KEYNOTE SPEAKER, TEACHER, LEADER and WRITER

A widely respected theologian, after 17 years as principal of Vose Seminary, Dr Brian Harris recently became the founding director of the AVENIR Leadership Institute, an initiative of the Carey Group committed to fostering leaders who will make a positive impact on the world. While leading the Institute, Brian continues to do some part time teaching at the Vose Campus of Morling College, is a Director of the Australian College of Theology and a Distinguished International Visiting Scholar of Spurgeon’s College, London. His book, The Tortoise Usually Wins: Biblical Reflections on Quiet Leadership (Paternoster, 2013) continues to empower people who don’t naturally see themselves as leaders, whilst his most recent book, Why Christianity is Probably True (Paternoster, 2020) is helping to shift the tone of the discussion about faith.

WHAT WE’LL COVER

Leaders in the first chair are expected to lead – it is what you do in that position. But what if you are in the second, third, or even tenth chair? Can we be an associate or junior team member and yet play a meaningful leadership role? This seminar explores ways to lead up (where we find a way to guide and influence those who are more senior than us), sideways (when we lead our peers), and down (leading those who report to us). It’s an important topic, especially in the unexpected season in which we find ourselves.

BRIAN HARRIS

Brian was the principal of Vose Seminary for 17 years and continues to lecture part time at what is now the Vose Campus of Morling College while he directs the AVENIR Leadership Institute, which he helped to found. A noted theologian and a popular speaker, Brian is also the author of several books including The Tortoise Usually Wins: Biblical Reflections on Quiet Leadership for Reluctant Leaders, and Why Christianity is Probably True, which is his latest book and is noted for its winsome approach to apologetics.

WHAT WE’LL COVER

If the good news about Jesus is truly good news, why does it seem so hard to share it? And why aren’t more people interested in it? In this elective, Andrew will expose some myths, lies, and prejudices that entangle our efforts to share the news, and offer practical, powerful, and unexpected ways forward in the outstandingly exciting ministry of sharing Jesus.

ANDREW TURNER

Andrew Turner is the Director of Crossover – a ministry focused on helping Australian Baptists share Jesus. Author of Fruitful Church, Taking the Plunge and the Sacred Agents blog, Andrew is passionate about helping others to know, serve and represent Jesus well. He also loves sports, games, jokes, puzzles, parkrun, history and oh yes his family, whom he lives with in the western suburbs of Adelaide.

WHAT WE’LL COVER

The past 2 years have been, to use an overused term, highly disruptive. A natural human longing is that things would return to what we are familiar with, our ‘normal’. But perhaps there is more to these years than meet the casual observer, could it be they have actually been more ‘normal’ than we realise? What this time has done is highlight that our world has changed and is changing, there have been massive significant shifts in cultural mindsets – everything has changed! How has it changed and how can we begin to pay attention to the new context as we seek to govern well the ministries and congregations God has entrusted to us? We will begin to explore this together, but don’t come expecting the answers, perhaps the first step is learning to ask questions!

MIKE MILLS

Married to Sue, Mike has 2 young-adult children and is currently the Executive Pastor at Rostrevor Baptist Church. After a career of some 8 years as a consulting engineer, Mike trained for the ministry serving at Rostrevor and Alice Springs before taking up roles at Baptist Churches of SA. After 12 years as state leader, he has recently returned to local church ministry. Mike has been involved in governance in local church and Christian ministry contexts for over 20 years.

WHAT WE’LL COVER

The mission of the church is not primarily to run services, oversee programs, or even to build community, it is to make disciples. It is the very mission Jesus gave as his final word to his first disciples. In an era in which the church has moved from the centre of society to the margins, and those who attend Church are doing so less regularly, there has never been a greater need to refocus our energy and attention on our core business; discipleship as the foundation for transforming lives, churches and the world.   

MARK SANDERS

Mark is the Church Development Facilitator for Baptist Churches SA and the former Senior Pastor of Hills Baptist Church. Despite being a sporting tragic and long suffering Crows fan, Mark is passionate about following Jesus and helping churches to be healthy, growing, and fruitful.

WHAT WE’LL COVER

Are you new to the church leadership team? Elected at the last AGM, and now wondering what on earth church governance is all about? Looked at a P&L and asked yourself, “What does a cruise liner have to do with our budget”? (Oh, that’s P&O isn’t it!!) Been vaguely aware that Baptist Churches SA exists but not sure what they do?

In this whirlwind tour, we will work through all these things. Quite possibly you may come out of this session with more questions than answers. But that’s okay, because now you will have the resources to find those answers.

GLENN DIXON

Glenn has been working at Baptist Churches SA for over 10 years supporting the local church with their administrative, policy, compliance, governance, and bookkeeping needs. He has been Treasurer at two Baptist churches and is currently a member of the Unley Park Baptist Deacons Team and Church Council.

Married to Miranda and with three kids, life is full.

WHAT WE’LL COVER

9 out of 10 people will try to visit your website before they visit your church. Whether you have an online presence or not, outsiders see your digital footprints as an extension of your church. So how can we use your website, social media, and email to welcome people in? And how can we do it in a way that won’t stress you out, or overwhelm your church budget?

In this class, I’m excited to share with you a really practical take on churches and digital media. You’ll come away with clarity and inspiration, plus I’ll reveal some of my favourite free tools and tricks to help kickstart your online presence.

If your church has been plodding along, wishing things were different, now’s your chance.

RUTH GRACE

Ruth is the Media and Communications Officer at Baptist Churches SA. After studying marketing at university and adopting the philosophy of ‘using her powers for good’, Ruth has worked in the not-for-profit space for five years and has a particular soft spot for small churches that need a leg-up.

As a mum of two cheeky girls, Ruth can often be found at the zoo watching meerkats, or scoring bargains on Facebook Marketplace.

WHAT WE’LL COVER

One of the biggest tools in our toolkit in Kids Ministry is planning, planning, planning. The past two years have been such a challenging time in kids ministry that despite our best efforts, the planning has gone out the window. It’s almost like crossing the road. You know that the goal is to get to the other side, so you map a route, look right, left, and then right again. All is clear, you start to cross, and almost instantly, get run over.

Come along to hear from Tash and other Kids Min leaders in our movement as they take you through some insights from their experiences of planning for the unexpected.

TASH PILLAY

Tash didn’t know that when she started as the Early Years Kids Min Coordinator at Rostrevor Baptist in 2017, she would be thrown into running kids programs online through a pandemic as their newly appointed Children and Families Pastor. Tash currently works as the Kids Ministry Facilitator at Baptist Churches SA. 

WHAT WE’LL COVER

You’ve probably heard the saying, “When it comes to Christian ministry, we need to keep the main thing the main thing.” Good advice. But what exactly is the main thing? For Dallas Willard at least, (and Jesus for that matter), “…making disciples is the main task of the church…” (The Great Omission). In other words, for youth ministry, the main thing is seeing Christ take his form in young people, that they would be people who orient their lives around being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, and doing what Jesus did. But, how do we do it? Come join the conversation.

RILEY SMITH

Riley is married to Naomi and joined the Victor Harbor Baptist Church staff team in 2016 as the Family Ministries Pastor. His role is to oversee the family ministries in the life of the church to see young people and families grow in faith, share life together as a community, and live as authentic followers of Jesus in our context. He loves long-distance running, playing and listening to music and, of course….coffee!

WHAT WE’LL COVER

What would Jesus do about climate change, humanitarian crises, and modern slavery? When so much of the world delights in exercising power over others,  Jesus’ radical example of servant leadership can be our roadmap to disrupt the unjust systems and power structures alongside the vulnerable. Join an interactive workshop exploring how the Baptist movement can engage in a Christ-like response to injustice.

WILL MEZNER

Will is an organiser, campaigner, and Crows supporter, who gets great joy from two of those three things. He reckons the Lord of Lords is above all earthly kingdoms, and the Church should be prophetic salt and light in their systems that so often overlook the vulnerable made in God’s image. Will’s main work at Baptist World Aid is leading Catalyst, a national discipleship and advocacy network for the Baptist movement in Australia.