ABSTRACT
In England and Wales, according to the Census of 1851, Baptist churches attracted well over half a million worshippers. Whilst there are a range of churches and groups of churches which regard themselves as 'Baptist', in this chapter the author restricts himself to churches in membership of the Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB), which amounts to over 2,000 churches, the overwhelming majority of which are in England. The expectation of examining the Baptist Union in the 1980s was that inspirational leadership would help churches to move forward. By the early 1980s several Baptist congregations, for example Gold Hill, Chalfont St Peter and Commercial Road, Guildford, were emerging as models of Baptist renewal. Baptists were very aware in the period examined here of the rapidly changing face of British society. There was a distinct preference in Baptist churches, as Darrel Jackson found in his research, for 'relational discourse' over 'denominational discourse'.
