About Us

Derbyshire Baptists is the successor to the old Derbyshire Baptist County Union. We are a voluntary network of Baptist churches more or less in Derbyshire. (One or two of our member churches fall outside the current county boundaries of Derbyshire.) Our purpose is to bear witness to our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour in ways that are appropriate to the locations in which we live and that are consistent with four hundred years of Baptist witness around the world. There is a short summary of what we believe on another page.

There are two distinctive attributes of Baptist churches that are worth mentioning here. We believe that each congregation is responsible under God for its own direction and governance. Baptists do not believe in a hierarchical church structure in which people outside the local church can tell that church "what to do".

Hand in hand with that, Baptists recognise that the local church is not the be all and end all, and that the Church consists of all those who accept Jesus as Lord and who strive to be obedient to his call. So, with our local autonomy comes a regional responsibility. We have a duty of love and care to the regional, national and international family of Baptist Christians.

It is in this context that Derbyshire Baptists has its roots and its life.