Thought Leadership | Reflections on life & leadership in contemporary culture | Baptist Led Research
Baptist-led research
By Thinking Ahead, the Centre for Baptist Ministry is building up a body of quality work for the sake of the UK Baptist family.
Here you will find experienced practitioners and theologians sharing expert knowledge and original insights.
By Thinking Ahead, we hope to spark ideas within you and your ministry contexts. At times we offer a voice of disruption, and always a vision for positive change.
As we look to the future and reflect on our present practices, we hope and pray that we will develop better practices.
Our thought leadership reflects St Hild College’s four core values.
We are: 
- Prayerful 
- Collaborative 
- Courageous 
- Pioneering 
Have a look at the latest things we’re doing to explore these themes and create conversation.
Research
Missional Movement Through the Local Church: Applying Movemental Principles in a British Context
by Rev Dr Nick Allan
Events
Everyone Everywhere: a conversation with Alan Hirsch
Alex Harris, The St Hild Centre for Church Planting Director, reflects on a day inviting practitioners, planters, imaginers and leaders to think about how to create greater movement in sharing Jesus and starting churches. Alan Hirsch’s content fed lengthy discussions, conversation, prayer, and collaborative thinking.
- Reproducing discipleship: empowering everyday evangelism
- Diverse teams: recognising and releasing gifts
- Local movement: from organisation to multiplication
- Microchurches: small models, big potential
- Network to movement: collaborating across the whole
podcasts
Thinking Ahead Podcasts
We value hearing the voices of leading practitioners in mission and ministry. We hope these will spark ideas and inspiration for you and your context.
On this page you’ll find links to the podcast episodes produced by others that we loved and would recommend, concentrating on Baptist ministry and leadership in the UK today.
These episodes are from the Centre for Baptist Ministry and also Wise Lives, a podcast of The Well Sheffield, hosted by Revd. Dr Nick Allan, who is the Director of St Hild Centre for Baptist Ministry.
Subscribe to the full Wise Lives podcast and find other episodes
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What’s the Leader’s Journey to Multiplication?//Josh Muse
Josh Muse, who leads Kaleo International, a family of churches, missionaries, and ministries in 14 nations. Nick and Josh get under the surface into the questions of leadership, which can help or hinder missional movement.
What is the internal journey of a leader? What can we learn from the early church about growth? How do we structure our churches and organisations to be more like ‘movements’? What structures and practices help them become fit to multiply and decentralise?
The Harvest: Gratitude and Generosity // Martin Jones
St Hild Centre for Baptist Ministry student, Martin Jones shares a brief reflection and the Spirit’s ‘quiet revival’ in his local area.
Laying Everything Down At God’s Calling // Anne Calver
How would a busy, fulfilled Christian respond when it seems that God asks you to lay down everything you are working for, to simply pray and wait upon Him?
This was Ann’s experience, when as a church minister, national speaker and mum she heard God’s prompting and had some tough decisions to make.
The Church of Tomorrow // John McGinley
We take a step back and ask ‘what is God doing in the UK today, and how can I join in?’
What’s changing in our nation and in church as a response? There’s a move of ordinary people starting micro-churches, and teens/twenties turning to God. Am I willing to change if necessary, and champion it? Our guest Revd. John McGinley heads up Myriad, a national training program for lay micro-church planters. And The Send UK/Ireland, a movement to mobilise the new generations into mission at home and abroad.
A global perspective on UK mission // Yinka Oyekan
What does a Nigerian, born into a royal family and raised in Scotland, think God is doing amongst the nations today?
Yinka Oyekan has helped to plant dozens of churches and is overseeing an international evangelism move through ‘The Calling’. He is a Baptist Minister in Reading, UK and in this episode he shares his remarkable story of faith and perspectives on where the church is going.
Incarnational Church // David S.
David, a Pioneer Baptist Minister, tells the story of how his family grew a new church from scratch in an unusual way, on an inner-city estate in Sheffield. It’s an account of staying close to God, listening to the context and the people’s needs, trying new things, and persevering through tough times like Covid.
There’s Nothing Boring About Prayer // Aaron Jarvis
Why are the toughest gang members turning to Jesus? What fuels supernatural miracles in the West Midlands? Prayer. Aaron grew up with a gang mentality; now the church he pastors is a band of brothers & sisters learning to pray and fast with purpose and passion. Hear about a rapidly growing missionary-minded Baptist church network, breakthrough conversions of the toughest characters and incredible recent testimonies of healing. Aaron is clear: the engine-room of the church is prayer.
Why focus on the next generations? // Isabella Senior
Isabella is a young adult with a passion. She tells Nick all about saying yes to the call of God aged 15 to ‘go ‘, which ended with her becoming a ‘reverse missionary’ from Brazil to the UK, reaching Generation Z for Christ. Today she has a national role in empowering her peers in Baptist churches to become disciples and impact the nation. Isabella shared an encouraging picture of the spiritual climate and passion amongst the new generations in the UK.