For the Baptist-minded out there, I'm doing some thinking about associations and associating for a college presentation I have to do next week (which may turn into a short paper for publication), so any thoughts or views you have I would be welcome to hear them.
Neil asked a question over a year ago (see here) that has continued to mull around my mind:
what is the relationship between the Union, the Associations and the Churches? In many discussions this is either the unnamed elephant in the room or gets mentioned with some bland statement about the need to be relating together.
Related to that question is another one (which I heard a regional minister ask) - who do regional ministers work for - association or union? The point being that both often seem to produce similar work. This comes back to Tasks and Roles, which has not had an easy ride - partly over the difficulty of answering Neil's question.
The third question, which is possibly provocative, is my own. I've often wondered what would happen if associations no longer existed and regional ministers were centrally employed by the Union (as they were when they were Superintendents)? I ask this because it seems to me that association in some places, but I know not all, often seems to be by-passed - so churches relate directly to Union and vice versa.
It seems to me that part of the answer lies in the distinction between relating and resourcing. If regional ministry is an outworking of our belief that churches and ministers need to relate together perhaps RM's are catalysts of catholicity? Is an important element of the work done at a Union level to do with our desire to resource ministers and churches?
Posted by: Neil Brighton | February 04, 2010 at 07:54 PM