Building the Church for Today and Tomorrow

Roshan took up his role as National Principal/CEO of Laidlaw College in February 2017. Prior to this, he helped found and then led the Compass Foundation until 2011 (now part of the Venn Foundation), working to help young adults ‘know the gospel; know the culture; translate’. Prior to Compass, Roshan was the first manager of Maxim Institute’s internship programme.

Roshan holds degrees in History from the Universities of Canterbury and Oxford. His doctoral research at Oxford focused on how intergenerational groups of evangelical entrepreneurs in the eighteenth and nineteenth century British world shaped society and culture, most prominently in the work of the Clapham Sect.

Since returning to New Zealand in 2015, Roshan has worked as a Senior Fellow for the Venn Foundation, teaching in the foundation’s residential and wider programmes, and consulting to a variety of Christian organisations. He is a regular speaker in churches and at Christian events.

Born in India (his parents and grandparents served as missionaries), he was raised in Christchurch, where he met and married Lottie. They have two young daughters, Esther and Zoe.

Colin is a well-known and respected member of the IFA (Institute of Financial Advisers) and holds the CFP (Certified Financial Planner) mark of excellence. He has also served as Chairman on the IFA Auckland Branch Committee, and on the National IFA Council.

Colin joined the investment profession in 1998 and established his own independent financial planning firm in 2001 (now DecisionMakers). He is a financial planner who is truly committed to creating and protecting wealth for his clients. “I have worked extremely hard over the last 19 years to build a business based on ensuring clients are financially secure in their retirement years.”

Colin has served for many years as Chair of the Finance Committee at Northcote Baptist Church and has a special interest in providing sound stewardship options for churches and Christian charities.

He lives in Auckland with his wife Pauline and their daughters Kenzie and Hayley.

Dr Christina Baird is passionate about helping people grow in creative wisdom to help them see the future and respond well to its challenges and opportunities. She provides coaching, external supervision and debriefing to individuals in ministry, mission and the non-profit sector. She first started critically reflecting on the church when she was 8 years old and decided she didn’t like Sunday School, she has finally found an outlet for her reflections by blogging at www.breadandpomegranates.com

Christina has worked as a tertiary lecturer/tutor, a church administrator, and as a telephone counsellor for children. She spent 5 years working as a leader in tertiary student ministry when the world was just starting to think about and adapt to Gen Y. She then spent just over 7 years working in personnel development for a mission agency.

Christina loves learning and so has a PhD in social psychology, a graduate diploma in theology and a post-graduate certificate in professional supervision. She grew up in Lower Hutt but slowly moved up the country via Palmerston North and Tauranga to make her home in Auckland. That is where she now lives with her husband, their 7-year-old acrobat, a dog and a bossy Burmese cat.

Dr Mike Crudge is the Director of the new Carey Centre for Lifelong Learning. This is a church-leaders facing, serving, and resourcing centre, set up to enhance the way Carey supports church leaders throughout their ministry endeavours: “professional development” and continuing education for church leaders. This role enables Mike to hook into his passion for the future of the church by serving church leaders throughout the country.

Mike completed a PhD in Communication Studies in 2013. His thesis is called “The disconnected church: a critical examination of the communication of the Christian church in New Zealand.” His research interest is in the area of mission and church engagement within New Zealand society, and the consideration that mission is a form of communication.

Mike has been a Baptist pastor in Christchurch and Auckland. Prior to all of this, he spent his time focused on electronic engineering working in the telecommunications industry in Wellington.

Motueka is his home town, and his favourite bit of New Zealand is the Abel Tasman National Park. Mike is married to Geraldine and their first child was born in June this year.

Mike occasionally blogs about issues to do with communication, church, and society at MikeCrudge.com.

The Revd Dr Lyndon Drake is an ordained minister in the New Zealand Anglican Church in Te Pīhopatanga o Te Tai Tokerau. Alongside this he is doing research for a doctorate at the University of Oxford, working on a biblical theology of capital.

Until 2010, Lyndon was a Vice President at Barclays Capital, trading government bonds and interest-rate derivatives. Since then, he has served as pastor in a city centre church in New Zealand, as well as teaching the theology of work at seminaries, serving in regional church leadership and internationally within the World Evangelical Alliance, and chairing the Board at his children’s school.

Lyndon has degrees in Science and Commerce (Auckland), a PhD in Computer Science (York), two degrees in Theology (Oxford), and a number of academic publications. He has written Capital Markets for the Common Good: A Christian Perspective, to be published in November 2017 by the Oxford Centre for Enterprise, Markets, and Ethics.

Paul Gilberd is a business development specialist assisting with strategic direction, governance and change. His role as GM Strategy and Development at the NZ Housing Foundation is all about partnerships and collaboration to bring new people, new money, and new land to the table. The purpose of this work is enabling the growth of affordable housing programmes supporting the relief of poverty. The Housing Foundation delivers affordable rental (rent to buy) and Affordable Equity (Shared home ownership) programmes and assists

The Housing Foundation delivers affordable rental (rent to buy) and Affordable Equity (Shared home ownership) programmes and assists low-income households to move out of the rental poverty trap through affordable housing and community building. Paul is strongly motivated by social justice and building thriving sustainable communities. He is particularly interested in helping churches to be the thriving, relevant and growing centres of such communities.

James Palmer is the Chief Executive of Christian Savings, New Zealand’s only charity that is also a licenced non-bank deposit taker with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. He has a BA and LLB from the University of Auckland. As a lawyer, his areas of practise included commercial and property law and the not-for-profit sector. He has a strong interest in the governance and asset management of churches and charities. He is currently on the board of two other New Zealand charities—Child Rescue New Zealand and Life Child Care Centre.

James attends Life Church in Manukau and lives with his wife Melissa and their two sons, William and Oliver.

Richard Randerson is a retired Anglican bishop, now living in Wellington, whose 50 years in ministry have focused on the church’s engagement with the wider society, addressing issues of poverty and justice, ethics in public square and contemporary issues of theology and inter-faith.