Christine Stride is Executive Assistant to the Baptist National Leader and works at the Baptist National Support Centre in Auckland. She is part of Titirangi Baptist Church.
The Baptist National Support Centre is hosting Baptist World Alliance chief executive Elijah Brown during his visit to New Zealand.
Elijah is taking a few days out of his visit to Australia to spend time with our National Leader and learn a little more about Baptist ministry and mission in this part of the world.
Included in his trip will be speaking at Bethlehem Baptist Church’s morning services on Sunday 13 October, a special lunch in Auckland with the leaders of our ethnic churches and an evening with younger leaders. On Tuesday 15 October there is a public meeting at Oxford Terrace Baptist Church at 7pm where he will be giving a global Baptist view on conflict, displacement, hope and freedom (please RSVP for this event to Upper South Baptist Association Regional Leader Chris Chamberlain [email protected] ).
National Leader Charles Hewlett says, “I had the privilege of meeting Elijah at the BWA Conference in Norway last year and he expressed a real keenness to visit us in New Zealand.
I look forward to giving him a small glimpse of how much New Zealand Baptists are committed to the mission of God.”
Who is Elijah Brown?
The US-based Rev. Dr. Brown is an American scholar, minister, human rights activist, and executive officer. He is the general secretary and chief executive of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) the global umbrella for Baptist organisations.
He specialises in human rights and religious liberty. He previously served as Executive Vice President of 21Wilberforce, a Christian religious freedom and human rights organisation. While in that role he travelled with a team to Iraq and was the primary author of one of the first reports to document ongoing genocide being committed at that time.
He was also an associate professor of religion at East Texas Baptist University (where he was voted favourite faculty and staff member by the student body), undertaking research on, among other things, Eritrean refugee camps in Ethiopia and documenting abuses that were later referenced in reports by the United Nations.
He is married to Amy, and they have three children.
Since his January 2018 induction, Elijah has launched initiatives such as:
· BWA Forum on Aid and Development (BFAD), a network of more than 20 global Baptist aid agencies investing more than US$20 million annually into aid, relief and community development;
· 21Wilberforce Global Freedom Centre, a religious freedom and human rights centre offering training, capacity building, and advocacy around the world;
· Horizons, a global training and education programme for children and youth workers in 12 languages;
· Global Baptist Mission Network, a network of more than 20 Baptist mission agencies and initiatives.
Image credit: Baptist Standard Instagram retrieved 26 Sept 2024
