I wish I were an Anglican....

Well not really.

You see I am a Baptist and proud of it. It's just that Anglicans, particularly here in Sydney, seem to have such a strong identity. They have a sense of who they are and who they most definitely are not. The only problem is that sometimes I'm not really sure of what a Baptist is. I know who Baptists were in the past, but has that changed? Is it still relevant?

This question is very important to me. It tells me if I have something to contribute, and even how I will contribute it. Otherwise I might as well go and attend some other Church and achieve the same vague things as where I am now.

Yet I can’t escape the conviction that Baptists are uniquely placed to say some things that are very important to say, to do some things that are radically different.

So how do I find out what a Baptist is in NSW and the ACT in 2008? There is no text book that will tell me, no theological treatise that will define it. Finding that I am not alone in this search, our denomination has set up a vision taskforce that will spend the next year or so thoroughly researching the members of our Churches and attempting the impossible: to find out who we are. Be warned, we are coming for your opinions and experiences.

What we want is to discover the things that we can be proud of; the things we do best; the things we can contribute to and do better than anyone else. Perhaps it will be that God is shaping our Churches to take the best of our traditions and to mix them with some wonderful biblical insights. We want to study who we have become in areas like practice, leadership, governance, ministry and co-operation.

Perhaps with a fresh insight into our biblical core values, we can renew our efforts and even lead and influence other denominations.

Now wouldn’t that be something!

Phil Waugh
Carlingford Baptist Church