Baptist Community Services - NSWS & ACT (BCS) began almost an after-thought, according to Rev Gerry Ball, in Striving for Excellence, published for BCS’ 60th anniversary.
Included in the President’s Address (Rev W.H. Wingfield) at the 1938 Assembly for the Baptist Union of NSW were these words:
During this Assembly we are to launch a Million Schilling Scheme for a Baptist Forward Movement. When you give consideration to this matter let me urge you to remember the great missionary saying, “When God is your partner, make your plans large.”
“No one could have guessed that those two sentences, almost an aside in his address, actually held within them the promise of the beginning of the NSW Baptist Homes Trust [the former name of BCS],” wrote Rev Ball.
But while delegates at the pre-WWII Assembly may not have known what was to come, the seeds of God’s vision for a new and significant Christian care ministry had been planted.
In 1942, the Forward Movement plan was amended to include funding “for social work in NSW”, including “a Children’s Home” and “a Home of Peace for Women”.
While at this point just entries on a funding wish list, these two items foreshadowed some of the early activities of the yet to be formed NSW Baptist Homes Trust.
While for most at the time, the Forward Movement vision focused on emphasising more aggressive personal evangelism, others had a dream for NSW and ACT Baptists to develop a stronger to commitment to social action. They wanted to see the love of Christ expressed in practical ways to people in need.
Among them was one of the organisation’s founding fathers F.J. Church, who would go on become the pivotal figure in the development of BCS as its longest serving President.
In Striving for Excellence, Gerry Ball writes that Church, as a young university student, speaking at Christian Endeavour meetings at Stanmore Baptist Church, would expound the need for Christianity to have a social expression, particularly to relieve poverty, establish caring attitudes and welfare organisations.
In an address in 1989, Church reflected that he had been told in these days that his views on “social Christianity” prevented him from teaching Sunday School.
The likes of F.J Church and R.E Walker and the others who shared their dreams, were certainly people of faith and perseverance. Despite opposition from within Baptist ranks, the great challenges of WWII, limited financial resources and none of the infrastructure that the contemporary BCS takes for granted, this band of determined men and women worked tirelessly to see the Baptist Homes Trust established in 1944.
For the next eight years a growing group of volunteers poured their heart and soul into what was a small, humble grassroots organisation, with the vision of establishing care facilities for the aged and children in need.
It must have been some day for them on January 31, 1953, when Yallambi, the Trust’s first aged care home was opened in Carlingford. An estimated 2500 people were on hand to see the Lieutenant Governor and Chief Justice of NSW, the Hon K.W. Street officially open the home.
Three years later in 1956, the Trust’s first children home Karingal was opened in Mosman.
The BCS care journey had begun.
The organisation was birthed in a very different world to that of 2009, but some things never change. Today the BCS heartbeart remains to express the love of Jesus to people in need.
Thousands of people this week will be touched by BCS’ hands of care and as their lives are enhanced by the great work of our dedicated staff and volunteers, we can look back to the 1940s and be reminded of those that rolled up their sleeves to make all of what we have today a reality.