Association Overview 

The South Eastern Baptist Association (SEBA) is an association of around 150 churches, mission initiatives and chaplains, across Kent, Sussex, Surrey and a small part of Hampshire. Our churches come in all shapes and sizes, and can be found in town centres, villages, housing estates and suburbs - across urban, rural and coastal areas. We have churches in some of the richest and poorest communities – some are amongst the oldest Baptist churches in the country whilst others have only been around a few years. We have chaplains that work across the Association within hospitals, prisons and shopping centres. Underpinning all this diversity is the broad Baptist foundation of our church life, and the desire to share the good news about Jesus.

Our Mission and Purpose: 
Growing healthy churches in relationship for God's mission 

We are part of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and share a common mission. There are three key elements to this mission.

• Growing healthy churches – we pray for and seek to be available to all our churches, chaplaincies and mission initiatives across the South East of England, both new and existing, in ways that support them to grow and develop in a healthy way;
• In relationship – we respect that each of our member churches has its own separate identity and leadership and, we therefore, seek to support each church through healthy relationships and service, offering support wherever possible;
• God’s mission – we recognise that we are called to play our part in God’s mission and recognise there are things we can do as a wider Association to support the mission of God through our churches, chaplaincies and mission initiatives.

Our Values

As part of the wider Baptist family, we share the same values and seek to have them influence all that we do. These include:

• Seeking to be a Spirit led organisation - ensuring that everything we do is underpinned by prayer; seeking God’s will in everything;
• Working as One team – our Trustee, Leadership, Regional and Operations Teams working together to fulfil our vision; ensuring that everyone feels valued, included and listened to;
• Embracing adventure – being willing to step out in faith when we hear God’s call; mitigating risks with prayerful planning;
• Inspiring others – motivating Ministers and church leaders to lead churches that play an active part in God’s mission in their local communities;
• Sharing a hunger for God’s coming Kingdom – actively proclaiming the Gospel through all that we do; encouraging and assisting Ministers and churches to express God’s purpose for His creation in practical action.

In addition, as a team, we embrace the following as part of our values:

• To be humble, recognising that we don’t have all the answers and that we need to be realistic with our resources;
• To be honest, by being willing to have difficult conversations, cherishing what is good, what we can do better and what is not good;
• To listen carefully to our churches so that we can serve them better;
• To be pro-active by prioritising the important, not just the urgent;
• To be intentional in keeping connected across the Association;
• To communicate well with each other and our Ministers, church leaders and churches. 

Our Strategy

As a community of God’s people who are praying and working together to see healthy missional churches, chaplaincies and pioneering initiatives across the South East of England empowered by God’s Spirit we aim to fulfil our vision through 3 strategic pathways.

Partners in Mission

Partners in Mission is about partnering in the mission of God together as we serve and support each other. At SEBA our desire is to offer greater support to our churches and pioneering/church planting initiatives wherever possible. Partners in Mission is particularly for churches who would value the support from the wider Association in a variety of ways.

You can find more about Partners in Mission on our website here. 

Partners in Equipping

Partners in Equipping is focused on raising up, forming and equipping new local leaders within our Baptist Churches. The Local Formation Lead will play a key role in forming and developing this pathway to enable people to be formed for various leadership roles within our Baptist churches.

You can find more about Partners in Equipping on our website here.

Partners in Planting

This pathway is yet to be developed, but we do recognise that enabling fresh and new expressions of churches in different situations and places, where the gospel may not be encountered, has always been an important part of Baptist existence. Therefore, we want to encourage and help resource new strategic planting and pioneering initiatives when and wherever possible.

Our Team

To put our vision into practice we work as ‘One Team’ interdependently in 4 areas.

The Trustee Team

Our Trustees ensure that the Association fulfils its duties to our members and beneficiaries through its charitable activities to deliver on its vision, priorities and values.
They are responsible for

• Policy development & monitoring; 
• Vision and strategy development;  
• Compliance;
• Statutory reporting to relevant bodies;
• Budget development & monitoring. 

The Leadership Team

Our Leadership Team leads, inspires and envisions the Association to enable us to fulfil our vision. To that end they are responsible for

• Encouraging Christian discipleship and growth SEBA wide;
• Encouraging ministerial development including prayer, Bible study and theological reflection;
• Our vision and strategy;
• Church planting, revitalisation & pioneering possibilities;
• Interdependent close working with Network ministers;
• Pastoral oversight of ministers and churches;
• Enabling work with children, young people & students;
• Building and maintaining relationships with those Baptist Ministers in Sector Ministries (Chaplaincies);
• Safeguarding;
• Collaborative working between other Baptist Associations and the Baptist Union.

The Regional Ministry Team

The Regional Ministry Team are the paid members of SEBA who work on behalf of the Association and have the responsibility to implement and deliver SEBA’s mission, vision and strategy.

Network Ministers and Team

• Assisting and serving the SEBA vision of mission discipleship and wellbeing amongst network churches, ‘Enabling mission & Christian living’;
• Sharing with the Regional Ministers in their ministry of pastoral oversight across the region;
• Leading the network, working collaboratively with other networks;
• Fulfilling the vision of local network of churches by facilitating, inspiring and influencing;
• Playing a key role in connecting ministers through Continuing Ministerial Development;
• Helping to support churches in specific areas of the association;
• Encouraging local mission potential and missional collaboration within Networks;
• Representing the network to SEBA /Regional Ministers;
• Facilitating shared training, gatherings or roadshows with other Network Ministers within their county to foster greater engagement with SEBA.