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‘Women who made a Difference’ - End in
Sight
Marking ‘”150”
with a Celebration of Queensland Women
After more than a year of activity, we hope to finalise the current
project celebrating the life and work of Baptist women in the
next few months so it can be ready for publication early in the
new year. It is intended to launch it in association with “Q150”,
the state wide commemorations in 2009 to mark 150 years since
the separation of Queensland from NSW as a colony (and later
state) in its own right.
More than twenty women will be featured in the book which covers
the entire period of time that Baptists have existed in Queensland.
They include the first Baptist missionary, two World War I Nursing
Sisters, the first female optometrist in Queensland, the founder
of a prominent girls’ school, “the Stamp Lady”
who raised thousands of dollars for missionary work by processing
used postage stamps, and the wife of a prominent South Brisbane
bus company proprietor. There are also other missionaries, housewives,
pastors’ wives and a deaconess who was a former missionary
to indigenous people.
The project was launched at a function on Sept 21, 2007 held
at Clayfield Baptist Church which was addressed by Ros Gooden
of GIA. In her address she highlighted the significant contribution
made by Queensland to Baptist mission work.
We hope to publish this project in book form and are also considering
some forms of electronic publishing . It will consist of short
chapters on each of the women as well as photographs. It will
be a companion volume to the earlier book by Rev Mel Williams,
“Cameos of Baptist Men in 19th Century Queensland”
which featured people such as James Swan, the Kingsford and Grimes
families and T.B. Stevens.
We would like to add a few extra names, so we would welcome additional
information. We want to make this a worthy contribution to “Q150”
because of the importance that churches and Christian people,
especially women have made to separation in the first place
and to the on-going life of Queensland.
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Checking our Vital Signs
By David Parker
An analysis of church membership statistics in the recently
issued 2008 Queensland Baptists Handbook gives interesting results.
The figures are for June 30, 2007, now a year old.
There are 179 churches listed, but of these 45 or 25% gave no
figures, which is about the same percentage as 2006. Only about
10 of these are fellowships without a formal membership, the
others being ordinary churches, including a number of larger
ones. Total attendance at services was 24,010 adults and 5787
children, but there is no indication in the Handbook as to how
these figures are calculated so their significance is problematic.
Comparable figures for 2006 were 19,771 and 6,359 respectively.
There are 126 churches with usable membership figures for 2007.
About half used a different figure for their 2006 membership
compared with what they had reported a year before. 24 lowered
it and 22 increased it, mostly by only a few members, but in
the extremes, by more than 50, thus rendering the previous year’s
figures unreliable. 121 churches gave usable figures for both
2006 and 2007, making a comparison possible.
So what where the changes? The 2007 figures ranged from 46%
to 175% of those given for 2006. About 50 churches remained more
or less the same (+/- 5%) with 18 of these reporting exactly
the same number. Absolute figures revealed losses of 145 members
in one church and 53 at another (both roll revision) and gains
of 35 and 25 (visitation) at the other end of the scale. Only
15 churches got to a double figure increase, while almost as
many, 13, suffered a double figure decline. 4 churches reported
less than 80% of the previous membership—3 city and one
country, with two indicating the losses came about through a
massive roll revision, another reported large numbers of resignations
and the other involved only a very small number of people in
all.
36 churches indicated a growth of up to 20% and those involving
significant numbers of people were located in suburban, beachside,
and regional areas. Those with larger percentage growth were
located in suburban, remote and beachside areas, including an
ethnic church. Reasons for growth were visitation and transfer.
Overall there were only 174 additions by baptism, which is about
1.5% of the total membership, but the total number of baptisms
was 495 indicating a serious lack of follow-through to membership.
The average of reported membership sizes is 89, down from a peak
of 97 in 1991, but much higher than the 60 average which was
common 40 years ago. However, a century ago it was well over
100. Almost half of the churches have fewer than 50 members,
20 of them less than 25 (8 in the metro area). Only 11 are greater
than 200 (7 in the metro area), and 28 between 100 and 200..
It is noticeable that there is a lack of conversions (as represented
by baptisms) and membership growth, with a consequent reliance
on transfer and visitation. The serious losses in some places
due to resignation and revision are a concern. The spectrum
of sizes of churches should also be considered in relation to
their viability. Further analysis of where and in what type of
churches variations occurred would reply further careful study.
Linking this information with National Church Life Survey and
Census figures is also likely to be valuable. In the short term,
better reporting by churches would mean more useful analysis.
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