Reflections on the “Baptist Ministers Refresher Conference”.

I have just spent three days at the Ministers Refresher Conference.  The group of Ministers I work with (the Baptists) have set aside some cash to send us all on a refresher course once every five years.  When I received my invitation there were two things that struck me as slightly amusing:

• I only fully qualified this year!
• I have been a Minister long enough to need refreshing!

It has been good for me to renew some old friendships and make some new ones.  There are about 200 people here (There are about 2000 Baptist Ministers in the country) and it has been good to look around and recognize the variety of different situations and circumstances that my colleagues serve in.  Other observations are:

• Baptist Ministry is very male.
• Baptist Ministry is heading towards retirement.
• I am one of the youngest here, I think that less than 15% of the participants must be under 40.
• Baptist's are involved in some very creative approaches to mission and evangelism.
• My car is the oldest in the car park!

They gave us permission not to attend every session, so I skived a couple in order to work with one of my colleagues on the subject of resurrection.  The Incarnate Network web site was hacked, and we needed to resurrect it.  We have managed to get the content back up (it still needs a bit of formatting), although we haven't managed to get the user log in working yet. Some of the highlights for me have been:

• Stimulating sessions on Esther (stimulating because I had much to disagree with).
• The many conversations about Ministry, Mission, Church Planting and Evangelism.
• A conversation with Paul Goodliff (the leader of the Ministry Department) about the nature of ordination and the demeaning nature of having your "Hand Shake" at the Baptist Assembly.
• Meeting up with and re-establishing friendships with people I don't get to see very often.
• Being able to put my life and work into the context of the Union of churches that I am a part of.

The only thing I don't like about being away at times like this is being away from Louise and the Children.  Being away makes me realise how much I like being around them and missing them when I am not arround.  I go home this afternoon, and I'm looking forward to celebrating Isaac's ninth birthday.

Libby’s first day at school

Planting Papers.

In the last couple of months I have read and summarised (where necessary) the editions of the journal "Planting Papers".  Planting Papers was the official Baptist Church Planting journal and ran from 1991 to 1993.

• The group that organised it were originally known as BACUP and became known as the 1.3.6 group in 1992 when another organistaion using the acronym BACUP objected.
• As far as I can make out, in the early 1990's there was an expectation that Church Planting would become part of the Baptist Unions Official Stratgy.
• BACUP was oficially closed when the Baptist Union Mission Department formed the "Church Planting Strategy Task Group" (Cartwright, 1993, Editorial Issue 9, p1).
• The task group has somewhere vanished into the depths of history.  Hopefully I will be able to find where it went as my research continues.

I have digitised the editions of "Planting Papers" (it is a posh way of saying photographed them).  There are a couple of gaps, but I have posed the images here: http://newconnexion.info/planting-papers/.  Hopefully we will be able to integrate them into a more coherant historical archive at the http://incarnate-newtork.eu/ web site, but for the moment we can't decide how best to do that. Complete list of all the articles in Planting Papers: Arn, A. (1992). Seven reasons to start new churches. Planting Papers, 5, 9–10.  [Bigliographic Details]
Barlow, G., Hill, S., & Cartwright, C. (1992). 2001 by 2001: The mathmatics. Planting Papers, 5, 1–4.  [Bigliographic Details]
Barlow, G. (1993). Talks to "the president": Interview with b.u. president, eric westwood. Planting Papers, 7, 8–11.  [Bigliographic Details]
Barlow, G. (1993). Consultants in church planting. Planting Papers, 7, 11.  [Bigliographic Details]
Berry, J. (1992). Church planting in rural areas. Planting Papers, 4, 6.  [Bigliographic Details]
Cartwright, C. (1993). Facing a task unfinished. Planting Papers(8), 9–12.  [Bigliographic Details]
Cartwright, C. (1993). Flogging an imaginary hoby horse: Editors reply to phil jump. Planting Papers(8), 16–17.  [Bigliographic Details]
Cartwright, C. (1993). Ediorial (issue 9). Planting Papers(9), 1–2.  [Bigliographic Details]
Christine, S. (1991). Editorial: The planting decade? Planting Papers, 1, 1–2.  [Bigliographic Details]
Claydon, J. (1992). Church planting in the east midlands. Planting Papers, 6, 5–9.  [Bigliographic Details]
Claydon, J. (1993). A challenge to the associations. Planting Papers(9), 6–8.  [Bigliographic Details]
Coffe, D. (1991). From the bac room. Planting Papers, 1, 8.  [Bigliographic Details]
Dennision, J. (1991). Willow creek - a new philosophy for ministry. Planting Papers, 3, 7–9.  [Bigliographic Details]
Doubleday, C. (1992). Church planting in eastern europe. Planting Papers, 5, 12–14.  [Bigliographic Details]
Drummond, I. (1992). Seed, vegetable or landscape. Planting Papers, 4, 7–8.  [Bigliographic Details]
Fanstone, M. (1993). Why people leave churches. Planting Papers(8), 7–8.  [Bigliographic Details]
Finnell, D. (1991). Power planting. Planting Papers, 2, 2–3.  [Bigliographic Details]
Forster, C. (1993). Dawn update. Planting Papers, 7, 12–14.  [Bigliographic Details]
Forster, R. (1991). The primacy of pioneering over pastoring. Planting Papers, 1, 2–3.  [Bigliographic Details]
Frost, R. (1991). From the sharp end: A community approach to church planting. Planting Papers, 1, 6–7.  [Bigliographic Details]
Hearn, M. (1991). Planting people, the human factor. Planting Papers, 3, 1-–3.  [Bigliographic Details]
Hill, S., & Barlow, G. (1991). From the bac room: A 10 point manifesto for the centrality of church planting in the denominational mission policy. Planting Papers, 2, 9–10.  [Bigliographic Details]
Hill, S., & Barlow, G. (1991). From the sharp end: The church for the unchurched. Planting Papers, 2–3.  [Bigliographic Details]
Hooton, M. (1992). B.i.c.e.c. conference review. Planting Papers, 5, 8–9.  [Bigliographic Details]
Hopkins, B. (1992). The significance of the sent-unit size. Planting Papers, 4.  [Bigliographic Details]
Jackson, P. (1991). Bacup conference review. Planting Papers, 3, 10–11.  [Bigliographic Details]
James, J. (1993). From the sharp end: Plans, pains and progress. Planting Papers, 7, 5–7.  [Bigliographic Details]
Jenkins, G. (1992). Report ona sabbatical church planting course at spurgeons college - spring 1991. Planting Papers, 4, 7–8.  [Bigliographic Details]
Jump, P. (1993). Mainstream or back-water? Planting Papers, 7, 15–16.  [Bigliographic Details]
Maile, J., & Woolgar, G. (1992). From the sharp end: Planting shrublands. Planting Papers, 5, 6–8.  [Bigliographic Details]
Misselbrook, L. (1991). To build or not to build: A checklist for church planters. Planting Papers, 3, 4–5.  [Bigliographic Details]
Murray, S. (1992). Inner cities: A church planting priority. Planting Papers, 4, 4–5.  [Bigliographic Details]
Murray, S. (1993). More churches or new churches? Planting Papers, 7, 1–4.  [Bigliographic Details]
Nicholls, M. (1991). Spurgeon and church planting. Planting Papers, 2, 4–6.  [Bigliographic Details]
Parkes, R. (1991). From the sharp end: Using community networks. Planting Papers, 3, 3–4.  [Bigliographic Details]
Pawley, P. (1992). A shinig example: Growing and multiplying churches in st. helens. Planting Papers, 6, 1–4.  [Bigliographic Details]
Radcliffe, B. (1993). The human cost of new churches. Planting Papers(9), 3–5.  [Bigliographic Details]
Reynolds, G. (1993). From the sharp end: Small is beautiful - a case study. Planting Papers(8), 5–6.  [Bigliographic Details]
Roberts, J. (1993). From the sharp end: Stubbingdon - a case study from john roberts research. Planting Papers(9), 9-11.  [Bigliographic Details]
Roberts, J. (1993). Looking back. Planting Papers(9), 12–15.  [Bigliographic Details]
Shepherd, P. (1992). Our ignorance, god's wisdom: Lessons learned from coulby newham, middlesborough. Planting Papers, 6, 14–18.  [Bigliographic Details]
Spriggs, D. (1993). Planting authentic churches. Planting Papers(8), 1–4.  [Bigliographic Details]
Sutton, R. (1991). Failure factors: Reflections on a church planting survey. Planting Papers, 2, 6–7.  [Bigliographic Details]
Tidball, D. (1991). Letter to the editor from derek tidball (b.u. secretary for mission and evangelism). Planting Papers, 3, 9–10.  [Bigliographic Details]
Tidball, D. (1992). From the bac room: Views from the mission office for 1992. Planting Papers, 4, 11–12.  [Bigliographic Details]
Warner, R. (1991). The folly of photocopying. Planting Papers, 1, 3–6.  [Bigliographic Details]
Wright, N. (1992). Evangelism and religious liberty. Planting Papers, 5, 4–6.  [Bigliographic Details]