Karen Warner and Wayne Schache are part of our National Support Centre team. Karen is the Leadership Coordination Director and is part of Eastgate Christian Centre, one of our churches in east Auckland. Wayne is the Operations and Finance Director and is part of Titirangi Baptist Church in west Auckland.
Governance and constitution review
If you’ve been following the consultation processes this year concerning a new Serious Misconduct Process and Governance and Constitution review for the Baptist Union of New Zealand, “Clause 36” probably rings a bell.
If this is the first you’ve heard of it, Clause 36 is a proposed addition to the Constitution to clarify how property assets might be handled if a Baptist church decides to leave the Baptist Union. As the consultation progressed, an independent review of Clause 36 was conducted, and the report from this is now available online. This report is in addition to the existing documentation for churches and National Hui delegates to engage with prior to our gathering on 6-9 November at Rangiora Baptist Church.
Serious misconduct consultation
Collectively, the Baptist Churches of New Zealand strive to be safe places with safe people. At the National Hui last November, there was overwhelming support from the delegates representing the churches for the development of a mechanism to help keep our people and places safe when it comes to serious misconduct by church pastors. The consultation process is outlined on this webpage.
This week, there has been an addition to the Serious Misconduct Process Green Paper as part of the consultation process. Section 4.5, “The investigation process”, has one additional step: initial triage of the allegation – this addition can be found highlighted yellow in the updated document on this webpage.
Hui delegates will be emailed these updates before Hui, and we share these updates here due to the widespread interest and participation in this process.
Find out more about Hui 2024, including the programme, at hui.baptist.nz or on the Baptist NZ app (top-left hamburger menu).
