Monday, July 27, 2009

European Baptists called to discipleship

BWA President David Coffey

New EBF President Valeriu Ghiletchi

Outgoing EBF President Toma Magda (right) presents a plaque to Albrecht Boerrigter,
General Secretary for the Union of Baptist Churches in the Netherlands,
expressing thanks to Dutch Baptists for hosting Amsterdam 400,
while EBF General Secretary Tony Peck looks on

Some of the Dutch volunteers

A choir made up of persons attending the 400th celebrations

If we are to be effective disciples, then “there are privileges we have to relinquish,” said Baptist World Alliance President David Coffey.

Coffey made this declaration at the concluding session of Amsterdam 400, the European Baptist Federation (EBF)-sponsored celebration event that marked the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Baptist movement. The first Baptist church was founded by British exiles in Amsterdam in 1609 after fleeing religious persecution in their country.

Coffey, addressing the subject of discipleship, stated that, as “Jesus relinquished his hold on privileges,” so should his followers be prepared to “relinquish privilege for the sake of service.”

Speaking to Baptists, mainly from the European continent but also including Baptist leaders from the Middle East and Central Asia, Coffey told the several hundred attendees that “there is a service we are called to give” in the same way Jesus “shared the joys and sorrows of family life” and “became the healing hands of Galilee, touching blind eyes to make them see, [and] embracing lepers to make them clean.”

“The hands that filled the oceans with water became the serving hands in the Upper Room,” the BWA leader declared. “The hands that flung stars into space became the working hands in the carpenter’s shop.”

The EBF meetings, which were held at the RAI International Exhibition and Congress Center in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, began July 24 and ended on the 26th.

The closing session included the introduction of new EBF President Valeriu Ghiletchi, bishop of the Union of Christian Evangelical Baptists of Moldova, and an elected member of that country’s parliament. Ghiletchi was elected president during the meeting of the EBF Council, which convened during the Amsterdam 400 celebration. He succeeds Toma Magda of Croatia who became EBF president in 2007.

In addition to the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Baptist church, Amsterdam 400 was also the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the formation of the EBF. The regional body was founded in 1949 to unite European Baptists as Europe emerged from the devastation of the Second World War. The organization was also instrumental in keeping Baptists in touch with each other to offer encouragement during the era of communism in Eastern and Central Europe.

The EBF, one of six regional fellowships of the BWA, represents more than 50 Baptist conventions and unions and some 13,000 churches with approximately 800,000 members.