The regional leadership team on the Central Coast has been leaning into our Gen1K strategic areas – developing leaders, church health and church planting. Joel Small, Senior Pastor at Erina Baptist Church, has been heading up their Leadership Development space, alongside Louise Eccleston, Development & Formation Pastor at Green Point Baptist Church, who has taken on the Generations role in the Central Coast team.
Joel and Louise have been keen to offer something concrete for young adults in their region. Aware that there were many passionate, Godly, and servant-hearted young adults across churches on the Central Coast, they wanted to offer an opportunity for these young people to be invested in and built up, as the emerging generation of leaders.
And so, the Central Coast Network of Emerging Leaders was born. Emerging Leaders is a yearlong program for young adults from churches on the Central Coast who are already involved in leadership roles in their churches and have displayed a gifting in leadership.
Joel and Louise meet with the cohort once a month, sometimes virtually and sometimes in-person. The program has three parts: head, heart and hands.
For their head, or academic, piece, the group is working through the book The True Story of the Whole World: Finding Your Place in the Biblical Drama by Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew. Whilst for the heart piece, they’re exploring John Mark Comer’s The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World.
And for their hands piece the group is engaging in a diverse range of ministry experiences. One of their recent excursions was going to visit Benj Gould and his church plant, Greenhouse Church, Long Jetty. The group loved learning from Benj’s experience, and about a church different to their own.
“If you’ve grown up in the church you’re serving in,” explains Katie, a member of this year’s cohort, “which a lot of us have, it can feel like a bit of a bubble. I’ve come away recognising there are so many people, churches and opinions we can learn from.”
Louise reflects on the strength and beauty of relationships formed from simply getting people together who have a common interest and passion.
“The content is great, but ultimately there is so much value in getting this group together, building relationships and sharing stories,” explains Louise, “there’s a lot to be said for gathering a group of people like minded and serving in similar roles in different churches.”
Similarly, Katie reflects on her experience.
I don’t think any of us really knew what we were signing up for. Which is cool because as the first group to go through we get to trial a whole bunch of things. One the most important things is we have a group chat with young adults from the Coast. Some we hadn’t met before, but they’re all in a similar position to us. We’re all keen about church and want to get involved in some way.
Reflecting on the process of establishing the program, Joel says “it felt like it took a long time to get off the ground”. At first, it felt overwhelming to prepare content for a whole year, but as they dove in it felt much more achievable. “There’s content available and guests to draw upon,” explains Joel, “we have been able to use and call on resources that are already accessible and available to us.”
Early on in the program, Joel and Louise surveyed the cohort and asked what areas they would like to learn about over the year, with a focus on areas that they found particularly challenging in their ministry contexts. Joel now sources guest speakers who specialise in those areas, to speak with the young adults. “It’s an easy ask to get someone to come along on Zoom for 40 minutes and share to a group of keen and passionate young adults,” reflects Joel.
A flow on effect of this initiative is the role it’s having in building good will and networking amongst the churches. When Greenpoint Baptist hosted mental health training, they invited the Emerging Leaders cohort along. And when Erina Baptist was gifted ten free tickets for hosting the Global Leaders’ Summit, the church leadership team decided to gift these to the cohort.
“We’re supporting churches by investing in their leaders,” explains Joel. “We have a broader goal of developing a culture of raising up leaders. Some of whom will end up feeding into pastoral ministry on the Central Coast.”
2024 is the pilot year for the Emerging Leaders program, and their first cohort was limited to 3-4 churches. But heading towards their second year and second cohort, Joel and Louise have already reached out to pastoral leaders at Baptist churches across the Central Coast to invite them to prayerful consider who they may approach and recommend to the program. “We want the invite to come from the senior pastor,” explains Joel, “we want pastors to be the one to call out the leadership giftings they see in their young adult.”
If you want to know more about the Emerging Leaders program, or discuss how you might be able to do something similar in your region, feel free to contact Joel at pastor@erinabap.org.au.
