Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 7, No. 3, 2007

es people genuinely cared for in the church’s pastoral oversight while allowing them to move in the process at their own speed; the latter (based on willing commitment) is intended ‘to be demanding of people’s discipleship’. 30 Then we might envisage a healthy dynamic ‘that draws people in from the circumference to the centre’, from a more formal membership to an organic one. 31 And, as the early General Baptist model indicated, Wright asserts that membership is about relationships: We are engaged with each other in such a way that we receive from each other aspects of the manifold grace of God, setting an example to each other.... This is the continual activity of the church of Christ, to be a discipling community. 32 We have seen, then, that there is a commitment to a covenant model of church amongst Baptists. The question that confronts us is how this covenant model ‘works’ for today’s generation. Is the covenant model sufficient for a post-modern society? It is noticeable that there are writers who are questioning what it means to belong to a community in post-modern culture. Myers, for instance, asserts that ‘people crave connection, not contracts’, 33 thereby denying any significant relationship between commitment and community: ‘When we search to belong, we aren’t really looking for commitment. We simply want to connect.’ 34 Likewise, Pete Ward suggests that attempts to develop community in ‘liquid modernity’ are an illusion - though he does maintain 29 See Wright, New Baptists, pp. 76-9. 30 Wright, Free Church, p. 61. 31 Ibid), p. 62. 32 Ibid., p. 66. 33 J.R. Myers, The Search to Belong. Rethinking Intimacy, Community, and Small Groups (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003), p. 27. 34 Ibid., p. 12. 12 Journal of European Baptist Studies the central importance of relationships/ His conclusion is that the desire that used to create community now creates communication instead. Notwithstanding, others question the prioritising of belief above belonging in churches relevant to postmodern culture. Brian Harris, for example, asserts the central importance of community-belonging while holding an open, missional ecclesiology. 37 Christopher Walker agrees, o o stating that missional church is ‘First and foremost ... a community’. And, perhaps this change in perspective is the key to our translating early Baptist theology to today’s church. I believe, given the biblical images of church 39 and the theological arguments sketched above, that the covenant/commitment model for the church as community has mileage in contemporary society, but particularly in its mediatorial and missional role in the changed missional context. In his essay, ‘The “Gift” of the Church. Ecclesia Crucis, Peccatrix Maxima, and the Missio DeV, M. Jinkins, says that ‘The church exists in the history of the world for the sake of missio Dei, and for no other reason’. Though I would argue that the church has t