A radical idea for BUGB?

This week I’m at Baptist Union Council which has, so far, been a positive experience. As I listen to the various reports and discussions I find myself wondering whether we need to create a new role for someone to help the Union move things on. A kind of development officer who would help the Union to move forward with vision and direction, facilitating conversations and taking pro-active initiative to help process agreed pieces of work.  

The Union is not simply one large church with a church staff, leadership team and members meeting but is a complex web of relationships between churches, ministers, associations and others including colleges so the person will need both intuition and the interpersonal skills to work with Council, Trustee board, Executive Committees, Team Leaders, Senior Management Team and others.  

This person would not simply be someone who services committees but someone who is released to encourage, enthuse and enable the whole Union. Clearly this person would need to be familiar with the history of reports to Council and other pieces of work that have been done, and have a good grasp of the theological and detail issues that inform our common life. They would need to understand the key strategic questions that face the BUGB: the central resource, associations, churches and ministers.  

Currently we have a General Secretary, who spends large amounts of time being the face of the BUGB to churches and the wider society, and a General Manager who focuses on managing the Union’s resource centre in Didcot. But perhaps we would make more expeditious progress with someone who had the time to develop Baptist life, building consensus and helping us grapple with detail as well as the big picture who wasn't directly responsible to the Trustees but an extention of the work of council.

Comments

[Craig]

now that's a much better idead than total deptravity!

[Neil Brighton]

A form of unconditional election?