One of my roles as President of the Association is to sit on the board of Baptist Care SA. This is a real privilege as I get to hear about and be involved in a myriad of projects seeking to assist the most disadvantaged in our communities.
One of my roles as President of the Association is to sit on the board of Baptist Care SA. This is a real privilege as I get to hear about and be involved in a myriad of projects seeking to assist the most disadvantaged in our communities.
For those of you who don’t know, Baptist Care SA is an expression of Baptist Churches SA. Originally West End Baptist Mission, it was founded in 1913 to help people who were homeless in Adelaide.
Over the years, Baptist Homes for Aged, Mylor Baptist Camp and Baptist Community Services have all been initiated by Baptist Churches of South Australia and in 2008, Baptist Care SA was formed, encompassing all these entities.
The objectives of Baptist Care SA are as follows:
- To express and provide the love of God on behalf of Baptist Churches of South Australia Inc to people who are aged, in poverty, sick, suffering, distressed, subject to misfortune, disabled, helpless or otherwise disadvantaged or marginalised; and
- To work with local member Baptist Churches, Baptist Churches of South Australia Inc, Baptist Care Australia Inc and Australian Baptist Ministries for the outworking of community services.
To maintain Baptist DNA in Baptist Care SA, all the board members – and the CEO – need to be a member in good standing of a church that is part of Baptist Churches of SA.
These are challenging roles as Baptist Care SA now employs around 1000 people, has a multi-million-dollar turnover and together with the bureaucracy and legislation surrounding the government contracts it holds, there is a high level of expertise required at the governance level.
You will probably be aware that Graham Brown, the current CEO of Baptist Care SA, has announced his decision to step aside from the role at the end of the year. Can I ask you all to be in prayer as the process continues to find a successor to this key role.
As we move into a new season with our own newly appointed Director of Ministries and a new CEO of Baptist Care SA, both organisations are eager to take the opportunity to strengthen the existing relationship we have.
The question we are continuing to ask is: with over 70 churches present in local communities around South Australia partnering with a highly skilled and knowledgeable organisation – whose vision is “Helping every South Australian achieve their full potential” – how can we best demonstrate that Baptists really do care?
