The BUV Generations Network (BGN) is the banner under which we seek to gather all of our Generations Pastors and Leaders from our Baptist family. Our primary areas of focus are on providing training – opportunities for personal and skill development to equip our leaders for mission – and networking – the intentional linking of pastors and leaders with one another for support, accountability, shared resource and collaboration.

On Mar 20 more than 50 pastors and leaders from our Network were hosted at Albert Park Baptist Church for a day to facilitate both of these goals. The chatter of like-minded and similarly engaged people over coffee and lunch and around workshop table discussions was highly energised and beneficial for all.

Our day started with a worship service. So many of our Generations Pastors and Leaders are engaged in roles on Sundays and rarely get to just ‘be’ in a service. A team from Sale Baptist led us in worship.

Rev Katrina Lambert an inspiring word about the power of vulnerability – acknowledging the unique burden of ministry and identifying the challenge of holding both life and death, joy and sadness, celebration and disappointment in constant tension. (2 Corinthians 4:7-12) We also shared Communion together. What a gift!

Our training and workshops focussed on leadership development and team leadership. In the busyness of ‘doing’ ministry we can often overlook the mandate upon us to train up others for ministry (Eph 4). This is an intentional practice that requires a specific set of skills and we all took a step forward in that as we unpacked that for our own contexts.

In Term 2, the BGN will be focussing on gathering in Clusters. Generations Pastors and Leaders are invited to join groups that are formed around similarities (such as location, roles, church size etc) and encourage and resource one another in this unique ministry context.

Feedback from participants:

“I need to develop the leaders around me better and encourage them to flourish.”

“I didn’t know how much I needed the “Leading Teams” session – thank you!”

“I’m challenged to think about running team meetings with clearer purpose.”

“It was lovely to be in a church service without distractions!”

“I’m convicted to focus on the things that only I can do as opposed to releasing the jobs that any helper could do.”

“It was great to chat with other Youth & Young Adult Pastors. I’m encouraged to increase my connectivity to other churches.”