LBA Statement of Purpose

To achieve this the LBA will:

• Enable Mission:
  by resourcing churches as they engage in local and global mission.
• Encourage the Creation of Networks:
  by promoting the sharing of resources and best practice.
• Unite London Baptists:
  by encouraging a common life that embodies the way of Christlike love.
• Provide Pastoral Care:
  by seeking to develop and support churches, congregational leaders, and ministers.

Commentary
A gospel community will be a community which:

• Seeks to embody the Five Core Values for a gospel people as set out by the Baptist Union.
• Listens to the whole body in discerning the mind of Christ.
• Promotes best practice in all areas of church life.
• Enters into partnership and fellowship with other Christian communities (Baptists and others).

LBA Statement of Priorities

The LBA Board has identified the following as priorities for the next two years:

• Racial Justice - developing a mission based approach to racial justice which includes a gracious understanding of other faiths - ongoing
• Training - continuing to develop a varied and relevant programme of training events for ministers, officers, deacons and church members - May 2005
• Home Mission - increasing London’s giving to Home Mission to achieve the target of £500,000 - Dec 2004
• Smaller churches - continuing to develop links with smaller churches and increasing their involvement in the Small Church Connection - May 2005
• Children’s work - developing an action programme to support children’s work in our churches through the ‘Working with Children’ task group - Dec 2004
• Youth Work - continuing to support the development of youth work across London with the LBA youth Co-ordinator - ongoing - and exploring the viability of fulltime youth work in the LBA - Dec 2004
• Mediation - continuing to establish and develop the work of a team of mediators to work in and with churches - Dec 2004
• Civic Affairs - reviewing Baptist involvement and establishing an action programme to increase our effective participation in the civic and political life of the city - May 2005
• Ownership - exploring new ways of encouraging participation in association life among the churches including a review of our current means of communication with churches and their members - May 2005
• Co-operation - ensuring the LBA is appropriately represented on ecumenical forums in London and establishing guidelines for relating with other Christian organisations in London who wish to work in partnership with the LBA - Dec 2004
• Annual Appeal Fund - developing the churches’ appreciation of the mission opportunities afforded by the newly launched Annual Appeal Fund - May 2005

You can still download the leaflet for 2003: Leaflet 2003 (47Kb); and the update on what happened during the year: Update on 2003 (8 Kb).

Click for information about pdf documents.

Baptist Union Five Core Values

In 1998, the Baptist Union of Great Britain issued a statement setting out the Five Core Values which it believed should characterise Baptists as they seek to be a Gospel people. These Five Core Values are:

• Confronting evil, injustice, and hypocrisy.
• Challenging worldly concepts of power, wealth, status, and security.

• Transcending barriers of gender, language, race, class, age and culture.
• Identifying with those who are rejected, deprived, and powerless.

• Accepting vulnerability and the necessity of sacrifice.
• Seeking to reflect the generous life-giving nature of God.

• Demonstrating in word and action God's forgiving and healing love.
• Calling and enabling people to experience the love of God for themselves.

• Engaging in worship and prayer which inspire and undergird all we do and are.
• Exploring and expressing what it means to live together as the people of God, obeying his Word and following Christ in the whole of daily life.

This page is maintained by Colin Hicks; Comments by e-mail are welcome