Walking with the President - September 2023
Our current President Tim Presswood explains why he is inviting people to walk with him over the coming year
I am honoured and excited to have been inducted as President of Baptists Together. This is the first of a series of short blogs, or perhaps postcards, in which I will aim to reflect and share what I’ve been hearing and seeing in this role.
Postcards because I’m travelling around the country: as part of my year as President, I intend to visit all 13 Regional Associations and to go for a walk with anyone and everyone who wishes to join me. I have already had the privilege of walking with folk from the Southern Counties Baptist Association and the Central Baptist Association. It’s an opportunity to journey together, to learn from each other and gain a greater insight into Christ.
I follow Hayley Young, who encouraged us to build a bigger table. Having built the table, I want to ensure that everyone can share fully in Christ’s Great Banquet (Read more about my theme here and here). This is of course drawn from Luke 14, when Jesus speaks of filling the banquet with the misfits from the lanes of the town.
Reflecting on the parable of Christ’s Great Banquet, I am struck by the diversity of people whom the host’s servants are instructed to bring into the feast. The landowner, the cattle-owning farmer and the respectably married invitees are replaced by “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.” (Luke 14:13) They are supplemented by complete strangers dragged in from the roads and country lanes.
That is how I imagine Baptists Together. A Union of diverse believers, each of whom has a different experience of God. Each of whom has their own testimony to share. Each of whom expresses their faith as God has revealed it to them.
My testimony comes from 30 years of pioneering ministry in one of the most deprived inner city communities in the country. If your testimony comes from a rural, or suburban context, then it is likely that your experience of God’s goodness will be very different to mine. As President of Baptists Together, it feels a huge privilege to be able to learn from you. I trust you will say the same.
For as Baptists we do not have a creed or even a doctrinal basis, but we do have the Declaration of Principle (DoP). In 1986 when I first applied for Ministerial Recognition, I signed to affirm the DoP, and I still stand by that today:
The Basis of the Baptist Union is:
1. That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, is the sole and absolute authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and that each Church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to interpret and administer His laws.
2. That Christian Baptism is the immersion in water into the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of those who have professed repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ who 'died for our sins according to the Scriptures; was buried, and rose again the third day'.
3. That it is the duty of every disciple to bear personal witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to take part in the evangelisation of the world.
There is so much we fundamentally agree on, but our Union is not a narrow grouping of like-minded individuals. We do disagree with one another. I recognise that not everyone agrees with me about everything! Such disagreements are sometimes uncomfortable. Painful even. It is, though, in sharing our testimonies with one another that we gain a greater insight into the God whom we all seek to serve.
So I look forward to walking with you, talking and listening with you, praying with you – and sharing some of that here.
Tim walked in the Northern Baptist Association in early September.
There were two walks in Eastern Baptist Association on Monday, 2 October: 9:30am from Dedham, and 1:30pm from Thetford.
Tim is in contact with other Associations and further confirmed dates include:
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Webnet - 7 February
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SEBA - 5 March
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YBA - 26 March
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EMBA - 20 April