Welcome to our Women's Justice Resources Page
Rev Claire Nicholls, LB Regional Minister, co-ordinates the Women’s Justice Group.
The Women’s Justice group is part of London Baptists Justice Hub. We seek to raise awareness of issues that women encounter and to challenge where we see injustice happening. Working in collaboration with others we
- Seek to promote balance in our churches in leadership, noting that currently women make up less than 20% of fully accredited ministers in our churches, and recognising that the journey to this point has been slow and often painful.
- Celebrate the ways women are already leading and contributing in association and local church life.
- Explore ways in which we can encourage more women in London Baptist churches into accredited and other forms of ministry
- Look to make opportunities and create spaces for women ministers to meet, network and offer mutual support
- Encourage all members of London Baptists, including the wider association and local churches, to keep justice issues relating to women on their radar, and to raise up advocates and allies who can speak up when inequality and injustice is evident.
- Raise awareness of issues of injustice in wider society where women are treated unequally and are prevented from becoming all they have been created to be.
Underlying our commitment to women’s justice is the creation narrative in Genesis 1, where when God created humankind, we were created in God’s image, male and female, and it is as we find balance in gender, that we reflect God’s image better. The issue of justice is a Gospel issue, and where we find justice, we see more of Jesus.
The Women’s Justice hub currently has a particular focus on Women in leadership. We held our first Empowering Women Leaders event in 2023 are holding another in Spring 2025. We host a gathering for Women Ministers and Pastors termly in the LB Offices in Dock Street.
We are engaging with the work of Project Violet, a collaborative research project which aims is to help us understand more fully the theological, missional and structural obstacles women ministers face in the Baptist Community in Great Britain and identify ways forward.
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On Saturday 15th March 2025 the London Baptists Justice Hub are hosting an Empowering Women Leaders Day at Westbourne Park Baptist Church, W2 5DX
This conference will be an opportunity for ministers and leaders within LB to come together, be encouraged and explore God's call on the lives of women in our churches.
The event is open to women leaders and male allies who want to encourage and enable women in leadership.
The day will include worship, testimony, reflection, space to explore, a question panel, and prayer
With Keynote Speaker Rev Dr Canon Gale Richards, Regional Minister, Eastern Baptist Association.
Gale is a part-time regional minister for the Eastern Baptist Association, an Ecumenical Canon at Ely Cathedral, and a chaplain at Anglia Ruskin University. Gale completed a PhD with the University of Aberdeen in 2024 (with Stephen Finamore acting as her supervisor) which is entitled: "Ain’t I a Deborah? – the womanist perspectives of Black British women leaders and the renewal of Baptist church practices". Gale is currently engaged in postdoctoral research with Regent’s Park College, Oxford. She will speak on the theme of Rising to new heights drawing on some of the key images, symbols, and stories that the women leaders she interviewed as part of her PhD thesis named as helpful to them.
Please bring your own lunch, refreshments will be provided
Book your place here https://forms.office.com/e/aVgEBCXEiT
For more info contact Claire Nicholls using the contact form below
Project Violet
The findings of Project Violet were released on 2nd May 2024 on the Project Violet website and we are encouraged as an association to engage with and respond to the recommendations of the report.
Baptist Union Council accepted the Commitment to Action Report at their meeting in October 2024. This will be reviewed in October 2025. London Baptists have made a response, as have some of our churches. You can find the London Baptists Response in the downloadable files below.
It's not too late to look at the requests for change with your church, even if you have missed the September 30th deadline.
The launch webinar from Project Violet is now available for you to watch - it will give you an overview of the Project and how to engage with the research.
