Being Baptist - Called Gathered Sent was released on 30 May and this week raced past the 1,000 view mark, making it one of the fastest viewed films in the history of the Baptist Union of Great Britain's You Tube channel.

The 15-minute film intersperses tales from Baptist history with interviews of Baptists today on a variety of topics including women's ministry, worship, baptism, evangelism and church meetings.
It was produced to mark the 400th anniversary and accompany the popular Baptist Basics leaflet series, produced by BUGB's publications department in 2009 as a resource to help churches explain to prospective new members what it means to belong to a Baptist church.

Response to the film has been broadly positive so far. The Revd Charles Crosland, minister of 

Shrewsbury Baptist Church, writing on his blog, said, 'I thought this was an excellent video.
'It explains clearly some of the history of Baptists and the key and sometimes pioneering, roles played by this group of Christians, in the abolition of the slave trade, issues of religious liberty and the ministry of women. I suspect very few people in our churches know this history so this will be a useful teaching tool.'

Amanda Allchorn, head of BUGB's communications department, and one of the executive producers of the film, said,  'We are delighted with the amount of people who have seen Being Baptist - Called Gathered Sent so far, which is sure to increase considerably when it is released on DVD later this summer.
'This was a collaborative project involving six Baptist churches and four Associations. It is exciting to see the hard work we did together being such affirmed by Baptists across the country and worldwide.'

View Being Baptist - Called Gathered Sent
www.youtube.com