Wednesday 14th Aug, 7.45pm to 8.30pm.

Each season we meet online to pray from wherever you are across our movement.

We’d love you to register for our Online Winter Prayer Night.

Our Winter Spotlight is “Leadership”. We’ll spend time praying that God would raise a new generation of leaders, pray for current leaders in all roles across our family of churches and pray beyond too.

Please join us by registering here.

Register Here

At the Gathering Incorporating the Annual Assembly held in June we heard from different Association teams about developments happening in their spaces as we head towards our shared Gen1K Goal.

One of the things shared was about the first National Baptism Week in 2023.  Watch the video below to see how churches and people have embraced National Baptism Week and how we are seeing an increase in baptisms across our movement.

Mark your calendars for National Baptism Week 2024 being held from 13 -20 October! This year the theme is “Count Me In!” and Crossover Australia has created a Baptism Hub where they will be releasing resources to help your church make the most of National Baptism Week this year.

Keep your eyes peeled as we head towards National Baptism Week in October for opportunities to celebrate, talk about and offer baptism in your communities!

Baptism Hub

The Church Health Team is pleased to commend Alan Kelshaw’s book, “Navigating Community Conflict” as well as the training day for church leadership teams that he has developed. Alan has been a member and leader of Baptist churches in NSW & ACT for many years. He worked as a solicitor, originally, but then completed a theological degree and has undertaken both interim and consultancy ministries.

“Navigating Community Conflict” addresses something that was missing in the areas of both preventing and responding to conflict in churches. It seeks to equip church leaders to respond in a godly and deliberate way by providing principles, strategies and resources that can make all the difference. Since writing the book Alan has developed the material into a workshop for church leaders and recently rolled this out at both Mosaic and Hughes Baptist Churches.

Just a reminder that on the 1st November 2023, an update was released to the Safe Church Package of model policy and procedure documents. You can access this document here, along with an explanation video as part of Church Leaders Playbook series here.

Our recommendation is that your church adopt these updated policies and procedures as part of the annual review carried out by your church. Please see the video above for or please don’t hesitate to contact the Ministry Standards Team for further information.

What a year of exciting ministry we have seen at BYM so far and it’s only the end of July!! As we celebrate new youth ministries being birthed, new leaders stepping into both paid and voluntary roles and more and more youth and young adults following Jesus, our team is looking forward to all God will have for us in the future. 

We recognise the need to grow deeper in our relationships with you all, and to help provide access to training and equipping and pastoral support. 

As a part of our strategic plan towards our Gen1K vision, we are appointing a new BYM Ministry Engagement Coordinator. Please join me in welcoming Fiona Gardner to our team! 

Many of you would know Fiona from her previous role in our team as our Youth Mental Health Facilitator, where Fiona has been focused on equipping leaders with mental health training and resources. Whilst Fiona will still be available to provide support in this area, she has a real passion for connecting with churches, encouraging partnership between churches, and journeying with leaders as they explore growing the health of their youth and young adult ministries. 

Fiona will be working 2.5 days per week in this role and will also continue to serve 2.5 days per week as the Accreditation and Recognition Administrator in the Pastoral Affirmations Team. 

You can reach Fiona via email: fgardner@nswactbaptists.org.au

There’s just over 6 weeks to SYC24 – the 10th Year of CAMP!!! 

What a journey these last 10 years have been for everyone who has been involved whether that’s coming with your youth group, volunteering, speaking or being a part of the core team. 

There is a lot in store to celebrate at SYC24 with many surprises to come but if you’ve been keeping an eye on our social media videos, you might have already gotten a little hint as to what our special Sunday afternoon activity is going to be. 

Is your youth group joining us this year? 

State Youth Camp is a fantastic event where 100’s of youth from across NSW & ACT gather together to respond to God in a fun and exciting four-day experience starting on Friday the 27th to Monday the 30th of September 2024. This year, our theme is Hold Tight, where we have Luke Fricker from Belmont Baptist Church and Allyson Beddoe from Kiama Baptist church sharing from God’s Word.  We’d love to have your youth group join us too. To register your group click the link below.

Register for State Youth Camp

Do you need help getting your youth group to SYC24? 

We would love to see as many churches and young people come to SYC as possible, however we know that sometimes there are challenges to overcome. We would love to hear from you and help you get your group across the line. For example… 

Unsure if you have enough leaders? 

At a minimum, each youth group that comes is required to have one male and one female leader come on camp. However, the number of leaders required does depend on how large your youth group is. Did you know though, these leaders don’t have to be Youth Leaders or even Young Adults? We have a number of groups who bring parents or other trusted adults from their churches to help with the supervision and discipleship of their young people. Provided that the adults you register as leaders for camp have done Creating Safe Spaces training and complete the Safe Church Screening Process and understand their role on camp, we would love to have them along. 

Still unsure if you have enough leaders? 

We’d love to hear from you! We have had great success partnering youth groups to share leadership resources and would like to work with you to help your young people come along. 

Not sure if SYC24 works for your Youth Group financially? 

SYC tries really hard to keep the costs as low as we can to help as many young people come to camp as can make it. However, we understand that the cost of camp can still be difficult for some young people and their families. We have both Financial Aid and Travel Subsidies available to help as many youth come as possible.

Visit https://stateyouthcamp.org.au/financial-aid/ to find out more or reach out to us for more info. 

Do you know anyone who could volunteer at SYC24? 

If you, members of your team or church would like to volunteer for camp, whether that’s to help set-up, pack-down or on camp itself, we’d love to hear from you too.

Register to volunteer at State Youth Camp

The 2024 theme is Seek First and is drawn from Matthew 6:33 – we will be looking at what healthy multiplication looks like given we live and minister in a world where even good things can distract us. What does it look like to lead and multiply from a place of health at an individual, family and church level?

Keynote Speakers 

Our Keynote Speakers for FORM 2024 all the way from Clovercrest Baptist Church in South Australia are Mike and Michelle Stevens.

Mike serves as the Senior Pastor and is passionate about seeing people come to know Jesus, coaching leaders, and developing effective discipleship pathways in the local church. Mike is the author of ‘The Glue’, a book designed to develop emerging leaders and serves as the current Chair of Arrow Leadership Australia.

Michelle is the Executive Pastor, overseeing the Church Life, Creative, and Next Gen teams. She is passionate about seeing people come to know Jesus and mobilising the Church to live on mission. Before being called into ministry, Michelle worked as a Physiotherapist for over 10 years. They are both ordained ministers with the Baptist Churches of SA.

Register now to secure your spot at FORM 2024!

Register for FORM 2024

When?  Sat 24th August    WA 6.00pm / SA/NT 7.30pm / East 8.00pm

Where? Around your table. The quiz will happen over Zoom, so you’ll need a laptop (or other Zoom-able device) positioned so your team can see and hear and be seen.

Teams Details? Each team will represent a Baptist church (member church of one of our State Associations). A church can have more than one team entered (and score the average of their teams’ scores). Teams can be as small as two, or as large as you like. Questions won’t be too churchy, non-church friends welcome.

State Rivalry? Oh absolutely yes. There’ll be a leaderboard of churches and a leaderboard of State Associations. State scores will be the average scores of the churches plus a small participation bonus based on the proportion of your association’s churches that join in. So invite other churches and represent!

Cost? This will be a fundraiser for Crossover, with low pressure. No need to pay anything up front, but on the night there’ll be a suggested donation of $10/person and a way to do this online.

Find out more and register here

Register Here

This open day is run by the organising team which promotes pastoral retreat groups across our movement. If pastors are not yet part of a retreat group and would like to find out more, this would be a great event to attend.

Date: Wednesday September 11^th, 9.00am to 3.30pm

Venue: Schoenstatt Spirituality Centre – 230 Fairlight Rod, Mulgoa

Cost: $60pp which includes morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and guest speaker.   

Speaker: Tim Dyer on “Balancing Pastoral Leadership and Church Governance in the local congregation”.

Registration necessary: by 30th August to Colin Cowling – 0410482987 or email cowling@yahoo.com

Date: Sunday 18^th August

Our National Director of Australian Baptist Ministries, Mark Wilson, is also the President of the Asia Pacific Baptist Federation, of which the Baptist Association of NSW and ACT is a part through ABM.

On APBF Sunday, churches are encouraged to pray for and support this part of our larger Baptist family, which impacts millions of lives. To find out more, check out the APBF video here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b0SITtWhbuTOf_FmLvD3M8b6XWRy4nBw/view

You can also check out more about the work of the APBF and APBF Sunday here https://apbf.org

The grand piano from Turramurra Baptist Church in the Northern Sydney area is looking for a new home.

Ebony, model GH1, see photos below.

Price for this piano for another church is $3000 if it will be used for ministry. Buyer responsible for transporting.

Please contact Fanny Wong at fwong@nswactbaptists.org.au to inquire and register interest, including a return phone number.

‘Our Story’ is where we share stories of our wider Baptist movement; stories from our journey towards our goal of becoming a movement of 1,000 healthy churches in a generation, stories of how Baptist Churches in NSW & ACT are navigating key issues, and stories from our affiliated groups.

Sharing stories is vital so that we can learn from each other, be encouraged to persevere in our ministries, and witness how God is working amongst his Church. We hope that OurStory will be an inspiration for you and your church.

Ken is an Association recognised church planter who began serving in the Bega Valley in January 2023. Find out more about Ken’s story and how he has been using the Simple Church model to serve the community and make connections in Bega Valley using the link below!

A New work in the Bega Valley

If you have a story about how your ministry, church, or region is stepping into the Gen1K vision send an email to hello@nswactbaptists.org.au with more details.