Five Core Values
We follow Jesus as individuals. As Baptists, we also emphasise the significance of the gathered Church. Our understanding of church is not as hierarchy or organisation, but essentially as community in Christ, a Gospel people called to be …
A Prophetic Community - confronting evil, injustice and hypocrisy. Challenging worldly concepts of power, wealth, status and security.
An Inclusive Community - transcending barriers of gender, language, race, class, age and culture. Identifying with those who are rejected, deprived and powerless.
A Sacrificial Community - accepting vulnerability and the necessity of sacrifice. Seeking to reflect the generous, life-giving nature of God.
A Missionary Community - demonstrating in word or action God's forgiving and healing love.
A Worshipping Community - engaging in worship and prayer which inspire and under gird all we are and do. Exploring and expressing what it means to live together as the people of God, obeying his Word and following Christ in the whole of daily life.
(From the BUGB publication '5 Core Values for a Gospel People')
The Basis of the Baptist Union is:
That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, is the sole and absolute authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and that each Church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to interpret and administer His laws.
That Christian Baptism is the immersion in water into the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, of those who have professed repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ who 'died for our sins according to the Scriptures; was buried, and rose again the third day'.
That it is the duty of every disciple to bear personal witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to take part in the evangelisation of the world.