I am writing this as we approach the HEBA Family Day on the 7th June and reflecting on what has been a turbulent few years for the Association and for me particularly as its Moderator. Come the 7th June I will be standing down from the post which I have held for the last three and a half years with, if I am honest, a certain sense of relief. But there is also a real sense of sadness that - for the time being at any rate - I will not be so connected to and so engaged with the day to day events of the Association.

I will miss the regular meetings and committees and all the fantastic godly people with whom it has been my pleasure and my privilege to work alongside - and guess I will now begin to lose some of the detailed knowledge of Association life throughout the vast area that is the Heart of England Baptist Association. I will not miss the drive home to Shropshire in the late evenings after a long and sometimes difficult meeting of the Trustees … but I do thank all those, and there are too many to name, who have helped to make this time one of significant development and achievement both personally and throughout the Association.

One of the main thrusts of the last few years – even amidst the turmoil - has been to raise awareness among our Association churches that all of the 170 plus churches are an integral and necessary part of HEBA - and that HEBA is not an office in the centre of Birmingham. I believe that the restructuring of the Regional Ministry Team and the geographical responsibilities of individual Regional Ministers will ensure as far as possible that this ‘family’ life will continue to ‘build’ as we learn once more to watch over each other and walk together.

‘... consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.’ (Eph. 2.19–22)

Rev'd Keith Osmund-Smith