BAPTISTS RE-CONNECT
Not the same as being there in person for all those random conversations, but joining in the Assembly from home was still a good experience! All the main Saturday and Sunday sessions were broadcast via YouTube and are available to watch on catchup so you can get a flavour of the weekend by dipping in to parts of the programme (google ‘Baptist Assembly 2022’).
The assembly theme was ‘Conversation and Connection’ and reminded us how important it is to connect with other Baptists once again. Each of the main sessions started with a time of worship from a group made up of gifted musicians from different Baptist churches around the country, and then moved into a time of updates from around the UK and overseas. The Saturday afternoon session used a presentation technique called PechaKucha whereby various speakers had just a few moments to present their topic using a fast-moving slideshow. After the presentations, the delegates chose which speaker they wanted to join for further discussion. We were encouraged to take the questions raised back to our home churches to continue the conversations. A lot of them focussed on reaching out with the gospel. One of the speakers in this section was John Good who some may remember from his time as minister-in-training at our congregation at Greenvale. Assembly is also the time when the new BU President is inducted for their year of service. This year our outgoing President Geoff Colmer handed over to Hayley Young who introduced her presidential theme for the year ‘Building a Bigger Table’. She emphasised how crucial it is to welcome people into our church fellowships even if they are not ‘like us’.
The Assembly also included reports from BMS World Mission from the places across the world where they work, with special reports from Ukraine and the surrounding countries where European Baptist Federation churches are helping refugees in many ways. It finished with the message from guest speaker Alan Donaldson on ‘Something is dying; something is not yet born’ which inspired us to trust in God for the future.
Theresa Nichols