Mike Crudge is Communications Director at the Baptist National Support Centre in Auckland, and is part of Royal Oak Baptist Church.
Yes, that's me in the photos, looking as happy as ever.
Right about now, a special one-off print publication is starting to arrive in Baptist churches around the country - some churches will have copies this Sunday 16 August, others the following week. It commemorates 150 years of Baptist communication in New Zealand, stretching back to August 1876 when the Canterbury Evangelist newspaper first rolled off the press.
We thought the best way to honour a newspaper was to make one. With actual paper. That you can actually hold - like me in the photos above.
Inside its 52 pages you'll find a snapshot of who we are as a movement of 240 churches in 2026, organised around the five pathways of He Haruru Nui | The Acts 2 Movement: Bible, Story, Care, Neighbour, and Justice.
Alan Jamieson asks whether we're still living the dream of Joel 2 and Luke 4. Martin Sutherland traces how our messages and mediums have changed across a century and a half. Luke Kaa-Morgan offers wisdom on honouring te ao Māori well. There's Carey, Easter Camp, Baptist women, pastoral care, disability inclusion, stories from churches serving their communities, a trivia quiz to test your Baptist knowledge, and children telling us what the Bible is really about ("lots of God stories”).
More than 50 of our churches are represented in these pages – see if you can find yours inside! A big ‘thank you’ to all who contributed to this commemorative publication (including the advertisers) – there’s almost something for everyone.
So go hunting: Look for it at your church this Sunday or next. Take a copy home (just one per household!) and have a read. If it stirs a thought, write me a Letter to the Editor - because while this print edition is a one-off, the conversation is 150 years old and still going.
