London – U. S. Baptist sociologist Prof. Tony Campolo (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) issued the call to more passionate discipleship to British Baptists.  “We need to live out the lifestyle of Jesus,” he told the 3,000 attendees of the British Baptist Assembly at their annual meeting, May 4-6 in London.  It is not enough to raise your hands and sing about Jesus at Christian gatherings.  Christ is far more concerned that his disciples do his will.  And that is clearly described in the Bible:  “We are called to meet the needs of the poor, and stand up for justice.”  If that is not done, the Baptist movement will die, said Campolo.  On the other hand, Baptists need not worry about the fact that Great Britain is becoming more and more worldly:  “Jesus will use you—in spite of your inadequacies.”  Campolo advised conference participants to begin each day with 15 to 20 minutes of quiet reflection, to open themselves to the Holy Spirit:  “If the Baptist movement is going to have a future, you need distinctive people who are Spirit-filled.”

Agu Irukwu, pastor of one of the fastest growing congregations in Europe, the Jesus House for all Nations (London), reminded the Baptists that God has not “forgotten this nation”.  The state of Christians in Britain is not as bad as the headlines suggest:  “Behind the scenes, God is building his church.”  Irukwu, a lawyer, stated that he was sure that he would experience yet another spiritual awakening in Great Britain:  “One day we are going to be saying prayers again in parliament.  One day the church in the UK will be one church.  One day the streets will be filled with rivers of his love in this city and nation.”  It is essential that Christians have such a vision for the future:  “The early church was driven by vision.”  Irukwu's church was founded in 1994 with 200 members as a London plant from a charismatic church in Nigeria.  Today, there are more than 2,000 worshipers each Sunday.

For the first time, a Christian Festival was organized by the youth, which drew 700 visitors.  An invitation by youth pastor Daniel Shillingford (London) to become a Christian and to pray to receive Christ brought responses from 40 visitors.  Also at the meeting an unbalanced budget was presented.  According to data presented by treasurer Malcolm Broad (Didcot), a deficit of 745,000 Euros is built into the budget for 2012, with a total budget of 5.6 million Euros.  Last year, the deficit was 850,000 Euros.  Broad suggested that each church contribute five percent of their total budget to the Union.  That would eliminate the deficit and raise the budget to 8.7 million Euros.

Two thousand churches with about 140,000 members belong to the Baptist Union of Great Britain.