I well remember when 'Messy Church' first came on the scene, and thinking "I've been doing this all my life, only we didn't have a name for it".  Now there is a whole 'industry' of Messy Church, with 'off the shelf' ready to go schemes and ideas where you 'simply add faith' and off you go.  It's not that it's wrong, I've just always been bemused at why people needed to brand it, and what it is about branded resources that somehow makes them 'kosher'.

With Emerging Church (another brand) came such things as 'Surfer Church' (yes, they go surfing then do some Bible stuff afterwards) and more recently 'Forest Church' (who go for walks on the a Sunday morning, forage and then share a meal, often cooked on an open fire or portable barbecue).

I have no problem with them as ways of being church - though they do pose many fascinating questions about what is 'church' and what is 'worship' - but I am bemused by the need for branding.

And I wonder what is the essential difference between, say, a 'church walking club' and a 'forest church'.  I guess there has to be one, and I expect it has to do with overt acts of worship, but it's not neatly defined.

What, too, is the fundamental difference between 'Messy Church' and 'Intergenerational, Interactive worship' apart from some big words and probably which day of the week they take place?

One of the tasks I've set myself for this summer is to think quite intentionally at how we, as a local church, move forward enabling and equipping a younger generation to continue the work begun back in 1883.  I'm not sure any of the 'brands' has 'the' answer, nor that such answers as they have are right for this church - but it's certainly interesting to ponder and to pray and see where it all goes. 

It was a real privilege to be invited to join the 'panel' at this conference, and to sit alongside women of faith, grace, love and service.  In this photo we span over five decades in age, reflecting the incredible diversity of women who serve our Baptist churches in these islands. (All speakers had their photos and details on public websites, so it's OK to share their faces here).

Some statistics from BUGB...

Currently around 15% of all fully accredited ministers are women (up from 5% when I began training, so it's tripled in the last two decades) - which means around 300 of us

Currently, if you add in those who are Newly Accredited Ministers (NAMs) that rises to 20%... suggesting a huge rise in the number of women coming into ministry.  That suggests there could be around 100 women in the first three years of ordained ministry.

And if you add the number of Ministers in Training (MITs) that rises again to 30%... (I'm not sure if that is 30% of MITs or 30% of the total) so must mean hundreds more women coming through.

Numbers aren't the whole story, of course they aren't.  It's 'calling' not gender, age, theology or anything else that matters.  But how good that more and more women are now exercising their God-given gifts and calls in (at least some parts of) the Baptist world.