Friday, October 12, 2007
pastoral appointments and scholarship opportunity
This was one of the outcomes of our church meeting last nite
Opawa Baptist Church is a multi-congregational church situated in Christchurch. We are committed to mission into our local and wider community, as well as to holistic growth in our personal lives.
We are seeking expressions of interest for two new staff positions, starting late 2007/early 2008:
Mission Resourcing Pastor (1.5 days per week)
Support and enhance our current mission initiatives; ask “mission” questions of all we do, and “next step” questions of our mission programmes; work with lay people to establish additional mission initiatives; equip lay people to be missionally engaged in their workplaces and support the establishment of new congregations reaching different people.
Discipling Pastor (1.5-2 days per week)
We want someone to help us grow people by providing next steps for discipleship in all faith stages. This will include resourcing and enhancing existing activities including assimilation, pastoral care, spiritual growth, small groups, growth coaching, training, baptism and membership classes.
Missional church scholarship
Opawa Baptist Church is a multi-congregational church situated in Christchurch. We are committed to mission into our local and wider community, as well as to holistic growth in our personal lives. We want to continue to resource this direction of our church mission and so are offering a full fees scholarship in 2008 to a student training in a three year ministry degree program. We are seeking a person with a sense of call to ministry and a passion to express this call in pioneering mission in Western culture.
In exchange, you will use your fieldwork to participate in our church life and internship programme as part of a congregational planting team. This scholarship is awarded annually but can be awarded to the same applicant for a period of up to 3 years.
Expressions of interest to Rev Dr Steve Taylor, steve at emergentkiwi dot org dot nz
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There will be some ex All Blacks and Wallabies looking for jobs at the moment.
Comment by Andrew — October 12, 2007 @ 5:01 pm
Wow, what a awesome opportunity. If I was a part of the Opawa community, I’d be in there and applying like a ‘dirty shirt’. Especially the dicipling pastor position,” you will be assimilated, resistance in futile, you will become one with the borg.. “! That word ‘Assimilation’ has a dubious connotation about it – colonialism, imposed conformities, etc. Is there a better word ?… Mentorship perhaps ? Or is assimilation about ‘ membership ‘ ? If so, welcome to the ‘ club ‘ ?
Comment by Tangira — October 13, 2007 @ 3:41 am
Hi Steve,
just finishing a essay for my ethics course where I had to evaluate two proposals and make a recommendation back to the Church, one by a group wanting to focus on global issues the other group wanted to focus on local issues. So reading your post where it says ‘…committed to mission into our local and wider community…’ I was wondering how does Opawa draw its boundaries? How big is local?, how far does the wider community stretch?
Comment by joel — October 13, 2007 @ 6:32 pm
Joel,
exactly this type of question was asked at the meeting. the answer is both.
i gave the example of the fact that we have overseas missionaries and also run a simple english ministry inc Bible study here in New Zealand. So the old dichotomies of global and local are over. One of the aims of this position is to increase the conversation between the various outward ministries that we have (evangelism, community ministry, overseas mission),
steve
Comment by steve — October 13, 2007 @ 8:58 pm
hi steve,
thanks for that, I came to the same conclusion in my hypothetical situation so interesting to see what people conclude and why in the real world.
joel
Comment by joel — October 14, 2007 @ 8:30 am
I am an Indian catholic. Iam very eager to apply in the has den bosch university in neterland,U.K.
so i want to know about your scholarship programme.
Comment by brifen — October 21, 2007 @ 1:25 am
Brifen, as indicated in the blog, the scholarship is for someone to “use fieldwork to participate in our church life and internship programme as part of a congregational planting team.” Our church is in New Zealand (hence my blog is called emergentkiwi), not UK.
Good luck with your internet trawling for scholarships.
steve
Comment by steve — October 23, 2007 @ 3:54 pm
Assimilation = the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language, acccording to Wikipedia … its’ about discipleship and participation,
steve
Comment by steve — October 23, 2007 @ 4:00 pm