New Baptist World Alliance President David Coffey Sees Hope for Church

The Baptist World Alliance (BWA) has inducted its new President, Revd David Coffey on the penultimate day of the Baptist World Centenary Congress currently being held in Birmingham, UK. Officials have stated that in excess of 13,000 people have been involved in the huge celebratory gathering, that has seen a festival-like atmosphere develop and a feeling of a new beginning come across joyful delegates.

Coffey accepted his position humbly in a service performed at Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena (NIA), and will succeed the position as leader of the BWA from Revd Billy Kim for the period 2005-2010.

In the aftermath of an emotional service where thousands prayed for him in his new position, Revd David Coffey took time out for an exclusive interview with Christian Today, where he expressed new hope for a Baptist Church where every member is an evangelist. The full text of the interview can be seen below:

Christian Today: This morning you took up the position as president of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA). It looked like it was a very emotional event for yourself, as well as your family. Now that it is beginning to sink in, how do you feel taking up this leading role in Baptist history.

David Coffey: I feel very honoured, very privileged. I don’t think anybody would contemplate a ministry like this if they weren’t called by God. The responsibilities, the expectations are huge. So I do confess that I am called. I confess to you that when I was first approached, I didn’t respond positively, but the chairman of the Nominations Committee came to me and said ‘Why don’t you go and examine the questions we’ve asked you and see if when you address those questions, whether there is a stirring of a call.’ And that’s what happened. When I actually got down to think about it, to pray about it, I did hear God speaking to me. I heard God speaking to me through people from many countries who said ‘You must allow your name to go forward’, and out of that came the call. I thank you for saying what a moving service it was because sometimes when you’re in the heart of something like this, its difficult to know, but so many of my friends also just said it also – that it was very moving. So I thank you for that.

Christian Today: You are succeeding the presidency from Revd Billy Kim, who has had an amazing past five years in the BWA, but when there is a new president put in place, and particularly now that a new century is beginning in the BWA history, it feels like a new era is about to open up. So at this time looking out on this new beginning, what do you believe that your presidency can bring to the BWA that is does not currently have?

David Coffey: I don’t think that there’s anything that I can bring that the BWA doesn’t have, apart from my gifts as a bible study teacher and pastor, and my leadership gifts as well as who I am as a person. Everybody who is put into a leadership position brings that basic contribution. I am a man in Christ, Christ has put his spirit within me, I bring experience and wisdom. I am a European leader, and I am a British leader. So I said this morning (in his induction service) that Billy Kim’s shoes are far too big for me to fill, but I cant be shy about what God has done in my life, and I have been president of European Baptists, and Europe has a story to tell, and the UK also has a story to tell. We haven’t only got a great history, this is where there was the creation of Baptist movement, this it the birthplace of people like John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, and William Booth who established the Salvation Army, William Carey. There are just so many great Christians, but I think and sense that the Spirit of God is moving again in our country and I want to bear witness as a European Christian, and as a British Christian.

The other thing that I think that I hope I would bring a new emphasis. I have a great heart for developing the gifts of younger leaders; what I call are emerging leaders. people maybe between the ages of mid-20s to mid-30s, who have the potential to become international ambassadors. They’ve already emerged in leadership in their own countries, not just ordained people like myself, pastors, but business people, journalists like yourself, so that they can be introduced to one another, so that they can be empowered and equipped. A country trains ambassadors to represent that country abroad. The BWA shouldn’t allow these younger leaders, emerging leaders to emerge by accident. They should emerge by design. So one of the things that I am setting up is a ‘Global Emerging Leaders’ Academy’, and it will be once a year and it will be in different parts of the world and like all things it will be relational – very relational, so if you came to it, you would meet other people and be encouraged to be in touch with them in-between the annual meetings with the academy.

So I intend to bring my own personal emphasis but I also intend to continue the emphasis of some of the great programs by the BWA.

Christian Today: In your opinion, for Baptists as a whole, on the global-scale, what direction do you believe the denomination is heading in the present time?

David Coffey: I think there’s got to be a sense to which it will depend on which country we are talking about, but one common theme that runs through all Baptist witness wherever they are in the world, is that every Baptist is a missionary. We are a believer’s Church, we don’t believe you are born into the Church, we don’t believe you are born a Baptist, you are certainly not born a Christian. Everybody has to come to a personal faith in Jesus Christ, and the responsibility of every Christian is to share their faith. They share it by deed, they share it by life and they share it by word. So that missionary spirit I think is still going be a very powerful factor. I think increasingly we’ve got to get our hands dirty. Pity that weeps and turns away doesn’t do anything, but Christian compassion is something that weeps and turns its hands to do something. We need Christians who actually are prepared to get their hands dirty.

Sometimes that will involve asking difficult questions politically. A great quote of Jim Wallace is “It’s not just a question of fishing bodies out the river, but it is going up river to find out who is throwing the bodies in.”

Sometimes there are unjust structures. I love the great evangelical tradition of social reform. We are now coming up to the anniversary of William Wilberforth, who knew that the only way to change slavery and the emancipation of slaves which he prayed for, was through parliament and through the ballot boxes, through legislation. In many parts of the world I think we’ve got to return to that; that holistic Gospel. We have got to be strong in our relationship with God, and there’s got to be that strong relationship between Christians and there’s got to be that passion of mission; getting stuck in with God’s mission in the world.

Christian Today: This morning Denton Lotz proclaimed that ‘Every Baptist is an evangelist’, so with that in mind and focusing more specifically within the UK, how do you envisage bringing this vision into fruition?

David Coffey: I think here in the UK we began a journey about 10 years ago now, which we called our ‘Reform Program’, where we wanted to become much more of a missionary Baptist Union, and we wanted every local church to be a missionary congregation. We believed that churches need to be constantly inspired in that task.

Secondly, we are prepared to put money into what we call planting new kinds of churches. We’ve got all kinds of emerging church; new church. We are prepared to fund that.

Thirdly, we appoint mission and neighbours. People who can act as consultants, people who can come alongside perhaps an old church, that maybe wants to become a new church. An old church that realises that its community has changed, and hasn’t noticed the change, and they no longer know how to share their faith. They actually feel quite anxious and apprehensive about who are all these strange people that have come to live in our neighbourhood. They don’t go to Sunday school they don’t come to our witness meetings they don’t come to church, so they think ‘how do we reach these?’ So we’ve appointed mission consultants.

I think the fourth thing is recognising Baptists are not the only Christians. We need to have Christians together in the UK on this missionary adventure. It’s a wonderful thinking, and I am very hopeful about the Church. I do not dent that if you came to me and asked me if the Church has declined I would say yes. Other parts of the country where the Church is already dead and its witnesses died, sadly the answer is yes. But there are many examples of a resurgence, and sometimes if you are serious about, what I call, making yourself a ‘Mission Intentional Church’; that doesn’t come overnight.

There is a change of mindset, a change of heart, and it needs a change of structure. People who have had a change of mindset sometimes say ‘we can’t do God’s missions from within these boundaries; we need a new presence in this neighbourhood.’

I know some churches who have actually moved out of their buildings, closed the doors and walked away for six months to say, ‘let’s be a church in exile’, to say ‘lord what do you want us to do?’

Sometimes God has given that church back to them, sometimes he’s given them new eyes for what that community needs. I wish more churches would do prayer walks around the neighbourhoods, walk around, because when you walk around and pray in a neighbourhood, you see things, and hear things that you don’t otherwise see.




Interview conducted by Andrew Clark (Christian Today).