NEXT CONFERENCE: 2007 TBC

In October 1990 Grace Baptist Church, Stratford and Crawley Reformed Baptist Church met, together with their officers and potential leaders for a day of conference to consider, 'The centrality of the church in God's purpose' Other interested churches were invited to join us that day and at a second conference organised that year. Before we proceed with further conferences we felt it would be advisable to explain ourselves and the purpose of our gathering together in this manner.

During the last forty years or so there have been any gains for the Reformed and Evangelical faith. The two sponsoring churches gladly acknowledge that their own adherence to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith is part of that wider return to the Biblical teachings and standards of previous generations of Christians. That confession is unashamedly 'Calvinistic' and 'Baptistic', yet at the same time its catholicity is demonstrated by its clear dependence and identification with historic Biblical Christianity as expressed in those other famous documents of the Puritan era - the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Savoy Declaration. These documents are the attempts of seventeenth century Christians to express what they regarded as central in the whole counsel of God revealed in Holy Scripture.

It is our concern, however, that the gains of the last forty years will not be lost to this and succeeding generations of Christians. There is a widely-held opinion abroad today in Reformed and Evangelical churches that certain areas of Biblical revelation are to he seen as 'secondary' or 'non-essential'. We are urged to adopt briefer statements of faith about which all evangelicals can agree in the interests of Christian unity. Such an approach, we are persuaded is short-sighted and has many hidden dangers. Ultimately we must ask, what is the church? Is she not divinely instituted? Has she not been entrusted with the Scriptures and all that the Scriptures teach? What business then do we have in tampering with what God has entrusted to us? It is not our purpose here to discuss the place of creeds and confessions, their strengths and weaknesses. However, we would aver that to confess less truth than our forefathers is not only a step bordering on unfaithfulness, but is also a retrograde step by the church today, discrediting the work of the Holy Spirit in the past

The principal aim of our conferences is to uphold the Reformed and Evangelical faith, to maintain the sovereignty of God in salvation and therefore Scriptural views of God, predestination, sin and atonement. In order to uphold this faith we believe it is imperative to address issues that relate to the nature, calling and function of the church of Jesus Christ. In our view matters relating to church order and church government are not peripheral. Therefore, it is our intention, God helping us, to consider such issues as the membership of the church, her calling to worship God and to proclaim the whole of his counsel, her government, including her officers and oversight, and her defence of the truth and evangelistic mission.