Carey Baptist College has high quality, research-active lecturers, many of whom have significant practical ministry experience. However, the Baptist family of churches, who have been resourcing the college for more than 90 years, usually have access to this teaching only via people who train through Carey. This means less than half a per cent of New Zealand Baptists get to hear these teachers on a regular basis.1
“I wondered if we could make it easy for everyone in the Baptist family to get access to Carey’s excellent teaching. That thought birthed our new Focus webinar series,” says Carey’s Director of Lifelong Learning, Dr Mike Crudge.
“Web seminars or ‘webinars’ have been around for more than two decades and approximately 90% of New Zealanders are active internet users. So, in terms of accessibility, the Focus webinars are a huge development,” says Mike.
On the first Wednesday of the month (March-October, 7.30pm) a new topic will be brought into focus from the areas of Culture, Old Testament, Pastoral Care, New Testament, Youth, Mission, History, and Theology.
Each webinar will be an hour long, containing 40 minutes of content, with live questions and answers. These will be recorded, with ongoing access available online. A short reading list will be included with each webinar. The cost is $25 per webinar (individual or a group), or people can subscribe to them all for $150 (25% discount: get two free webinars).
“You can watch on your own or create a home group for the eight-month series. I suggest meeting fortnightly on Wednesday nights, with a discussion in-between the monthly webinars,” says Mike.
For a list of topics and lecturers, and to register, go to lifelonglearning.nz/focus.
Reference:
- There are various figures on how many Baptists there are in New Zealand. The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand has the figure of 54,300 from the 2013 Census. Carey has about 400 students each year, about half being from Baptist churches. Therefore 0.36% of Baptists are being taught directly by Carey lecturers each year. https://teara.govt.nz/en/diverse-christian-churches/page-1.
