Northern Baptist Association
An update from Regional Leader Reti Ah-Voa for 2024.
Listen to Reti's update in The Lowdown podcast.
Ehara tāku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini.
(My strength is not as an individual, but as a collective.)
We give thanks for each of our 100 churches/faith communities of Northern Association, from Doubtless Bay and Cornerstone (Kaitaia) in the north to Waiuku and Franklin in the south. We are grateful for every pastor, chaplain, mission leader and their respective ministry team who have, over the 12 months since last September, carried the heavy burden and joy of faithful service to their respective faith communities and their neighbourhoods.
The Lord has been generous to our faith communities. He has called a number of folks into new roles over the last year, leaving a small number of vacancies yet to be filled across our faith communities.
We welcomed as new Fellowships and leaders: Pastor Toetu Iose and Samoan Baptist Church of the Living Christ (Favona), Pastor Danny Sohn and the Hope of Heaven Baptist Church (Korean, Millwater) and Pastor Jack Kwon and the Overflowing Baptist Church (Korean, Papatoetoe).
We acknowledge the merger of Ekklesia Samoan Baptist Manurewa and Samoan Baptist Māngere. We also acknowledge the closure and ministries of Pastor Eddie Tuala and God’s Family Fellowship (Onehunga); Pastor Esera Maeata’anoa and Grace Community Church (New Lynn); Co-Pastors Blue Bradley, Cathie Cottle and Tim Shallard and the closure of Mosaic Morningside.
Our congratulations to the faith communities who celebrated special milestones or anniversaries: Living Waters Otara (60th Anniversary), Kerikeri (40th Anniversary), Liberty (Centenary), Lifepoint (20th Anniversary), Ōtāhuhu (12th Anniversary as Combined, 146th of founding), Render Gathering (7th Anniversary), Eastgate Baptist Church (40th Anniversary), Belmont Baptist Church (75th Anniversary) and Titirangi Baptist Church (70th Anniversary).
The Board’s Church Survey conducted in December 2023 identified key priorities around Associating (walking with one another in unity and maturity), Growing young, Ethnic Minority Congregations, Leadership Development (growing our leadership base and managing transition) and Resourcing with work continuing in previous areas of Everyone a witness (discipleship) and mission with Māori.
We have continued to remind ourselves of our founding value as Baptists of being a covenant people and repositioning our identity as more than a collective of faith communities and towards being a biblical whānau or family of faith communities. We have also spent time in our pastor clusters around discerning the mind of Christ and, as a region, started to look to the paerangi (horizon) to see what God is saying to us about our calling, our future hope, and the generations to come.
We celebrated the wonderful initiatives and events held in or involving people from our region including: Samoan combined Youth Service, Korean Combined Pastors and families Retreat, the Intergenerate Conference, Southern Kingdom hosting National Hui at Manukau City Baptist Church; participation in various sessions of the National Hui, registration training for bi-vocational pastors, the Northern Easter Camp, eCamp, Northland Easter Camp, 12 Voices – 12 Encounters (Eastgate Baptist Church), Combined Chinese Good Friday Service; Community Housing (Long Bay Baptist Church), Follow Conference (Manukau City Baptist Church), Discipleship Workshop (Northland), Embodied Hope Conference (Northcote Baptist Church), STAND graduation (Windsor Park Baptist Church), KB Leadership Training camp, Xtend, Way2Go, Psalms Conference (Carey Baptist College), Hui-aa-Maaori (Tauranga), the Regional Hui, the Communication Course, Baptist Leaders Orientation, Waka Whakakitenga Tauihi Journey (Visionwest), Supervision Training, In-person and online Boundaries Training, and others – thank you to all involved!
Across our pastor clusters, we wrestled with consultation around recommendations for a new serious misconduct process and constitutional changes. This led to some of the first written submissions, robust conversations at our Saturday sessions of Regional Hui and active discussions thereafter.
As a whānau, we continue to bear the burden alongside the Baptist Union of the closure of Hillside Baptist Church three years ago. We had set a faith stretch on last year’s giving to $160,000, and while we have also been encouraged by our whānau around church contributions, we were $20,000 shy of that target. Thank you to those who support our work so generously.
We have continued to press into gospel renewal as a national movement alongside Charles Hewlett (our National Leader), the Regional Leader group, and the National Support Team. It is an honour to partner with and champion Arotahi and Carey Baptist College as and when we are able. We also support the work of Luke Kaa-Morgan as Te Pouarataki mō te Hīkoi alongside Te Whāriki and particularly acknowledge Josie in her role here.
We want to continue encouraging bold and courageous thinking and doing in our rohe as we enter the next season of gospel renewal among the people and in the places we are planted.
This update is from the 2024 Annual Report of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand, which you can view here.
Photo: Hosanna Avondale Baptist Church
