Newly Accredited Baptist Ministers (NAMs) 

 

What is a NAM?

A Newly Accredited Minister (NAM) is a minister in their first church who has gone through a Baptist College or through the Residential Selection Conference.

Click here for details of the NAM scheme.  

Useful documents & weblinks

• Terms of Appointment: full-time / part-time
• Code of Ethics for Baptist Ministers
• Churches' Ministerial Counselling Service
• Information about grants
• Grievance procedures for Baptist Ministers in Pastoral Charge
• General guidance for churches

For details of our NAM Reflection Day (annually, in the autumn), please click here.

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Continuing Ministerial Development (CMD) for NAMs

 

Embedding the habits of Continuing Ministerial Development

All accredited ministers, however long they have been in ministry, are asked to engage in Continuing Ministerial Development, or CMD. All NAMs are now automatically enrolled for CMD as part of their enrolment as a NAM, though they initially meet all the requirements of CMD simply by engaging with the NAMs’ programme.  A full description of the Baptists Together CMD framework can be found in the CMD handbook available via the BUGB website. However, the heart of it lies in two expectations:

1. Ministers practice five ‘CMD habits’, which are: 

1. Learning – by gaining new understanding and new skills.
2. Attentiveness – to our spiritual, physical and relational health. 
3. Accountability – to a trusted companion outside our ministry. 
4. Connection – to our fellow Baptist ministers and wider Baptist family. 
5. Review – of our work as ministers at least once every three years.

The NAMs’ programme is designed to help ministers engage with these five habits and ensure they are sustainable once the probationary period is over. NAMs are supported in each habit in the following way:

1. Learning: NAMs are guided by the learning contracts with a college and by their NAMs’ Association days to maintain the discipline of reading, study and theological reflection. The aim is to establish through a mandatory programme a habit of learning that NAMs will voluntarily sustain throughout their ministry.
2. Attentiveness: A NAM’s mentor helps them not only to reflect on their work as a minister, but also to be attentive – to their relationship with God; their own physical, social and emotional needs; and to those nearest to them. Together NAMs examine the interaction between the different spheres of their lives.
3. Accountability: A NAMs mentor provides them with a space where they can talk through their experience of ministry and seek their perspective and advice. They ask questions that provoke self-awareness and probe a NAM’s assumptions and conclusions. Towards the end of the NAMs’ programme, they help the NAM to consider who might best accompany them next, whether another mentor, a spiritual director, coach, pastoral supervisor, soul friend or learning community. 
4. Connection: SEBA, through our NAMs’ Association days, enables the NAM to connect with the wider Baptist family as they meet with other NAMs and the Regional Team. We will also encourage the NAM to attend their local ministers’ gatherings and expect them to attend the annual Association Ministers’ Conference, usually held at Ashburnham each year.
5. Review: Accredited ministers are asked to submit their ministry to some form of review at least every three years. A NAM’s first review takes place during year 2 of their NAMs’ programme (around 18 months). It draws on a NAMs own view of their progress alongside feedback from those who see the NAM in their role as minister in their church or other setting.

2. Fully accredited Ministers meet annually with a ‘CMD peer’, for a ‘CMD audit’. 

A CMD audit takes the form of a meeting with a fellow accredited minister – a CMD peer – in which a NAM discusses their practice of the five CMD habits over the previous year and plan their development for the following year. NAMs are free to choose any other accredited minister to act as their CMD peer. 

They should be someone who will give supportive and honest feedback about a NAMs development. Once a CMD audit is completed, ministers confirm to the Ministries Team that it has taken place, though they do not share the content of the conversation. 

CMD audits are usually held in October or November of each year. However, because the CMD habits are already baked into the NAMs’ programme, a NAM does not have to hold a CMD audit until year 3 of their NAMs’ programme. The focus of this first audit is to look ahead and identify how a NAM will continue to grow as a disciple and as a minister when they no longer have a formal programme of development. A NAM’s CMD peer could be a fellow NAM, a local minister they have grown to trust, or they could ask their mentor