Succession

Updates & News.

4 September, 2024

Senior Pastor Information Pack – Congregational Feedback

We are very pleased to provide this Senior Pastor information Pack (version 1.5) here for you to download and review and provide your feedback. This pack has been put together with input from the NewHope family through various channels including our Church Engagement Forum in June 2024, Chat with Council Sessions throughout July, succession@newhope.net.au emails received and our Church Wide Survey.

We have been incredibly blessed with amazing input and feedback and we are inspired by the unity of our community. This pack is being made available for comments before being finalised and published. We have sought to highlight what makes NewHope so special and outline the opportunity that awaits our next Senior Pastor.

To provide feedback on this document, Chat with Council Sessions are available after the 9AM service on 8 and 15 September as well as after the 5PM service on 15 September. We encourage you to let us know you are coming by visiting the Chat with Council session on the Events webpage (www.newhope.net.au/events).

We really welcome your conversations and encourage you to engage so that we can continue together in unity. If you are not able to attend a Chat with Council session or if it would help, please email succession@newhope.net.au to share your feedback before 18 September 2024. The final version of this document will be made available after this time.

We deeply appreciate your prayers, contributions, and support as we navigate this important succession journey together.

4 September, 2024

Thank you so much to our whole community for your prayers and support. This succession journey is such an important time in the life of NewHope. In this journey we continue to be supported by and working closely with the BUV (in particular Rev. Daniel Bullock and Jonathan Stark who is the Head of Pastoral Leadership Support and Development at the BUV). Their support and encouragement is wonderful and a great blessing to us.

We likewise continue to receive such incredible support and encouragement and suggestions from our NewHope family. Thank you to all those who have been able to input to our succession journey.

The elected Church Council members have met with the NewHope staff team on several occasions as we seek to honour their important role in the life of NewHope and how succession impacts them. With the staff team we have connected together as each of us has shared our “head” and our “heart” to help each other appreciate our various challenges.

As always we are working very closely with our Senior Pastor Allan Demond as he continues to lead our church so faithfully and wisely whilst the succession process runs in parallel – we are so blessed to have Allan as our leader and look forward to celebrating Allan and Janet and their family’s service to NewHope (more details on this will be coming).

We are very pleased to share that in preparation for the Search Process (as listed in the “Key Stages”) the Senior Pastor Search Committee has recently started preparations. This committee is made up of members of the elected Church Council who are responsible for overseeing the succession process plus a selection of members representing the generations of ministries of NewHope each with their own unique skills. The Senior Pastor Search Committee (SPSC) currently includes: Tristan Ellett (Chair), Steve Stavridis (Vice Chair), Amanda Carruthers (Secretary), Brett Rice, Priya De Mel, Annie Pittendrigh and Peter Siede. We encourage you to keep this important group in your prayers particularly over the next season. The SPSC will be working with many people in our community as needed to resource their search work as required and any offers of help are always gratefully received. The SPSC are responsible for the search process and will provide potential candidate names to the whole elected church council members who will then come to the members when ready for a vote as per our constitution.

This succession webpage provides a great deal of detail around the succession process, including FAQs and we encourage you to continue to engage with this information. Should you have any questions at any time and are not able to attend a Chat with Council session you can reach out on succession@newhope.net.au.

26 August, 2024

Church Council is grateful for all the input given to our succession process so far. We are getting closer to finishing the Pastor Search Profile, which will be made available for feedback from our church family in September before being published for public circulation shortly after.

Please watch the video for the latest succession update from our Chair of Church Council, Tristan Ellett.

17 July, 2024

The NewHope Baptist Church Senior Pastor Succession Congregational Survey has gone out via email this week.

This is an opportunity for all members and supporters of NewHope to contribute to our succession journey. The data received will build upon inputs already collected and will help in building our Church Profile and Senior Pastor Profile, as well as our overall succession journey.

If you didn’t receive your survey, please check your spam folder and look for the sender info@newhope.net.au via SurveyMonkey. If you still don’t see it, please contact reception to make sure we have your correct details on our system at info@newhope.net.au or 9890 7999. Paper copies will be available at reception for those who don’t have email or don’t feel confident with a digital version.

The survey will close on Wednesday the 31st of July at 11:59pm. We appreciate you taking the time to complete this survey.

Find Out More

3 July, 2024

You are invited to Chat with Council. This is an intentional opportunity on selected Sundays to chat with members of Church Council and ask questions or discuss the succession journey further.

Those attending the morning gatherings are invited to come see us at the NewHope reception desk between services (10:20am to 10:55am) starting on Sunday the 14th of July. You can view all dates and register here to secure a Sunday that suits or feel free to drop by when it works best for you.

Those attending the 5pm service are encouraged to stay on for the Lounge on Sunday the 21st of July where members of Council will be present to connect with anyone who’d like to ask questions or have a conversation together.

20 June, 2024

We are thrilled to share an update from our Church Engagement Forum on Wednesday the 19th of June. What an incredible night! Over 160 of you joined us, and the energy in the room was simply amazing. From the heartfelt worship to the insightful sharing and the BUV facilitation, the spirit in the room was truly uplifting. The church council felt deeply encouraged by the entire process.

We received wonderful feedback and valuable input from everyone present – thank you! We are now carefully processing all of your contributions. We will also use the input captured to create a comprehensive church-wide survey, which will help us gather even more information, and provide an input opportunity to those who couldn’t make the event.

Stay tuned, as we will be reaching out in the coming weeks with further updates. Let’s be continually praying for wisdom and unity as we discern together as a church family. Thank you for being part of this exciting journey!

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20–21 NLT

-NewHope Church Council

9 June, 2024

On Sunday, Pastor Allan shared plans to conclude his role as Senior Pastor in June of 2025, after 30 years of faithfully serving our NewHope family. You can view the announcement video if you missed it.

We receive this news with much gratefulness to Allan for his wonderful service and leadership. There is much to celebrate and much to process. We look forward to walking this path together as we celebrate Allan and Janet, and seek the Lord for NewHope’s future.

Greetings.

Together as the body of NewHope, we embark on this important journey of transition together. As your church council, we are committed to providing valuable information and insights to guide our community through this pivotal season. The information below will give you some insights to the journey we have taken thus far, give you peace for the future, and hopefully answer questions that come to mind in the interim.

We welcome your contribution. Please send questions and feedback to succession@newhope.net.au.

Background

1. Discussions around the topic of succession planning between Church Council and Allan have been in place for several years now. We have been seeking God throughout the process and believe that it’s time to move forward.

2. At the Budget and Vision Members’ Meeting in November 2023, Senior Pastor succession planning was named overtly and the church was invited to pray for this specifically.

3. In a series of meetings in 2023 and early 2024 Church Council and Allan have been seeking God’s direction for NewHope for the future. With the Council being attentive to their governance responsibilities, and Allan attending to his pastoral calling, we have come to a clear sense of unity.

4. In mid-2025 Allan will mark 30 years of service at NewHope. With the Church Council’s blessing Allan will step down as Senior Pastor at that time.

5. We want to make this announcement together and at this early stage with our whole community, so that together we can:

Pray for our future – what is God calling us to (Proverbs 16:3);
Appreciate Allan – his incredible years of service, passion, and strength of leadership through Christ, is something that we continue to aspire to model; and
Publicly begin and complete the critical process of succession with plenty of time.

6. In saying all of this, we are hesitant in setting fixed timelines towards achieving key milestones at this point in time. We know God has NewHope’s new Senior Pastor firmly in mind, and that God is readying their heart to serve here. We are trusting in God’s good, pleasing and perfect will and timing to open and close doors. We want to move through this stage of the journey together, as a NewHope community.

7. The appointment of a Senior Pastor is something which will be voted on by all Members of NewHope, with the elected church council members leading this process with the support, input and engagement of our whole community.

8. Now that we have shared this with everyone we are inviting all of NewHope to join with us in prayer for what God has in store for NewHope. God’s will is absolutely vital in all of this (Psalm 127:1). Some things we recommend praying for:

Thanking God for Allan and Janet, and NewHope;
Thanking God for life’s seasons of change (Psalm 107:1); and
Asking God for His wisdom to be imparted on all of us as we embark on this process.

9. We want to do this process well and with excellence, honouring God, honouring NewHope (and all the people NewHope is involved with) and honouring Allan and Janet (Romans 12:10).

10. Whilst Allan has been NewHope’s leader, he also leads a team of almost 40 staff and supporting them is vitally important. We invite you to also prayerfully cover the NewHope staff in this process.

11. In summary: today Allan is our Senior Pastor and will continue to be our Senior Pastor with Council’s full support until the succession process is complete, or unanimously agreed to.

12. Simultaneously, the church council, members of NewHope and the community will progressively undertake the succession process to help identify a suitable candidate for the new Senior Pastor role for the future (2025).

13. On 19 June 2024, church council will hold a Church Engagement Forum (facilitated by Rev. Daniel Bullock, Director of Mission & Ministries at the Baptist Union of Victoria and also a previous pastor at NewHope) to allow for a church wide interaction. An opportunity for valued input by the NewHope community on the characteristics and type of Senior Pastor we are seeking. This is an important opportunity for our community to be part of the process. For those not able to attend, there will be an opportunity to provide input electronically post the evening.

Key Stages

A great level of detail has been and continues to be worked on by church council however the below provides a high-level summary of the key processes

Announcement

June 9th 2024

Share news & opportunity
Growth of prayer incorporating congregation

Discernment

From June 19th 2024

Church workshop (facilitated by BUV)
Ongoing NHBC input
Church Profile finalised
Pastor Profile finalised
Application process finalised
Pastoral search sub-committee begins

Search

From September 2024

Advertisement
Invitation for names
Candidates apply
Shortlisting
Interviews conducted
Decision to bring recommendation to members

The Call

2025

Members’ meeting to consider and vote on recommendation
Start date agreed
Announcement
Formal appreciation of Allan
Transition period commences

Frequently Asked Questions

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Allan - are you ok? Are you retiring? What will you do? Will you stay at NHBC?

Yes Allan is OK. Allan is committed to his pastoral calling and NewHope to the next season and into 2025. Allan has made it very clear to the church council that he loves this community and wants to see NewHope continue to thrive. Allan has served us faithfully for coming up to 30 years. He and Janet moved their young family from Canada to serve NewHope. They see themselves as part of the NewHope family.

Do we intend to have a crossover in employment between Allan and the next Senior Pastor?

The specific workings of the transition process will be dependent on many factors that are not yet known so answering this at this early stage is difficult except for acknowledging the importance of a clear transition process to a new Senior Pastor.

Will the new Senior Pastor come from within our existing community?

A great deal of work needs to be done to clearly identify the skills and qualities that are needed to take NewHope forward into the next stage of where God is leading us. We are early in the process and this work is ongoing and a Senior Pastor profile (job description) will need to be created. Church Council will be thorough in this process, to enable our community to discern suitable candidates whether they are internal or external.

Is Council worried about anything, any fears?

“God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgement” (2 Tim 1:7) and therefore any fears that we identify are given to God, Who is our Lord and provider for everything: we are pleased to know that nothing is impossible for Him (Matthew 19:26)!

At this stage the importance for unity is vital. We seek to be transparent and clear to everyone at all times. We appreciate that things may move more quickly or more slowly than expected, however with constant communication and clarity we are trusting in God’s timing (not our timing) and that God already is paving the way.

Will there be a thank you for Allan and Janet?

Absolutely. This is critically important to all of us. We have so much to be thankful for and to celebrate, and we want to do this well. Our plans around this will be communicated in due course.

I'm still processing Allan’s announcement, and am now being asked to turn my attention to succession. Are we moving too quickly?

As was communicated at the 19 June Church Engagement Forum, we consider it important to welcome the church’s engagement from the outset. This is in line with the BUV’s recommendation, and was also planned for when the BUV’s Director of Mission and Ministries would be available to facilitate this important event.

We will be journeying through succession together, and if you missed our forum, there will be a follow-up church wide survey for you to provide input into the process.

Everyone in our community will be approaching the succession journey from different viewpoints and with different preparedness for engagement, and this is completely OK. This does not mean that everyone will be ready to discuss in the same way (ie. some may be still coming to terms with Allan’s announcement) but we want to engage our community from the very beginning.

We are also committed to honouring Allan and will have opportunities to celebrate together as we journey through this year.

Throughout this process, a big focus is the word “Unity”. We share this with you as it’s just so important that we are Unified.

In our FAQs, we have listed 9 prayer points and we would love for you to pray with us to help unite us together. If you would like to do this with others in the NewHope family, we hold regular prayer meetings which you are welcome to join.

Why are you advising this now, when change may be a long way off?

This is by design and allows us as a community to carefully consider all that we need to in choosing a new Senior Pastor. Appointments of this significance do take time and we are setting ourselves up in the best way possible. Importantly for the council, we wanted to bring the whole church into this process at this early stage so that we can continually pray together.

If I want to help in this process what can I do?

You can absolutely help – there is much to do. Some specific things include praying and participating in the various forums that will be organised to gather input and to celebrate. Our first forum will be held on 19th June.

If you would like to be more involved please let council know by speaking to a member of council and putting things in writing to council at succession@newhope.net.au.

How has Council been preparing for this process?

Council has been working very hard in the background, praying and discerning throughout the process. This has included interviewing a select number of people in senior leadership and governance from several other churches (both larger and smaller) on their experiences and advice, liaising closely with the BUV, and reading books and other resources specifically created for managing succession planning for senior pastors (two key books that we have read are called “Next: Pastoral Succession That Works” by Warren Bird and William Vanderbloemen, and “Search: The Pastoral Search Committee Handbook” by William Vanderbloemen).

Will the Baptist Union of Victoria be involved?

Yes, the BUV have a great depth of support and resources available to support NewHope (and Allan) in this process and have been actively engaged with both for support to both NewHope and Allan. This engagement will continue and will continue to adapt, depending on the needs as they arise.

Will there be a change to the Mission Vision and Values of NewHope?

God has not changed, the great commission has not changed, and NewHope is not changing who we are or what we stand for. A key part of this process is identifying who we are: so any prospective candidate is clear about NewHope’s mission, vision and values. We have an incredibly thriving and diverse community. A new Senior Pastor will bring qualities and skills that are different to Allan and the council sees this as a great opportunity for NewHope.

What is Allan going to do before he finishes as Senior Pastor?

Allan continues to lead NewHope as our senior pastor, as such his work continues unabated. There are already many things in place for the next 12+ months and this is not changing and continues to require the strong leadership and vision that Allan will provide, backed by council.

Will NewHope’s strategic plans and execution focus be changing?

The development of our Strategic Plans and shorter term core focus areas is a key task that the church council reviews and considers, with approval ultimately being made by members. This will continue to remain the same.

Will there be any changes to our current staff structure?

We don’t have any immediate plans to change the current staff structure at NewHope.

Will there be opportunities for me personally to provide feedback or input on the qualities I’d like to see in the next senior pastor at NewHope? Or to suggest someone specific? Will I also have an opportunity to provide input on the direction or focus of NewHope under new leadership?

The entire NewHope congregation will have an opportunity to give feedback on the qualities desired in the next senior pastor and the direction/focus of NewHope. You may well have some specific ideas about what would be essential or desirable in the new senior pastor, or you might have a specific person you want to suggest to the Search Committee. That’s great, and we welcome your contribution. Our first planning forum will be held on 19th June at NewHope.

Input will also be collected through surveys and a designated succession email address, for you to submit your feedback. Please send questions and input to succession@newhope.net.au.

What about prayer? What should I be praying for? Will I have an opportunity to collectively pray with others at NewHope?

Absolutely. We are told that we should “not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Phillippians 4:6). Prayer is integral in this season, and the reason why we want our community to be part of this process in its early stage.

Here are some topics you may wish to incorporate into your prayer:

Guidance: wisdom for council, leadership, and the incoming senior pastor.
Discernment: discerning God’s will and direction for the future of NewHope. For individuals involved in succession, council and leadership, prayer for clarity, insight and a spirit of discernment to identify the right person for NewHope.
Unity: for unity and harmony within NewHope during the transition period. Asking for His grace to unite our hearts and minds, fostering us to have one heart, mind, and spirit of cooperation and mutual support.
Allan: express gratitude, blessing and affirmation for Allan’s years of service at NewHope, and ask for God’s richest blessings upon Allan and Janet as they transition to their next season.
Incoming Senior Pastor: ask for His guidance in the selection, preparation, provision, protection and empowerment for the future new Senior Pastor of NewHope, and that God blesses their transition too.
Healing and renewal: as it is a time of transition, individuals at NewHope and staff may experience feelings of loss, anxiety or uncertainty. Ask God for His healing, comfort, strength, peace and joy to be upon those who are struggling.
Congregation: lift each other up and for God’s grace to sustain NewHope through the transition. Petition for strength, resilience and a deepening of faith as NewHope navigates this change together, as one body united through Him.
Future: ask for God’s blessing upon each of our ministries, outreach efforts and growth opportunities. Hope and confidence in God’s faithfulness to lead us into a new and rich season of ministry.
Open hearts and minds: for NewHope to prepare in anticipation for the future, for open hearts and minds, preparing the community to embrace the leadership and vision of the new Senior Pastor with enthusiasm and receptivity.

An opportunity for you to participate in regular collective prayer will be established and will run throughout the transition process. Details will follow shortly.

How will the Church Council address any concerns or uncertainties I may have about the transition process?

Regular communication and transparency will be prioritised by the Church Council to address any concerns or uncertainties amongst the congregation. The 19 June 2024 workshop planning session, an online area for transition documentation/ communication and the designated succession email will provide opportunities for dialogue and clarification. Please send questions and input to succession@newhope.net.au.

Will there be any changes to NewHope's budget or financial planning process as a result of this succession process?

NewHope’s finance committee is reviewing the budget to accommodate any financial adjustments necessitated by the succession process. There may be some adjustments to the church’s budget to accommodate the transition. This process will be conducted transparently, with input from church council and appropriate financial advisors.

How will Allan be involved in the selection or transition process for the successor Senior Pastor at NewHope?

Allan’s focus is on leading NewHope as our Senior Pastor during the transition through to mid-2025. Allan’s level of involvement in the succession process will be determined based on mutual agreement and the needs of the congregation.

What about any legalities of the process (ie. our constitution and role of church council)?

NewHope’s Constitution (together with Model Trust Deed, Schedule B to The Baptist Union Incorporation Act 1930 (Vic)) gives clarity about the process for appointing a new senior pastor. We will also seek appropriate legal advice as and when required, in relation to any employment or related legal matters should they arise.