Children and Families Catalyst

This role is 0.6 FTE (24 hours/week), Permanent.

We are looking to employ a Children and Families Catalyst with initiative, energy, maturity, and broad experience: someone to provide visionary leadership and strategic guidance to the Baptist Union of New Zealand in the development and implementation of the He Rito initiative. He Rito is a Māori concept gifted to us to use for Children and Families Ministries and Baptist Youth; it reaches young people aged between 0-25 in our Aotearoa New Zealand Baptist faith communities.

He Rito uses the Māori metaphor of the harakeke (flax bush) to represent whānau (family). The rito (young shoot) symbolises the child, nurtured by surrounding leaves—parents and grandparents—and rooted in the wider community. Just as the harakeke cannot survive without protecting its rito, a whānau cannot thrive without caring for its children.

Key tasks
The key tasks associated with this role are as follows:

• Provide visionary leadership and strategic guidance to the Baptist Union of New Zealand in the development and implementation of Children and Families Ministry.
• Serve as a resource for local churches, offering practical advice, guidance and training to leaders involved in Children and Families Ministry.
• Provide coaching, mentoring, and leadership development opportunities for Children’s and Families ministry leaders within the Baptist churches.
• Curate resources for Children and Families Ministry leaders including website, curriculum, training tools and programme models – adapting and developing these for the Baptist Union of New Zealand context where needed.
• Help churches create safe, inclusive, and welcoming environments for children and families, ensuring that ministry practices align with biblical principles and best practices.
• Encourage intergenerational relationships between children, families, and the wider church body to foster belonging community and discipleship.
• Promote and support initiatives that encourage whānau/household engagement in church community and spiritual formation.
• Monitor trends, research, and best practices in Children and Families Ministry to stay ahead of emerging needs and opportunities.
• Work with the Baptist Union leadership, regional leadership, and staff to align Children and Families Ministry efforts with the broader vision and goals of the Baptist Union of New Zealand.

Skills/attributes
A variety of personal attributes and skills will converge in the life of the successful applicant:

• A deep love for Jesus, the Bible, the Gospel, the Church, and the Mission of God.
• A desire to serve the Baptist Churches of New Zealand.
• An active member of a church, preferably Baptist.
• Passion for and understanding of Children and Families ministry and mission.
• A commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and an understanding of Māori tikanga.
• Visionary and strategic thinker.
• Proven history in transformational leadership.
• Operational excellence.
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills.
• Team leadership.
• Advocacy skills.
• Resilience.
• High levels of energy.
• Takes initiative.
• Extremely well-organised, punctual, accurate and high attention to detail.
• A team player who can work collaboratively, with diversity, and is solution-focused.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Sharepoint, etc).

Key relationships
Internal Liaison:

• National Leader and Executive Assistant.
• Youth Catalyst.
• Regional Leaders.
• Leadership Coordination Director.

External Liaison:

• Baptist regional and local Children and Families points people/pastors.
• Baptist pastoral leaders.
• Denomination and parachurch leadership in your field.

Who we are
We are a collective of faith communities bringing gospel renewal to people and places in our local neighbourhoods. We currently have 240 ethnically diverse member churches, fellowships, and missional communities in Aotearoa New Zealand. We have about 400 pastors, chaplains, and workers.

We believe that Baptist ministry and mission is best done locally. Our faith communities determine for themselves the best way to fulfil their mission within their unique communities. This has resulted in a movement that oversees a significant number of ministries and social initiatives throughout our country and beyond. These include a wide range of programmes that impact the lives of every age, ethnicity, and social grouping in New Zealand – our diversity is our strength!

We believe a healthy faith community will be marked out by four things—robust leadership, growing disciples, healthy resources, and effective mission. When our individual Baptist faith communities are healthy then our movement will be healthy. Our collective ministry and mission response is through our 240 individual faith communities serving their local communities the best that they can! This role plays a major part in seeing these things achieved.

We endeavour to support our local faith communities both; regionally, through strong regional associations which have a functioning and robust executive, regional leader, and ministry coaches; and nationally, by resourcing our churches in key areas including property, finance, legal, HR, communication, leadership coordination and social impact.