North West Baptist Association (NWBA) Forum

It was Morecambe’s turn to host the North West Baptist Association of Churches forum. I confess I’m not big on these events, they are usually scheduled on my only day off in the week, I understand why they are, but it does make it particularly difficult for me to attend. Still as the regional team brought the Forum to my home, they made sure I arranged to go.

The afternoon was split into different seminars, with the quickest business meeting ever thrown in for good measure. The evening was an old style celebration event with worship band (made up from young people in one of the Association churches), information, prayer, video clips and a sermon by Glen Marshall (of Northern College and Nah-Then).

My reflections on the afternoon:

• I enjoyed the afternoon sessions.
  I was quite surprised by this, but the opportunity to hang round and chat with different people is right up my street.
• The first seminar I went to was led by some the leaders of creative approaches to mission. They are funded by the Home Mission and it was an opportunity for people from the more established churches to find out what they are up to, and ask them questions. Very interesting and inspiring reflections on:
  • The Community Ministry at Ellesmere Port.
  • Levenshulme Baptist Church.
  • The Synergy Project in Manchester.

  All good stuff.

• The second seminar was a little difficult to hear, but it was an interactive information and feed back session with one of the Regional Ministers. It was informative and useful.

My reflections on the evening:

• It is possible that I am Glen’s biggest fan, but I must put aside my temptation to idolise him. He was thoughtful, reflective and funny. Reflections on Mission grounded in the scriptures can never be a bad thing! He made his points clearly, occasionally I lost his thread (did he explain what he meant by “Eucharistic”?) but then I was typing this at the same time!
• Glen used a set of 2 rotating images on the screen that were in keeping with his message. I have often thought about doing this, but have never really found the time to sort the images out. I like the idea, a few more images might have helped, but then, I get bored easily.
• I did notice that most of the congregation weren’t fully engaged with the sung praise at the start, perhaps this isn’t particularly surprising since all of the regional team appeared to be wandering around, and most of us were wondering what they were up to.
• I think the evening was billed as a joint youth and adult event. Several of our young people went. I’m not sure what they thought, perhaps they might take the opportunity to comment here, or tell me face to face. It seemed very adult focussed to me.

The day left me thinking through several questions, but since this was my first visit to the forum I am asking “Would I go again”. I’ll think some more before I answer that.

Did you go? What did you think?