SCBA Listening Process 

As an Association, we find ourselves in a season of reflection – asking together what God is calling SCBA to be and to do in the years ahead. Both the national Financial Model Review and Hayley’s recent departure mean that we have been presented with this opportunity to consider what SCBA looks like going forward. We've found the image of the tabernacle helpful for this season - not a temple built once the destination is known, but a structure designed to move. With the national Financial Model Review not due to be resolved for another two years, we don't yet know the final shape SCBA will take. That makes this a particularly complex season to navigate.
 
We want this discernment to be shared, and so we will be embarking on a listening process. Over September, we'll be hosting a series of listening circles across the region; these will be small, facilitated conversations that create space for storytelling, reflection and honest sharing. We're inviting one representative (minister, church secretary or another trustee) per church into these spaces, and we hope that these are something your church might be able to participate in.

To view the full Invitation Letter, please click here
 

Follow-up to the Listening Circles - Next Steps

Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to the listening process so far, whether by hosting, facilitating or taking part in one of the listening circles, in person or online. It has been a real gift to hear so many voices from across the Association, with honesty, hope and wisdom, and we are holding carefully all that has been shared.

As the next step in our discernment together, we would love to hear from as many of you as possible through a short survey that asks some big-picture questions.

Please complete the online survey form here

Please complete it by 28th October 2026. We'd love to hear from both ministers and church secretaries, as different perspectives from the same church are valuable. Do feel free to pass it on to trustees, RLMs, CYF workers or others who you think would want to contribute.

 

Praying Together Through October

Discernment is not only about listening to one another but listening together to God. Throughout October, there will be opportunities to gather online and pray for our Association and the road ahead:
 
Session 2 - Thursday 15th October 12:00-12:30 Zoom Link
Bringing What is Hard
An honest session: naming the weight people are carrying and bringing it to God, rather than rushing to fix it.
Scripture: Exodus 18:13–23. Moses sits from morning till evening judging the people alone, and Jethro tells him plainly that the work is too heavy to carry by himself.
Reflection: Jethro's answer is not "try harder" but "share the load". That echoes what the circles said: the ask is not more weight on already-stretched leaders, but shared resourcing and more people.
What we're hearing:
-  Ministers and leaders feeling isolated, especially in smaller, pioneer and bi-vocational settings
-  The growing weight of governance, safeguarding and compliance
-  Capacity stretched thin, and the risk of burnout
-  An acknowledgement of our differences
Prayer prompts:
-  Pray for leaders who feel alone, and for their families
-  Pray for those carrying governance and safeguarding responsibilities with little support
-  Pray for churches in areas of financial pressure and new housing growth
-  Pray for grace to stay in relationship across differences 
Listening: Pausing to listen to what God might be saying.
Sending: Matthew 11:28–30, "Come to me, all you who are weary."

Session 3 - Thursday 22nd October 16:00-16:30 Zoom Link
Hope and Mission
Lifting our eyes to the communities our churches are part of, and to what God might be calling us towards together.
Scripture: Jeremiah 29:4–7. Exiles in an unfamiliar place are told to build, plant, settle and seek the welfare of the city where they have been sent.
Reflection: Hope here is rooted, local and patient. It is not about a strategy from the centre, but about God's people being faithfully present where they are, and praying for their places.
What we're hearing:
-  A longing to reach younger and more culturally diverse communities
-  Everyday discipleship, not a Sunday-only faith
-  Appetite for pioneering and planting, alongside revitalising churches that are struggling
-  A desire to stop reinventing the wheel and share what is already there 
Prayer prompts:
-  People to name their own town, estate or village in the chat, and pray for those places by name
-  Pray for children, young people and families, and for CYF workers across the region
-  Pray for pioneers and planters, and for churches seeking renewal
-  Pray for new leaders to be called and supported 
Listening: Pausing to listen to what God might be saying.
Sending: Isaiah 43:18–19, "See, I am doing a new thing."

Session 4 - Thursday 29th October 19:30-20:00 Zoom Link
Discerning Together, Towards the Leaders' Day
Preparing hearts for 9 November as a day of discernment, not a day of findings: asking what seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us.
Scripture: Acts 15:6–12, 28. A church facing real disagreement listens, tells its stories of what God has been doing, and reaches a decision described as seeming good "to the Holy Spirit and to us".
Reflection: Discernment in Acts 15 comes through testimony and listening, not just debate. That fits what the circles said: relationship, and churches telling their own story, are what make collaboration possible.
What we're hearing:
-  Relationship as the thing that makes support easy to ask for and offer
-  Wanting deeper collaboration without adding load to stretched leaders
-  Sharing people and expertise, not just ideas
-  Connecting churches by context, size and theology, not only geography
Prayer prompts:
-  Pray for the trustees, reference group and regional team as they hold what has been heard
-  Pray for those who will come to the Leaders' Day, and for those who can't
-  Pray for open hearts as to what God might be inviting us into being
-  Pray for wisdom to recognise what God is already doing among us
Listening: Pausing to listen to what God might be saying.
Sending: ‘In our leaving, in our arriving, in our changes, expected or shocking, surprise us with who we might become’.

Leaders' Day - Monday 9th November, 10:00-15:00

Lower Earley Baptist Church, RG6 3HE
 
This won't be a day of presenting findings or announcing conclusions. It will be a day of discernment. We'll bring together what we've heard through the listening circles and the survey, and spend time in worship, prayer, reflection and conversation as we seek together what God might be saying to us about the shape of our life as an Association. Whatever your role, context or church size, your voice matters, and we'd love you to be there.
 
To help us cater, please book in here by the 4th November.

 

This is an important moment in our life together as an Association, and we very much hope you will be part of it, through the survey, in prayer and on the day.