Yesterday, after 14 years of being a Baptist pastor I attended my first ever ‘assembly’ meeting. Assemblies are where the churches all across the state come together to discuss issues and vote on stuff.

I was hoping to keep my dismal record intact, and possibly never attend a single meeting, but yesterday did actually kindle some interest in me, so I drove across town for the day and met with other ‘Baptists’.

We were discussing the recommendations made by Paul Borden for WA Baptists to actually start becoming effective in what they do. He was fairly scathing of our current situation and in essence told us to make massive change or die.

We had a kiwi Baptist (Lindsay… someone or other) come and tell us about their experience with a similar approach.

At the end of the day its hard to say what I felt – hope? A bit… Excitement? Not really… Disappointed? No… I guess I look at the road ahead and think to myself that whoever wants to walk it has to be committed to working with systemic and organisational change. I find that fairly uninspiring stuff to do. I’d rather just get on with stuff.

Ironically the report was presented in light of the trend towards ‘post-denominationalism’… Maybe we ought to just close the denomination down, divide up the $$$ and let people get on with being church and see what happens.

I think I’ll suggest that at the next assembly…

If I ever go…