New Federation President Wayne Hawkins is under no illusion: this is going to be the busiest year of his life.
Wayne, aged 38, is minister of the buzzing church at Southam, Warwickshire. He is on the town council there. He is chairman of a school governing body. He holds the reins of a lively community centre, used by 30 organisations and now recognised as one of the new Government backed children's centres. He chairs the Federation Mission and Society Committee.
He and his wife Lesley have five years old Thomas, AND in April a new baby is due.
What sort of a schedule does that make for a President who is pledged to help people think about their faith, and steer Christians away from the perils of fundamentalism?
Wayne, an accomplished musician, faces the prospect of a year among our churches with a cheerful confidence that God will give him, his family and his very understanding church, the strength and courage for the task.
So who is Wayne Hawkins? He was born in Swindon as number three in a family of six children. He went to the village parish church and when his parents divorced he moved with his mother to Washington, Tyne and Wear, in the north of England, and started to attend an independent church where he became a Christian, on seeing the quality of other people's lives in the congregation.
Leaving school, Wayne worked for a year in a bakery, before going to Birmingham University to study for a divinity degree. Further studies at Birmingham Bible Institute prepared him for ministry.
He was first called to the church at Scunthorpe, where members were wrestling with the problem of a huge town centre building. Eventually it was sold, and neat new premises were erected in a housing area of the town. The old building swallowed money. 'You could spend £70,000 mending a leaky roof but it didn't bring one new person into the life of the church.'
Wayne is realistic about his ministry at Scunthorpe. I did all the things a minister is supposed to do; being faithful to the Word, and I thought people would come flocking in. But they didn't'. It was then he started ask whether there might be another way of thinking about faith than the fundamentalist evangelical stance he had picked up from the church in which he became a Christian.
'I did a short course at the Urban Theology Unit with Dr John Vincent in Sheffield, which helped to move him on from traditional evangelical approaches.'
Is the work of ministry different now from how our forebears saw it, poring over the Bible and preparing sermons in the mornings, visiting the flock in the afternoons, attending meetings in the evening?
It is, says Wayne. 'Every church presents different challenges. Southam is unique - the late Graham Adams modernised the worship area, taking the pews out and creating meeting space within tight site restrictions. Graham's vivid imagination and powerful negotiating skills also brought modern school premises into Federations hands from Warwickshire County Council.'
Part of the idea was to offer residential facilities for young people from Federation churches. It hasn't worked out that way, and Wayne has piloted through the changes which have made the building into a vibrant community facility, with 30 groups using it every week, including a gymnastics club with more than 150 young people, Guides, Brownies, and Age Concern. There is a full time day nursery, and a County Council Youth Club.
'It all shows that the church is fulfilling its caring mission,' says Wayne, 'It is about modelling a way of being the community which is counter cultural to the way things are today.'
The centre is now recognised as a children's unit under Government policy, and so qualifies for impressive grants for the building, furniture and management. Some £20,000 is being spent on new heating boilers, and similar sums for various other building work, windows and furniture. Carol Pratt brings wide experience to the management of the centre, along with admin assistant Pam McConnell.
So how does all this tie in with the traditional view of what a minister does, which he found so frustrating in his first church? 'Well, if ministry is about being chaplain to the church members it becomes highly inward looking and I don't see a positive future for it. The idea is in decline, and uses an enormous amount of resources.
'A full time minister is the second most expensive thing that a church has, the building being the first and if you are not looking beyond that circle of members and friends to bring in new people and make connections with the community then inevitably it is going to dwindle.
'A sea change is taking place now in the whole concept of ministry. For me, it is much more about developing community links, and helping people to make the connection between what happens Monday to Saturday and the Christian faith. It's also about helping people who have no contact with the Church to show that we really do care about them.
'When they ask why are we involved in things like the community centre, we have an opportunity to say something about our faith.'
Wayne does not deny being 'something of a stirrer.' and says 'I like to make people think. Ministry should give them the tools to think about how the world of work, home and faith meet. Not that I want to tell them what to think'.
So far as the Federation is concerned, Wayne is confident that it is doing what was intended at its formation in terms if mission and service. He points to involvement with the Council for World Mission, saying: 'Local churches are CWM in the place where they exist, and the Federation is the conduit through which CWM resources of people and expertise can be used.'
What would he wish to say to Federation churches? 'A word of encouragement. We have a tremendous resource in our buildings and we can open them up as places of welcome and acceptance.'
Christian churches are portrayed as in decline. Is decline inevitable? Yes, because they are by and large just not meeting people's needs, where people generally are. So we have to explore new ways of being the church. It may have to be for people who cannot get there at 10.30 on Sunday mornings. What about a "breakfast church" where people can read the papers, have a bacon sandwich, and reflect on what the world is like and how the Christian faith is relevant to its problems.'
The growing churches are those with a right wing evangelistic approach, such as the charismatic pentecostals. Is there a future for his more 'liberal' approach? Wayne knows that the Pentecostal churches are growing because they are more vigorous and vocal in their presentation of Christianity.