEmBlyThe Baptist Assembly took place in Blackpool, Lancashire at the end of April 2011. The theme of the Assembly was Your Kingdom Come.

Wale Hudson-roberts Communion

Jonathan Edwards and Pat Took

> WOrkING TOGETHEr – SEEkING THE fUTUrE

At November’s Baptist Union Council BUGB Treasurer, Malcolm Broad MBE summarized our present financial situation predicting that by the end of the year there could be a deficit of about one million pounds. This sobering news concentrated the mind of Council and it was resolved to set up a Futures Group to reflect on the way forward, consult as widely as possible with people from every part of our Baptist constituency and to bring firm proposals to the Council meetings in 2012. Our aim is to re-imagine what Christ is calling us to do as a Baptist people in the UK, prioritise key areas of our shared life and mission and in doing that move towards a balanced budget.’

Tim Judson entertains at After Hours

Jonathan Woodhouse is prayed for Blackpool promenade

kingdom Builder Exhibition

> HEAd Of fAITH ANd UNITy TAkES UP NEW POSTWe were very sorry to say goodbye to Graham Sparkes at the end of June. Graham joined the Baptist Union as Mission Adviser in May 1998 and then became Head of the Faith and Unity Department in 2004. In July he became President of the Luther King House Educational Trust, based at the Northern Baptist Learning Community in Manchester.

> JUSTICE GrOUPS – dISABIlITy, WOmEN, rACIAlAs a result of recent decisions within BUGB, the Faith and Unity Executive now hold responsibility for a number of key areas of work that can be understood collectively as ‘equality and diversity issues’. In 2011 three new justice working groups (Racial Justice, Women’s Justice and Disability Justice) were established to enable real progress to occur on these areas within the BUGB and to enable some of the for some of the prophetic and often marginalised voices within the Union to be heard in order to serve as a catalyst for achieving change.

> WOmEN IN mINISTry rEAdErSurely the issue of women in leadership in Baptist churches is settled, isn’t it? There have been female Presidents of the Union, a female Deputy General Secretary, and female Regional Ministers. So, what’s the problem? In spite of these positive examples of women achieving a number of ‘high-profile’ roles within the denomination, the statistic remains that in October 2008 only 11.6% of currently serving Baptist ministers were women. This figure speaks of a far deeper issue, one which goes beyond ordained ministry, of the roles which women and men are required to play within Baptist congregational life. A new Reader, The Story of Women in Ministry in the Baptist Union of Great Britain, was published in 2011 to help Baptists explore this important issue. It recounts the history of women in leadership amongst us, including the significant debate that took place at Baptist Union Council in 2010.

> JPIT We continued to work and speak out on a range of political and social issues with our partners the Methodist and United Reformed churches through the Joint Public Issues Team. This included campaigns to end detention of the children of those seeking sanctuary in the UK; highlighting poverty and inequality in government legislation especially focusing on the Government’s Welfare Reform Bill; and calling for a minimum pricing of alcohol.

fAITH ANd UNITy

> mISSION fOrUm ANd THE fEllOWSHIP Of BAPTISTS IN BrITAIN ANd IrElANdThe mission Executive and Mission Network was replaced with a new group called the Mission Forum. The forum is now made up of missional practitioners from each of the BUGB associations, BMS World Mission, the Baptist Unions of both Scotland and Wales, along with the Irish Network of churches working together to inform the missional thinking and resourcing of the Unions. This new way of working reflects the growing relationships between the Unions and society with the common vision of working together in mission for these islands.

mISSION

> ENCOUrAGING yOUNG mINISTry dISCIPlES

The BUGB Mission Department researched with Baptists and other like-minded Christian organisations into ways our churches’ work with children and young people could be improved. The report, called Encouraging Young Missionary Disciples (EYMD), looked at the topic from a range of different angles and how children’s and youth work is organised and provided in our churches.

A new working group has now been chosen to explore these ideas further in consultation with local churches which it is anticipated will lead to new resources for churches.

“We recognise that what many churches are doing is great but we want to evaluate why we do what we do and how we can develop it afresh. Maybe we have done certain things over the years because it has always been done like that but actually where are children and young people today? What are the pressures that our society and culture are throwing at them and how can we stand by them so they can grow as followers of Jesus in the 21st Century and beyond?”

Ed Jones, a member of the EYMD Task Group who is a Baptist minister and Executive Director for Arise Ministries

> THE BIG WElCOmE

Offering a warm welcome to people coming to church is a simple concept seen in churches throughout the country every week. Many churches are blessed by teams of ‘welcomers’ - the friendly faces who make sure that those who are visiting, as well as regular attenders, feel welcome.

Over the last two years, the Mission Department has been encouraging churches to make an extra-special effort to invite people to a service or other event on a particular day. It may be through a Sunday service, a special Sunday lunch, Cafe Church, a concert etc. The idea has been developed through a partnership with Back to Church Sunday, which encourages us to invite one person we know to something we love. In 2011 around 280 Baptist churches registered to take part in the BIG Welcome, and on average around 12 guests were welcomed at each church to their particular BIG Welcome event.

> CHUrCH PlANTINGIt is often said that planting new churches is in the DNA of Baptists. However during the 20th Century, many more Baptist churches were closed than were started and this trend was only reversed in the 1990s when Baptists joined in the ecumenical drive to plant more churches during the Decade of Evangelism.

In 2010, church planting in its many forms was put firmly onto the Baptist agenda when the Baptist Union Council in March agreed the following resolution:

The Mission Department is tasked to help build a culture within the Baptist Union whereby church planting is expected and encouraged, with Incarnate as its valued church planting partner. The Department should promote the planting of healthy, contextualised churches and congregations.

The Mission Department has conducted research about the church planting that has been going on since 2005 and the training opportunities that exist for church planters. New training material has been developed with the expected launch of a course for pioneers scheduled for 2012.

> BABy BOOmErSA major conference was held during the autumn looking at the various issues and opportunities afforded by the beginning of the retirement of the Baby boomer generation. The conference that was began with the Baptist Unions but soon became a consortium of churches and agencies working together, addressed the issues and have begun to inform the future agendas for the Union and other networks.

> rE:fOCUSDuring 2011 the Mission Department worked on an updated, more flexible version of the BUGB Mission Consultancy scheme originally developed in 2003. re:focus has been developed in modules to make it suitable for a wide variety of churches. User-friendly, it assumes two external facilitators will work with each church on the re:focus journey that may take 6 to 12 months. Facilitators will normally be provided by the associations.

re:focus incorporates thinking about the individual disciple’s crossingplaces as well as the crossingplaces opportunities of the church. It also embraces life-long discipleship and missional spirituality in what is presented to the church through the preparatory sermons and small group work. The re:focus journey is inclusive of people of all ages within the church.

> mISSIONSCENE… became in 2011 the new name for the Mission Department newsletter, available online every two months with news of events, training and resources to help your church in mission. In September a one-off paper edition was published. To see the latest edition please go to www.fbbi.eu

> GET IN THE PICTUrE

Get in the Picture seeks to involve all kinds of people in the Christmas story by encouraging them to participate and experience being part of the nativity in a fun way. Members of the public are encouraged to become one of the characters of the Christmas story and to have their photograph taken in a nativity tableau. The photographs are made available to view and download for free on the Get in the Picture website alongside information about local church carol services, a reading of the Christmas story from the bible and stories of what Christmas means to people today.

The ecumenical initiative, which was launched by the Baptist Union of Great Britain Mission Department in 2009, took place in over 100 locations in 2011, up from 44 in 2009 and 76 locations in 2010. Over 10,000 not yet Christians got in the picure during 2011.

“We are delighted that more and more churches are taking part in Get in the Picture. It is a great way of people engaging with the Christmas story in a fun way and being reminded that Christmas starts with Christ.”

Ian Bunce, Head of Mission for the Baptist Union of Great Britain

> rETIrEmENT AGEWhile ministers do not really ‘retire from ministry’, any more than we ‘retire from discipleship’, they do step back from stipendiary ministry, normally at the age when the state pension can be drawn together with whatever other pension provision has been made. In October the default retirement age of 65 became illegal for many other employees.

Ministers are not employees but ‘office holders’, but the changes in this legislation affect employees and ministers equally. The impact has been the same - ministers are now not required to retire at 65 if they do not want to but are able to continue in ministry should they and the church wish.

In 2011 the BUGB Ministry Department established a working group to look at all the aspects of retirement and the close of stipendiary ministry: pensions, housing, retirement pastorates, pastoral care and fellowship with other retired ministers.

mINISTry

> NATIONAlly ACCrEdITEd CHUrCH WOrkErS

The Baptist Union has long held a Register of Accredited Ministers, often referred to as the Accredited List or the Ministerial List (actually called The Register of Nationally Accredited Ministers in its most recent incarnation.) In 2010 proposals were presented to Baptist Union Council to develop a second Register for those whose service of Christ is not ordained ministry but other forms of church work, equally valued but distinct from the work of pastoral ministry, youth specialism or evangelism that we recognise through the Accredited List.

During 2011 the Ministry Department developed the detailed processes for selection, training, enrolment and support of a range of full-time, or substantially part-time, church workers that are increasingly being employed by our churches. Late 2011 the details of how to seek accreditation was published in Transform and on the BUGB website.

> NEW BUGB WEBSITE ANd ONlINE STOrEThe BUGB website was given a whole new look in March. New features included dedicated channels designed to help you find role specific resources and information quickly, online registration and payment for events and the ability for the visually impaired to increase the font size of the text of the web pages. In July a new Online Store with direct online payment via PayPal was launched. Since the introduction of the Online Store, orders have increased by £10,000. A second phase of the BUGB website development is planned for autumn 2012.

COmmUNICATIONS

> JUST ImAGINE

In September Just Imagine, a three year Home Mission promotional project was launched. Developed by representatives from each Association and the Communications Department, Just Imagine seeks to recapture a fresh passion and understanding of what Home Mission really means. The vision is that together as a Baptist family and with the help of Just Imagine we will rediscover a new Christ-like spirit of generosity and sacrificial giving to Home Mission. “This is much more than asking for more Home Mission funding - which we need badly - during a difficult economic time. It is about believing that as God’s people we are called to ‘walk together and watch over each other’. It is about caring enough to pray for each other and to seek to help equip and empower each other in mission and ministry.’ Amanda Allchorn, Head of Communications, Baptist Union of Great Britain

>THE BAPTIST TImES

The Baptist Times ceased publication of its print and digital editions at the end of 2011. A special edition in January 2012 celebrated its history and the contribution which the newspaper has made to the life of the Baptist denomination, and the wider Christian world, for over 150 years.

“Due to falling circulation and difficulties of selling advertising space, the company has increasingly had to depend on a subsidy from the Baptist Union of Great Britain, a situation which has existed for a number of years,” said Baptist Times director, Mr Johnston.

Jonathan Edwards, General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, in response to the news paid this tribute:

“The Baptist Times has occupied a huge place in the life of our Union and its passing will be a matter of sadness to thousands of people. It was not only valued by Baptists in this country but also by many of our ecumenical and international partners, who often tell me of how much they appreciate it.”

“I want to place on record our deep gratitude as a denomination to the editors and staff who have served us with huge ability and devotion, and to The Baptist Times Directors who have supported them.”

A new Baptist Times Online resource began development at the end of 2011. The vision is that this will reach a wider audience and especially a younger generation. It is planned that this exciting new website will go live as a daily updated digital news service in April 2012. ( www.baptisttimes.co.uk )

The BapTisT Times

The new websiTe is

now available !

Featuring daily news and

comment, and much more

Connecting the baptist family

visit www.baptisttimes.co.uk

74%

15.5%

3%

3%

4.5%

> PENSIONSMajor changes to the Baptist pension schemes that the BUGB administers were passed by Baptist Union Council in November following consultation with members and churches. These included: • Closing the Baptist Union Ministers Pension Fund and Baptist Union Staff Pension

Scheme from 31 December 2011. Benefit entitlements earned to that date continue to be honoured. Employers are committed by law to clear deficits of the schemes through ongoing deficiency contributions.

• Members of the previous schemes may join a new Defined Contribution Scheme from 1 January 2012. The scheme was extended to other staff of Baptist Churches where that church seeks to enrol them.

Baptist Union Council expressed its warm thanks to Mr Robert Ashurst and the Revd Ruth Bottoms and the other members of the Pension Review Group for the hard work and expertise they had contributed to steering a way through these extremely difficult matters.

> HOmE mISSION APPEAl

15.5% of the grant expenditure (£292,866) went to support 33 ‘special ministries’ – church planters, missioners, evangelists etc

3% of the grant expenditure went to support 20 chaplains in university and workplace chaplaincies

3% of the grant expenditure went to help 27 churches in the form of Mission Project Grants

74% of the grant expenditure (£1 398 796) went to support 250 ministers in churches

The remainder (4.5% – £91,516) was spent on ‘other grants’ which includes ecumenical officers, association staff and grants to support retired and out-of-pastorate ministers

Total expenditure: £1,889,322

fINANCE & AdmINISTrATION

ANNUAl rEPOrT fIGUrES 2011

Income

2011 2010

£ £

Home Mission Appeal 4,013,229 4,053,493

Legacies 385,314 831,511

Investment Income 314,404 430,153

Income from Charitable Activities 827,293 936,279

Other Income 367,340 416,469

Unrestricted Income 5,907,580 6,667,905

Restricted and Designated Income 1,984,525 2,084,998

Gains on Investments 0 910,998

Gains on Property 242,827 -

Total Income £8,134,932 £9,663,901

ANNUAl rEPOrT fIGUrES 2011

Income

2011 2010

£ £

Home Mission Appeal 4,013,229 4,053,493

Legacies 385,314 831,511

Investment Income 314,404 430,153

Income from Charitable Activities 827,293 936,279

Other Income 367,340 416,469

Unrestricted Income 5,907,580 6,667,905

Restricted and Designated Income 1,984,525 2,084,998

Gains on Investments 0 910,998

Gains on Property 242,827 -

Total Income £8,134,932 £9,663,901

Expenditure

2011 2010

£ £

Grants to Churches and other organisations 1,905,715 2,034,810

Associations 1,763,779 1,749,313

Other Charitable expenditure 2,448,971 2,494,297

Restricted and Designated Charitable expenditure 1,199,094 639,933

Losses on Investments 134,465 -

Direct Charitable expenditure 7,452,024 6,918,353

Cost of generating funds 164,077 180,976

Governance costs 480,928 306,999

Total expenditure £8,097,029 £7,406,328

Net surplus for the year on all funds £37,903 £2,257,573

For information only: Net deficit on Home Mission Fund alone (£685,503) £(6,872)

Baptist Union of Great Britain PO Box 44 129 Broadway Didcot Oxfordshire OX11 8RT England email: info@baptist.org.uk Tel: 01235 517700 www.baptist.org.uk