So, You Call Yourself a Baptist?

So you call yourself a Baptist, do you?

I am an ordained minister of the Baptist Union of Western Canada – there, now my identity has been revealed – and I secretly helped to plant The Church at Southpoint in order to make more Baptists converts!

No, not really.

To me, the Baptist Union of Western Canada is more like a family of churches than a denomination. We have certain family traits in common, but each church is very unique and we get along like good siblings – the odd scrap included.

These are some of the family traits that we share with about 90 million Baptist throughout the world and many other groups of Christians who have come to embrace these principles. We believe: that the Bible is our authority in all matters of faith and practice; that each local church is autonomous (self-governing); that all followers of Jesus act as priests having equal access to God through Jesus; that believers baptism and the Lord’s Table are the two prescribed faith events that Jesus committed to his church; that each individual stands accountable to God alone for the choices they make, including religious affiliation; and that there should be an intentional separation of church and state (but we do like our tax breaks, thank-you very much!).

Though the BUWC is made up specifically of churches throughout the Western Provinces and two of our Territories, we are also part of a larger family of Canadian Baptists that stretches from coast to coast to coast. We freely associate with each other so that we can accomplish together things that we could not do alone. This includes: theological education; missions; camping ministries; accountability and support systems for our pastors and staff; disaster response; relief and development work; and much more.

On February 28th, the Leadership of The Church at Southpoint will invite the church to affirm a decision to become an official member church of the BUWC. If the response is positive, and if the BUWC allow us to join with them, then we will send a group to Banff on April 27-29 to respresent Southpoint at the general assembly meetings of the BUWC where we can start to flex our new-found muscle!

To explore more about this family of churches, click on the BUWC link on the right.