The General Director is responsible for the overall leadership and management of Arotahi (NZBMS). The role exists to provide strategic direction, ensure effective organisational performance, maintain alignment with the organisation’s mission and values, and work in partnership with governance to support long‑term sustainability. Alongside this, the General Director fosters and develops relationships with Aotearoa New Zealand Baptist churches and our global partners.

The Search Team will go through a process that assesses and considers all applications, including interviewing a short-list of applicants. Assuming there are suitable applicants, and the Search Team decide together that one person is suitable to be the next General Director of Arotahi, they will present the name and details of that person to Mission Council.

Mission Council together will consider this recommendation from the Search Team, and hopefully give their ratification.

Mission Council then present this name to National Council, who are also required to ratify the recommendation before going forward. Once ratified by National Council, the name of the person is made public (expected 5 October 2026) so that all of the members within the churches of the Baptist Union have one month to discern together how their Baptist National Hui delegates will vote (yes or no) in the election at the Hui hosted by Golden Sands Baptist Church in Papamoa, 4-7 November. The result of this election will be made public.

It is important that local churches seek together from Christ either a collective ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to vote in the recommendation made by the National Council and Mission Council as the next General Director for Arotahi at the National Hui in November.

Voting in this sense doesn’t carry the same connotations as a democratic vote. In a democratic society, we exercise our right to vote. In this context, as Baptists, rather than a democracy, we have a ‘Christocracy’ where we humbly and carefully express our sense as to what Jesus wants.

Every Baptist church in the Union has at least three voting delegates allowed at National Hui (5-7 November) – either in-person or virtually. The number of voting delegates for each church is dependent on the size of the church membership – as listed in the annual church statistic returns.

The Baptist Union Constitution does not define the percentage of Hui delegate votes for this appointment, therefore the election threshold will be 51%.

If the threshold is met, the new General Director for Arotahi will be appointed. If the threshold is not reached and we have truly discerned the mind of Christ, then we trust that God is at work, and we then take a deep breath, and make a plan for what comes next.

Baptist theologian Paul S. Fiddes (in Tracks and Traces – Baptist Identity in Church and Theology, p84-88) links discernment with being a covenant people who are charged with “watching over one another” and notes how this uniquely influences Baptists when meeting and voting. In the local church context discernment means the members being informed, being in prayer, and responding as Christ might lead.

Another Baptist theologian, Stephen Holmes says: “The practice of church meeting is not democratic… because the task of all present is not to express a preference, still less gain a majority, but to discern together the mind of Christ. The church gathers corporately to seek to hear its Lord’s voice and to commit itself to obey what it has heard.” (Baptist Theology pp102).

In this case National Council and Mission Council are asking local churches to seek together from Christ either a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to vote for their recommended person as the next General Director of Arotahi. Some examples of how this might be done:

• Put this on the agenda of a church Member’s Meeting in the month before National Hui – inform, discuss, pray, and get a sense of how Christ might have your church delegates at Hui respond in the vote (‘yes’ or ‘no’).
• Information about the General Director appointment recommendation could be added to your church regular prayer diary, with a time of discussion and prayer together in a Sunday church service in the month of October.
• Church Elders groups/Boards could spend some time in their regular meetings to discuss and pray, seeking input from church members.

We believe God will bring us to this place in the process, and we ask that individuals and local churches continue to pray and participate – leading to the vote of each church’s National Hui delegates in November.

We expect the person recommended by Mission Council and National Council will be made public on Monday 5 October – one month before our National Hui (5-7 November).

Arotahi is the global mission mechanism of the Baptist Union of New Zealand, formally called NZBMS – New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society. Through Arotahi we’ve been working globally for 140 years with incredible support from many generous and sacrificial Kiwis in Baptist churches.

1885 saw our very first global worker Rosalie MacGeorge journey to British India (present day Bangladesh) to partner with, and serve, many Bengali groups. In 1931, we were invited into Tripura by the Maharaja, where many of our team served faithfully until 1973.

We’ve also been to many other beautiful nations including Zaire, Papua New Guinea, Irian Jaya (West Papua) in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Solomon Islands, France, Fiji, Hong Kong and Macau.