Nigel Coles
Job Title: Senior Regional Minister
Role within WEBA
I'm the Team Leader, which means I take responsibility for what we do and how we do it! Fortunately I have two great colleagues as Regional Ministers plus Geoff, Lesley and Ruth who form the wider staff team. Specifically, I'm trying to focus more time on 'strategic conversations' rather than purely pastoral ones - with Ministers and Churches. I deal with 'settlement' issues - helping Churches find Ministers and vica- versa. I also have a whole variety of networking and co-ordinating responsibilities which relate within and beyond the Baptist family. However, overarching this is my desire to see a network of healthy growing Churches who are making difference in Jesus' name across the WEBA region.
Can you give us an idea of what this involves by describing your 'average' day?
Average day does not really exist, which is the way I like it if I'm honest. I can be out all day, or in all day (those are far less frequent). I spend time sitting down, preferably with decent coffee, talking one-to-one with Ministers and other leaders, meeting with deacons and other groups, leading whole Church gatherings, helping individuals and groups find ways forward, seeking potential partners for Churches which are stuck, answering e-mail in-between commitments, struggling to find space to stand back and gain perspective, driving in the car (although no where is more than an hour away in WEBA) I can pray (usually with eyes open) and listen to the Bible Society's brilliant NT on CD, as well as music most would rather not know about!
When were you ordained?
1986 in North Cheam
This role combines running the WEBA office with management of WEBA's two trust companies
What job did you do before that?
I worked for Barclays Bank in Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire.
What roles have you had since then?
I spent five years after Spurgeon's College (4 years) as the Assistant Minister of North Cheam Baptist Church. From there I moved down to Counterslip in Bristol for just under ten years before being asked to become Area Superintendent for what was then the Western Area prior to WEBA being formed.
What are you really interested in?
Too much - that is, for a normal life: Football, sport generally, running, birdwatching, DIY, reading, films, gardening, photography, art, people-watching, hill-walking, exploring foreign cultures and countries. On a Christian front I have many interests, but they revolve around what we're know calling missional leadership. Oh and I love the Church. Basically a jack of all trades master of none kind of person!
If you had to write a personal purpose statement, what would it be?
Being the kind of person who enables others to become more like Jesus.
How can you help churches?
Where do we go from here? How do we take the next step? How do we get out of this mess? How might we begin to connect with our community? Where can we find a decent Minister? What does fruitful mission look like? How can we develop the reality of being a team? Basically, I see my responsibility to help Churches discover their own answers to their place in the mission of God. I can be a small cog who is frequently amazed that I have the privilege to engage with Churches at turning points
What's the best way to contact you?
Definitely e-mail is the best way - you can always try an answer-phone message, but my human failings are less likely to surface via e-mail - I will get back to you, even if it's not straight away.
Email: nigelcoles@webassoc.org.uk
Read Nigel's blog here
Alisdair Longwill
Job Title: 
Regional Minister for the Development of Churches
Role within WEBA
- To support colleagues and churches by working in partnership together.
- To develop resources and make available existing resources that help colleagues and churches to have a more missional focus.
- To oversee the application of various Mission grants to BUGB.
- Head up the association Mission Team.
- Represent WEBA on the BU Mission Network and the BU Grants Committee.
- Preaching in WEBA churches
Can you give us an idea of what this involves by describing your ‘average’ day?
I don’t have an “average day”, but recently my days have included:
Trying to re-write/ adapt a mission audit/ support resource for use in WEBA churches [This will be used initially in the churches that receive a Mission through Ministry grant (previously known as a Home Mission grant) and then made more widely available].
Visiting church leadership teams to help them reflect on how they can become more missional.
Receiving grant applications, writing a report on these churches and forwarding these to BUGB.
Leading (with my colleagues) the third round of the “Imagine” events.
On average I usually spend about 2 days in my office (study) and 3 days on the road (or vice versa). And I try (not always successfully) to limit my mid-week evenings out to 3 per week.
When were you ordained?
1986
What job did you do before that?
I worked in a teaching hospital in Glasgow as a Medical Laboratory Scientist in the Histopathology Dept.
What roles have you had since then?
Assistant Minister – Shoeburyness & Thorpe Bay Baptist Church (1986-1990); Minister –The Baptist Church, St. Peter’s (1990 -1996);
Minister – Minchinhampton Baptist Church (1996-2007).
What are you really interested in?
- How to make the shift from being an attractional church to an incarnational one.
- How churches can better engage with their communities – showing and sharing God’s grace.
- How we can reach out to people for Jesus by living more like Jesus.
- I have a love-hate relationship with golf.
- I used to play guitar – but kind of got out of the habit (a bit like the nun who went on holiday).
- I enjoy watching football on TV (but am not so small minded as some people I know who obsess over particular teams such as Liverpool and Manchester City!).
- Contrary to the opinions of my family – having a laugh!
If you had to write a personal purpose statement, what would it be?
(aspirationally) To increase God’s kingdom by showing and sharing God’s grace in all my relationships.
How can you help churches?
- By working in partnership together:
- With church leadership teams: exploring their future, missionally; reflecting on the status quo and the challenges of building God’s kingdom in an ever-changing culture; exploring and developing a clear and appropriate sense of purpose
- With churches: by facilitating a mission audit; in exploring the shift from being oriented to maintenance to becoming oriented to mission.
- By exploring and applying for any appropriate BUGB grants.
What’s the best way to contact you?
e-mail: awlongwill@googlemail.com