Our Annual Assembly and Accreditation Service on Saturday!

On Saturday 31 October 2020, over 260 people across 122 churches came together for our Annual Assembly. Our main venue was the new Ministry and Learning Centre in Macquarie Park and 6 additional venues were in Peakhurst, Mayfield, Wagga Wagga, Dubbo, Tamworth and Grafton.

Despite how different our 2020 Annual Assembly was this year, it was an encouraging morning as we spent time reflecting on all that God has done and will continue to do as we seek the His leading in the overall direction of our Baptist Association. A number of significant matters were tabled, reported or voted on, and updates were given across a wide range of areas.

The Association’s 2020 – 2022 Strategic Priorities were presented and were unanimously affirmed by Assembly as we look to the next season, continuing to pursue the GEN1K vision in a post COVID-19 world.

The Taskforce Report on Affiliation, Baptist Values and Same Sex Marriage was received following a series of forums that were held across NSW and the ACT in late 2019 and early 2020. This process followed the tabling of motions by 5 affiliated churches at our September 2019 Assembly. We greatly appreciate the time and effort members of the Taskforce have willingly given over the last year:

Rev Tim Burns (Mortdale-Oatley Baptist Church) – Chair
Rev Matt Glowacki (Dickson Baptist Church)
Rev Christine McGowan (West Ryde Baptist Church)
Mrs Cathy Monro (Carlton-Kogarah Baptist Church/Assembly Council) – Assembly Council Liaison
Dr Edwina Murphy (Morling College/Blakehurst Baptist Church) – Vice-Chair
Rev Dr Brian Powell (Eastwood Community Baptist Church)
Rev Christine Redwood (Seaforth Baptist Church)
Rev Dr Andrew Sloane (Morling College/Harbourside Church)

We thank each of these people for their willingness to serve and significant contribution they have made to our movement in this way.

A Special Assembly will be held on Saturday 27 February 2021 where the motions tabled by the 5 affiliated churches at our September 2019 Assembly will be discussed. Further information will be circulated soon.

Throughout the morning, we received other updates and discussed the following matters:

We received an update from Ross Clifford, Principal of Morling College including details of the exciting development of the merge of Vose Seminary, the Baptist College in Western Australia, with Morling.
We heard from our Women2Women Director, Linnah Hahn about the wrap up of this ministry which will occur over the next few months. We give thanks for the ministry of W2W over a significant period of time.
We were introduced to Charles Moore, new CEO of BaptistCare as he shared his vision to serve God in this role. We also showed a video that highlighted some of the great outcomes of partnering with BaptistCare during the bushfire crisis earlier this year.
Rev Jenny Casey and Rev Jonathan Bradford, on behalf of the Committee for the Ministry, presented updates to our Accreditation Guidelines, Code of Ethics and Conduct and Policies and Procedures for Handling Allegations against Recognised and Accredited Ministers which were affirmed.
We also agreed to the accreditation of 9 ministers who then proceeded to Accreditation at our service in the afternoon.
We welcomed Graceway Church and Sanctuary Church as newly affiliated churches of the Baptist Association of NSW & ACT.
Chair of our Finance, Audit and Risk Committee, David Slinn spoke to and presented the 2020 Budget which was agreed.
Assembly unanimously voted on and welcomed the following nominees onto our Association Committees:

Assembly Council:

Jonny Lam (Eastwood Community Baptist Church)
Andrew Hall (Epping Baptist Church)

Morling College Council:

Helen Blanch (Riverstone Baptist Church)
Ric Sindel (Rouse Hill Baptist Church)
Hashini Panditharatne (Baptist Community Church Burwood)

Baptist Churches of NSW Property Trust:

Mike Williams (Northside Baptist Church)
Ross Low (Epping Baptist Church)

After lunch, we also celebrated as Andrew Allinson, John Bomford, Andrew Hulme, Enoch Nagabyrava, Dennis Park, Lyndon Rumsey, Andrew Sumpton, Daniel Waugh and Robert Li were accredited. It was encouraging to see each of their commitment to follow God’s call in their life and how they are serving across a number of churches in our movement!

For further information and videos from the day, please click here.

Blessings,

The Association Team

Baptist Association of NSW & ACT