In This Issue
Presidents Message
National Leadership Team
Feedback
Church Development
George and Pauline Itinerary
Website News
Convention - Move 08
Regional Meetings
Annesbrook Leadership College
A Note from the President
Hi all
I have just finished the day in Wellington and Fielding sharing with our pastors and leaders and found it to be a great time with them as we sat around and chewed the fat on a whole lot of issues to do with church leadership. I am encouraged to find myself sucked dry and ready for a good nights sleep. I marvel at the strength of endurance evident with our pastors and take my hat off to them as they continue to sow into at times some very difficult ground.
Mark 4:26 has a lot say about that seed and how it grows:
The Parable of the Growing Seed
He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain - first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts teh sickle to it, because the harvest has come."
The sower plants seed then he takes a nap. He doesn’t know how it happens but when he wakes up there’s all this fruit and it’s like there's automatic growth that takes place that we have nothing to do with. There’s an abundance of harvest. Joel Holm said it like this "God wants to give us an abundance of ease."
Ministry is not meant to be hard, not meant to be weighed down on our shoulders like some major burden. Too often we live with such stress and we think we have to carry all that as a leader.
No. Being a leader means 2 things:
1. You have got to be able to sleep on the job 2. You have got to be able to be clueless
I planted this seed, went to sleep and when I woke up I don’t have a clue how all this fruit happened. I have no idea how God did this but look at what he did. If you can sleep on the job and be clueless then you are qualified to be a great leader because people who sleep on the job have an incredible faith in their abundant God. Jehovah Jireh my provider…
So here is the wrong question: "How can I get all the work done?" The right question is "Where’s my pillow?". It is not an abdication of responsibility but the abundance that God wants to give us is an abundance of faith where we don’t always know how it happens we just see that it happens.
Ease comes when we live in the unknown… it’s not what we don’t know that hinders us it’s what we think we know. Jesus taught his disciples to pull back on trying to figure it all out and control everything, He put them in a place of ease.
I don’t know what’s going to happen and somehow we have got to learn to ease ourselves through that otherwise you become like many leaders who have come and gone and the reason for their ‘goneness’ is simply because they have wanted to know everything, control everything and what happens is they get angry, lose their passion, lose their love for people, become critical, get alienated and work harder and become more bitter.
God says I am going to bring about my harvest… and you need to take a nap, stop being stressed.
Jesus took a nap in the storm, the disciples should have grabbed a pillow and slept also cause they should have known that he’s the one in control.
God’s richest blessings to you all and your ministry
Brent
TOP
Greetings from the National Leadership Team
Our April meeting was held in Nelson with a full team present.
It was a productive day in which we were able to finalise a number of items, the main one being Convention, which is having a name change to MOVE ‘08. This will be held at Annesbrook Church 19-22 August. MOVE '08 will start with Senior Leaders only for lunch on the 19th through until after lunch 20th, with the first general meeting starting on the evening of the 20th.
Billets will be available for those not local who do not wish to stay in Motels. The billets accommodation will be available until Sunday so that people from out of town can spend the weekend enjoying Nelson and join with one of our congregations for the Sunday morning service before heading home.
This is promising to be an exciting few days, we hope to see you all there!
Best Wishes to retiring Whangarei Pastors, Ron & Noelene Webb. Well done folk, keep on keeping on in HIM.
Kind regards
The National Leadership Team.
TOP
Feedback
We would LOVE your feedback about our e-newsletters. Please feel free to email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
with any comments or suggestions particularly in regards to what you want to see included.
TOP
Church Development
Thank you to the churches who have accepted to increase your support for Church Development after discussions at Conference. Remember there is also opportunity to support Church Development on a personal level (not just as a church). If you would like an automatic payment form posted to you so you can begin supporting this vital ministry please email your postal address to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
TOP
George & Pauline’s Itinerary
Richmond 27th April, Christchurch 1st to 6th May, Auckland 9th to 14th, Feilding, and Wanganui 23rd to 26th.
TOP
Website News
We have had no response to the following article from our last newsletter. If your church is keen to pursue your own editable pages on the CCNZ website please email
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
so we can get in touch with you about your requests.
"The second development is an Online Login which will give you access to pages related to your church that you can update. The first stage is to find out which churches are interested in pursuing this and the next stage is to decide what customisable features will be available. Please email your interest and any ideas to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
so we can begin working with individual churches and their needs."
TOP
Looking Ahead to Convention - Move '08
Our 2008 Convention called Move '08 is to be held in Nelson.
The dates are Tuesday 19th August - Friday 22nd August 2008. We realise this is not very far away and so encourage you to save the dates and begin looking for flights.
We have Pastor Sam Monk coming as our key speaker. Pastor Sam is from Equippers Church in Auckland which is a thriving church that is active in planting churches.
Move '08 will be hosted at Annesbrook Church, Nelson and there will be the choice of being billeted or paying for motel accommodation. Registrations forms will be out soon.
Tuesday lunchtime till Wednesday 7:00pm is for Senior Leaders only, then from 7:00pm Wednesday night Move '08 opens to everyone else.
We are incredibly excited about Move '08 and hope you and your team will be able to join us.
TOP
Regional Meetings
As part of our ‘Mission of Movement Paper’ and our core focuses, we have a goal of establishing Regional Networks throughout New Zealand.
It is exciting to note that we have already started in the Lower North Island and below is a report from Richard Black who is our Lower North Island Regional Coordinator.
"As Senior Leaders we always thought it would be a good idea to get together but we knew we needed a "why" that was strong enough to break into our diaries. It had to benefit our ministries and the churches for which we are responsible.
On Tuesday 15th April, the Senior Leaders of our churches in the "Wellington" region (Wanganui, Feilding, Naenae, Lower Hutt, and Trentham) met together with Brent. Leading up to the meeting we had provided reports outlining our situation and our current issues. At the meeting Brent was able to speak into these issues. We prayed together and shared insights with each other. It was a great opportunity to work through in a smaller setting some of the things we’d heard in the regional workshops.
From the input we received we are each to set ourselves goals to work on before our next meeting, which will be early in July.
One of the spin offs from this time was the idea of setting up a chat room of sorts as a way to continue the conversations we started - asking questions of each other about issues we’re facing and sharing resources.
Personally, I feel clearer about issues, stronger to face them, and more connected with my comrade-at-arms. I’m looking forward to the strengthening of friendships and the impact on our churches.
TOP
Annesbrook Leadership College
The Church is an amazing thing, with more potential to change the world for good than any other organisation on the face of the planet. While there are many excellent causes championed by many fantastic groups… only the Church has been given the privilege of presenting a message that can truly impact a person, a community, a city and even a nation from the inside out!
When a Church is well led not even the sky is the limit! The Bible speaks of God being able to do ‘immeasurably more than we can ask or even imagine’ (Ephesians3:20), and I believe the only thing standing in the way of His ‘limitless-ness’ is our limitedness! At the heart of this issue is LEADERSHIP, LEADERSHIP, LEADERSHIP!
Annesbrook Leadership College is committed to training and raising up leaders who have the vision, the anointing and the skills for ‘such a time as this’! The College incorporates classes on theology, leadership development, communication, management skills… alongside practical hands on ministry experience, that is all designed to prepare our students for significant leadership roles.
The school is based here on the campus of Annesbrook Church, but the focus in certainly not just local. Annesbrook Leadership College is for the wider CCNZ family, and our primary goal is to see young leaders equipped and released back into their home Church to sow into and build the vision there!
God is a dreamer. His dream is of a world where people are full of life, purpose and a sense of destiny… where they know that there is something worth getting out of bed for in the morning! God dreams of a generation that knows who they are, and are launching into life full speed with the enthusiasm that only a sense of Divine purpose can bring.
God dreams of communities, cities and nations being influenced in profound and powerful ways by a Church packed with vibrant, positive, committed people who are filled with the power of His Holy Spirit.
Church leader, why not invest into the future strength of your local Church by sending a young leader to spend a year at the College?
Young leader, why not invest a year into your future in leadership? Come and position yourself for God to challenge you, stretch you, change you… and prepare you for the life of significance He has called you to live!
Kristen Williams
Principal: Annesbrook Leadership College
For more information you can contact
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
TOP