A one million pound black hole is projected for the Baptist Union of Great Britain end of year accounts, we can’t continue as we are and it has got people talking. The talk is of change and cuts.
The financial predicament is painful, it will hurt when posts are almost inevitably cut and people tragically lose their jobs. As well as being painful it is bad in other ways: are you worried that difficult discussions about allocation of finite resources may deflect us from more important questions? I am.
But these cuts can also be good news. Let's get real, it’s very difficult for an organisation that spans many centuries, churches, associations, and colleges to undergo deep change unless sufficient destabilising pressures are present. The finances are providing one such push-factor, numerical decline in most churches over many decades another, and there are others. I’m not shouting ‘tipping-point’ but ordeal loosens us up for change. This is painfully good!