What does Home Mission mean to you?

WEBA churches gave £26,000 to Home Mission during August 2011. This is a really encouraging monthly total and brings us close to the giving levels we saw last year. In a time of financial hardship, when we know many churches face difficult choices, it's clear that enabling mission in this region through support for ministers and special projects is important to you.

For the autumn edition of WEBA news, we asked one minister, one church secretary, one treasurer, and one Regional Minister what Home Mission meant to them:

Carmel Murphy is a student Minister at Lydney Baptist Church in the Forest of Dean. Her stipend is funded by Home Mission. "Through more consistent, Home Mission enabled ministry at LBC we have been exploring what it might mean to be a more mission focused church.  We have always desired to share God's love with those around us and make disciples but are now trying to think more creatively about what that might look like in our community."

Andrea Parker is church secretary and PA to the minister at Amberley Road Baptist Church in North Bristol. This is a small but very active church which benefits from a Mission through Ministry grant and has also been awarded more than one Mission through Project grant.

“With Home Mission funding we have been able to make radical and pioneering moves towards networking with two other local churches which are small in number.  Not only are we, at Amberley Road Baptist Church a recently, rejuvenated, now medium growing church, but we will be able to invest time in helping two other smaller churches move forward and grow; part of that strategy will be planting a church that will be suitable for students and young adults.”

Andrew Small is treasurer of Downend Baptist Church in Bristol:

“I believe it is important to give 5% of our income plus collections from Home Mission boxes to support our fellow Baptists in places where there are financial restraints. This money is used to support churches and other projects so that the 

gospel can be made known, nationally and locally.”

Gordon Hindmarch is the WEBA Regional Minister with specific responsibility for monitoring and encouraging giving to Home Mission.

“As a Regional Minister, I know Home Mission makes a difference through grants for ministry and mission projects acoss WEBA. As a minister who benefited from Home Mission support in my first church, I am convinced Home Mission creates new openings for the gospel.”

Burnham's Transatlantic Baptism Service

Sophia Hurley with Steve Ayers

Steve baptises his daughter Becky

Burnham-on-Sea Baptist Church will be welcomed into the West of England Baptist Association at this Sunday's 3 in 1 Event in Weston-super-Mare. So it's especially good to share with you this baptismal service with a technological twist:

When Sophia Hurley was planning her baptism at Burnham-on-Sea Baptist Church she thought that one member of her family would not be able to see it.  Her Gran, Phyllis Hampshire, moved out to Canada fifteen years ago and she couldn’t travel back for the service. 

However the church was able to set up a link over the internet that meant that the whole family was able to enjoy the service together.  Phyllis, who had to get up at 5 a.m. to watch the service, was delighted to be able to watch the ceremony and talk to her family afterwards.  “It was amazing to see it and I really felt I was a part of it”, she said.  “It was very special and great to be involved.”

Church minister, Steve Ayers, was pleased that the all technology worked.  “We’d never done this before but it worked out really well.  I was really pleased that Phyllis could share in the ceremony with us from Toronto.  It was a particularly special day for me because I baptised my daughter, Becky, at the service too.”   

The Baptism Service was followed by a sit-down meal for 125 people.

Thanks to Steve Ayers for sending us this story, and to Drew Lawrence for the wonderful photos.