The annual update from Leadership Co-ordination Director Karen Warner for 2024.
Listen to Karen's update in The Lowdown podcast.
As a Union of churches, our leadership spaces and leadership needs are many and varied. My role is to ensure that whether you are a church elder needing help with the pastoral search, a sole pastor looking for assistance with training material for a group of young leaders, or a new pastor wanting to understand Baptist Registration, you know where to go for that help and where to find the resources you need.
While leadership resourcing and support form the core of what my office provides, a significant focus of 2024 has been developing a process for helping us manage issues of serious misconduct by pastoral staff. Following the mandate from the 2023 National Hui, a proposed Serious Misconduct Process has been developed. Consultation with our churches was undertaken from May to July. The proposal was discussed at the five regional hui, and over 30 individual and joint written submissions were received. This consultation resulted in the proposal being taken to the 2024 National Hui.
I have also been working with the Code of Ethics and Conduct Advisory Group on developing a new code of ethics and conduct for pastors and registered leaders. This group has spent the last 18 months listening, reviewing, and writing a proposal that is now going out for consultation. We hope to have the document’s final version, Te Wao Tōtara, A Forest of Leaders, available early next year.
The newly revamped Baptist Registration continues to ensure that our pastors and leaders receive quality professional development and external supervision support. This year’s priority learning, Safe and Healthy Boundaries Training, has been very well received, with all registrants attending the course in person, ensuring that collegial conversations added depth to the learning. We are now moving to the final stage of the registration changes, with all registrants required to have an approved supervisor starting in 2025. This requirement will mean that our registered pastors and leaders are receiving supervision from trained and experienced practitioners.
The breadth of resources we provide for elders, pastors and leaders continues to grow. For information on what is available or to make contact, please check out the Leadership Hub website: leadership.baptist.nz.
This update is from the 2024 Annual Report of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand, which you can view here.
Photo: Resource printouts by Karen Warner
