Sunday 25 May | Dispatches from Baptist Assembly

Last weekend was Baptist Assembly, the annual conference which gathers folk from churches across our denomination. This morning our minister shared some of what she heard there...

Across the AGM and the Saturday evening session of the Baptist Assembly, our General Secretary Lynn Green shared something of what has been happening across our Baptist family over the past year. The headline was that there has been all sorts of growth in all sorts of churches. Each year we are asked to send an annual return, with numbers attending Sunday services and engaging with other activities throughout the week. It's not that numbers are the most important thing, it's just that they are the easiest thing to measure, and they do tell a story, even if they can never give the complete picture.

According to the annual returns, over half of churches in the union saw numbers increase last year, including among children and young people. I am delighted to say that we were in that percentage, but I am more interested in kingdom than empire, so I am even more delighted to say that this is a pattern seen not just across our denomination but across the wider church. People are starting to speak of a quiet revival, with younger generations in particular connecting more with faith communities. I recently saw an article asking if we could make the quiet revival louder, and I'm tempted to say that we should leave well alone because the Spirit is clearly doing something and we'll only get in the way, but I do want us to encourage us to be ready for whoever the Spirit blows through our doors. 

Lynn was at pains to note that we have seen all kinds of growth in all kinds of churches and we shouldn't listen to anyone who tries to tell us differently. That was a particular encouragement to me, because I have so often heard that churches like ours aren't growing. There is in some places a perception that churches with traditional worship or female ministers or progressive theology are in decline, or worse yet that we are responsible for the decline of the church. Well we have all three and we are flourishing in many beautiful ways, and the same is true of other churches like us, as well as other churches most unlike us. It takes congregations of all varieties to display the manifold wisdom of God, and there is a place for all of us, and it was good to hear that declared across our union.

Growth has not just been a case of bums on seats. Last year saw the highest number of baptisms in a decade, with an average of something like one point eight per church. It was with no small pleasure that I realised that put us above average, as we celebrated two baptisms here last year. Lynn shared her hope that we might see every church in the union celebrate a baptism this year, and challenged us to spring clean our baptistries in readiness. She shared the story of visiting one church and discovering that they were using theirs as file storage, and I know of another church who filled theirs for the first time in years to discover it had a rather significant leak! Even if we don't realise that hope of a baptism in every church this year, I think we should heed Lynn's call to be expectant and prepared. Jesus performed the blessing that multiplied the loaves and fish, but it was the disciples that made sure everyone was fed. God is moving out there beyond our walls, but we have our own part to play in seeing that movement reach its potential.

Luke 15:1-7

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

One of the highlights of Baptist Assembly over the past few years has been a multi voiced Bible study, in which four people have been given the same passage to offer a brief reflection on. It's been fascinating to hear different perspectives and insights, and this year the passage chosen was the parable of the lost sheep, which one of the speakers described as a precious window into the heart of God. I can't promise an entirely accurate sharing of what was said, because there was a lot to take in, but I do want to share some of the things that stuck with me, as well as some of my own thoughts prompted by them, and I hope recordings of the Bible study will be shared in time, so you can watch for yourselves if you want to.

Saba and Ttendo both gave deeply moving testimonies of their own experience of being lost sheep brought into the fold by the grace of God found in the love of others. Saba hit rock bottom as a divorced woman separated from her children in a culture in which those things were deeply stigmatised, but was saved by a simple act of kindness which saw her given a Bible and a new way of understanding her relationship with God, which she now shares with asylum seekers. Ttendo faced exile from her church and community when as a teenager she fell pregnant following an assault and refused to marry her abuser, but she was defended by her mother and embraced by a new church, so that she was able to train as a lawyer specialising in confronting gender injustice. Saba and Ttendo weren't lost sheep because they had sinned, they were made to feel like lost sheep because of what had been done to them, but from that experience they have both become good shepherds. I was particularly struck by Ttendo’s insistence that God is for both victims and offenders, that there is a home for all the sheep, however it is that they have found themselves lost.

Savannah spoke from her experience working with young people, drawing on the issues around misogyny and violence raised by the drama Adolescence, Gareth Southgate’s Richard Dimbleby Lecture in which he spoke on themes of identity and connection, and the sense of existential crisis that was at the heart of the Barbie movie to speak of lost boys and girls. She was hopeful though that we can change the narrative for these young people, and that we are already seeing that with the quiet revival that seems to be happening across the country.

Kwame focused on the end of the story, the party that the shepherd throws when he returns home with the sheep that had been lost. He said that the joy of salvation is contagious and compelling, and prayed for all those who have lost the joy they had when they first knew Christ. I think it is so important that we don't treat the party as a footnote to the story, because joy is such a vital part of faith. It is resistance and balm in a bruised and broken world, and we are called to seize it and to seek it, to not only rejoice over the sheep when they are found, but to draw the lost ones home with the sound of a celebration that never stops.

We had a bonus fifth reflection, as Aniu Kevichusa of BMS also touched on the parable of the lost sheep in his presentation. He set it in the wider context of Luke 15, where it is followed by the parables of the lost coin and the prodigal son. He said this chapter encapsulates the whole of the gospel, the heart of God, and the mission of the church. He also drew connections between the stories that I had never seen before, suggesting that in the final parable, both sons are lost - the younger son knows he is lost in the wilderness like the sheep, while the older son doesn't recognise he is lost in the house like the coin. There is more than one way to be lost, and those who are in the church but don't fully understand what it means to be a child of God need to be found just as much as those who are in the world and don't yet know that they are a child of God.

All of this talk about lost sheep reminded me of the best reflection I ever heard on the passage, which was given by three young people at the church I was a member of in Skipton. They opened the story up in a whole new way when they said that the flock wasn't complete without the lost sheep, because that sheep brought something none of the rest of them did. And that would have been true whichever one of the one hundred had been lost and found. I had always read and been taught that passage as being about the relationship between the shepherd and the lost sheep, but of course the flock matters too.

Sadly the flock doesn't always know it has sheep missing, and sometimes the flock is the reason the sheep are missing in the first place. The artist David Hayward has a series of cartoons that show Jesus carrying a sheep with black or rainbow wool back to a flock that is clearly not thrilled to see them return. There are a lot of sheep that are not lost so much as exiled or excluded, and the flock has much to repent, because it is everyone's loss when there are sheep missing from the fold. The kingdom of God will not be complete without everybody in, because we all bring something no one else can. I am glad this is a church that understands that, so let's keep making our pen a little bigger, because there are more sheep still to join us.

Matthew 13:31-32

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

Those of you who have been around for some time may recall that parable has been quite significant for us. Five years ago, three guest preachers brought us that passage, and I got the distinct impression that God was trying to make a point. The growth of the kingdom begins small and hidden, and then it becomes something stubborn and slightly unruly and not always welcomed, but ultimately it provides shelter to all who need it. That does sound rather a lot like us, and it is a picture I continue to hold onto, and am both challenged and encouraged by. I have even cross stitched it and made it in glass.

I've taken a slight liberty here, because we didn't actually hear the parable of the mustard seed at Assembly, but we did hear a reflection on seeds. We were given two questions to ponder, and I want to offer them to you to think about for a little while now. Who has planted seeds in your life? Who introduced you to faith or helped you discover your God given passions and gifts? What seeds will you plant? How can you introduce others to faith or help them discover their God given passions and gifts? Questions to take away with us and keep pondering.

The seeds which have been planted in us and which we will plant in others are seeds of the kingdom, those mustard seeds that grow to be wild and wonderful. There was a lot of kingdom language as part of Assembly, especially in the communion service. The children joined us for that, and Eddie was particularly taken by the way the word kingdom was paired with the word kin-dom. His ears pricked up at the wordplay, but he also loved the way it emphasised the kingdom as family, a place where we relate to God and to one another.

Whether we call it the kingdom or the kin-dom, it is the prayer and mission of the church to see it come on earth as in heaven, and so as part of Assembly we're presented with a mission resolution, which has been developed by the Mission Forum, and which we are invited to discern over the next couple of years, before it is presented again for a vote at Assembly 2027. We will be giving time to discussing it at our next church meeting, but for now you can find an introduction from the Mission Forum Core Team here, and the text of the resolution here. It's well worth a read, with lots to reflect on and respond to.