Weekly Blog 

Here our minister shares a weekly reflection: 

Sunday, 02 August 2026 — Walking Together by Revd Dr Paul Fiddes 

One of the key phrases from our history as Baptists is “walking together”. Early Baptist covenants usually contained the church members’ promise to “walk together before God and to watch over each other”, and we use the same promise whenever we re-make our covenant at New Road. It’s striking, then, that there has recently been a widespread movement in the Roman Catholic Church to encourage “walking together”, initiated by the late Pope Francis I and re-affirmed by Pope Leo XIV.
 
The technical term our Catholic friends have used is “synodality”, which simply means “Together (syn) on the way (hodos)”, and the phrase “walking together” appears many times. For example, “synodality” is defined in a major document as being “Christians walking in communion with Christ toward the Kingdom along with the whole of humanity”, and a report on the movement stresses that ‘If becoming synodal means walking together with the One who is the Way, a synodal Church needs to put those experiencing poverty at the centre of all aspects of its life.” So a central part of the process is to enable the church to listen to all voices, from all ages, all ethnicities, and from all parts of society, in discerning its path forward into the future. Pope Francis put it like this: “A synodal Church is a Church which listens…the faithful people, the bishops, all listening to each other; and all listening to the Holy Spirit.”
 
Baptists have been involved in talking with scholars and church leaders in the Catholic Church about this process of “walking together” during the last two years. A number of UK Baptists were part of an important Catholic conference in Durham in 2023 called “Learning on the Way”, when the aim was for those from different Christian confessions to listen to each other and learn from each other “on the way”. There were also representatives of the Baptist World Alliance (two women theologians) at meetings in Rome which were “synods about synodality” in 2024 and 2025. Just this last week a book of essays by Baptist writers has been published, reflecting on what the “synodal way” means. Edited by myself, Andy Goodliff, and Ruth Moriarty, Walking Together; Baptists and Synodality explores how we can “walk together” in our local church meetings, in associations, in the Union and in our world-wide fellowship. You can get the book from Amazon for the price of £24.00 or as an e-book for £7.46.
 
The book has been prompted by this new Catholic emphasis on the synodal pathway and is in dialogue with it. Baptists may think—rightly, I suggest—that they have something to contribute from their long experience of walking together in covenant and seeking to discern the mind of Christ in the church meeting. But we also need to listen to the Catholic emphasis on listening to the voices from the margins of society, the voices of the poor and the powerless, those outside as well as inside the church. If we are to allow these to speak and shape our “walking together” we may need to re-think the ways that we seek to find the purpose of Christ for us in our local community.
 

Sunday, 26 July 2026 — Living in God's Love — Rather than Fear

Last week, as we reflected on the parable of the wheat and tares, a key theme that came through was the need to trust in God rather than live in fear. This week, as James Grote leads our service, we will hear some verses from the letter to the Romans that give us an indication as to how we can move on from fear.
 
Paul, writing to a persecuted church, as one who had experience of both being a persecutor and being persecuted himself, reminds his readers that nothing can separate them from the love of Christ.
 
We are living in a time in which many people are living in fear: fear of change, fear of others who are different, fear of financial insecurity, fear of the climate crisis, fear of warfare and violence… and so on. There is a lot to be fearful about.
 
As we live through these things, Paul calls attention to the love of God and our identity as those justified by Christ. We cannot be separated from this love, regardless of what challenges we face. If we can grasp the truth of this promise, then this is surely the key to moving on from living in fear, fear that limits our imaginations and closes our hearts and minds to the needs of others, instead living in the love that God abundantly shares with us.
 
Romans 8:31-39 God’s Love in Christ Jesus

31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ[f] who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
    we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 

Sunday, 19 July 2026 — Living Amongst the Weeds

We come across another of Jesus’ arable parables this week. God sows a good crop, and the evil one scatters weeds. It seems entirely understandable that the farm labourers would seek to remove the weeds, in order to ensure there is a better crop. They want to take control over the field and eradicate all that seems to be bad before it can do any damage.
 
This is an urge that has been seen in farmers throughout the centuries as they seek better productivity and higher yields. It has been made a reality over the past few decades with advances in pesticides and weed killers that target particular unwanted invasive species.
 
In his book English Pastoral: An Inheritance, James Rebanks speaks of changes in farming through the past 70 years. Crops that once would have had weeds scattered among them, which would be sorted at harvest with shorter weeds left behind for grazing animals and insects, are now weed free. Crop yields are up, but biodiversity and soil quality have both declined rapidly. The removal and prevention of the establishment of weeds has been part of an unsustainable shift in farming. Rebanks tells of the different ways in which he has stepped away from such intensive farming practices, in order to make sure that he hands over a healthy farm to his children and grandchildren.
 
Now, it’s a bit complicated arguing for the continued presence of weeds in line with today’s understanding of the need for biodiversity when we approach the very black and white imagery of the parable depicting weeds as entirely evil. Yet there is an important message within the parable that resonates, and that is trusting that God will do the sorting out of weeds and tares when the kingdom comes in all its fulness.
 
This should be liberating for us. It is not for us to focus on rooting out the weeds, for that is the way of inquisitions and justifying the collateral damage of innocent parties. The removal of the weeds is God’s role, not ours. Within this there is also the hopeful aspect that, in the end, God will overcome evil and it will be destroyed. Justice will come, and love will win as God’s kingdom is established.


Sunday, 12 July 2026 - The Parable of the Sower (or the parable of the soil?)

On Sunday we will hear the ‘Parable of the Sower’ and the explanation of it from Matthew’s gospel (Mt 13:1-9, 18-23). In some sense it is a shame that Jesus outlines the meaning of the parable in such a way, as one of the joys of encountering the parables is wrestling with them as we encounter a number of different potential meanings and learnings. It is why parables and fables like them have fascinated us over so many years, allowing them to speak to us afresh each time we encounter them.
 
Prescribing a narrow meaning to the parable seems akin to putting it on railroad tracks, constricting it, ensuring it can only go in one direction. How might we deal with having the parable interpreted by Jesus in such a way? First, we might note that Jesus explains the parable in light of the large number of people who are rejecting the gospel, and seemingly unable to understand what he says. Second, the meaning explained and included by the gospel writer was possibly one that seemed most relevant to Matthew’s community at the time.
 
Matthew’s church was a persecuted community, a minority group, and one that expected the imminent return of Jesus. Their context was quite different to our own, as we wrestle with the increasingly long time between the ascension of Christ and his second coming.
 
Therefore, I’d suggest that we take note of Jesus’ explanation and see it as a helpful lens in interpreting the parable, but we should also still be willing to read it with a sense of curiosity, pondering what the parable might reveal to us as a community today.
 
Of course, we approach it knowing that Jesus is the sower, scattering the seed of God’s word, and the listeners are the soil on which the seed is sown. Yet, I’d want to think about framing the parable slightly differently. We know it as the ‘Parable of the Sower’, which highlights the important nature of Jesus’ role, and those of his disciples, as they sow God’s word abundantly over all people in a whole host of different situations.
 
But what we find is a parable that, from the moment of sowing, actually focuses a lot more on soil. There’s hard compacted soil, weed infested soil, soil that is too dry in which the plants become scorched, and good soil that produces a big crop.
 
Perhaps if we think of the parable as the ‘Parable of the Soil’, we might find it more enriching today. One of the challenges with this parable is that it can become individualistic, the responsibility being with the listener to prepare and maintain soil receptive to God’s word. Yet, in community life, I wonder if we might be best off thinking about how we help each other in producing and maintaining good soil for planting God’s word.
 
We might think of the church as an allotment or a community farm. Together, supporting each other, and as we engage in mission with those around us, we can help those who have become hardened to God’s word due to being trampled upon in life open up to His word. Together, we can help remove and counter the weeds in our society that spread injustice, fear, and pain. Together, we can help to provide the irrigation and resilience needed to come through drought and storm. Together, we can help to make sure our collective soil is as good as it can be and remains enriched and full of all of the nutrients that are required for a good harvest.
 
Tending to good soil in this sense is exactly what it is to participate in the mission of God, which seeks after an abundant harvest for all, as God’s seeds of love, grace and mercy keep on being planted come what may.