Robyn Mellar-Smith, Pastor Epuni Baptist Church, Wellington
"The pastoral leadership training at Carey is challenging and stimulating. The combination of academic study and practical church work in a mentoring environment facilitates the personal growth and skills necessary for pastoral ministry. I highly recommend it!"
Lauryn Velvin - former student
"How does someone get confirmation when God is calling them into ministry? We expect it should be through the local church, as well as their own communication from God (albeit subjective!!). The local church is not always keen to point out weaknesses and growth points. Carey on the other hand, is committed to confirming a person’s calling, by noticing whether skills and attitudes measure up, and whether weaknesses are addressed – not as an optional extra, but as a key part of the process of training. In my training at Carey, I found this aspect equally important with the academic rigor and academic study. Because Carey is not one-eyed about academic development, their focus is also on each student’s personal growth and spirituality development. At the end of the process I had been challenged at all levels of my skill and preparation towards ministry as a pastor. I am grateful that I experienced the balance of each of these, because pastoring people requires more of me as a person, than as a container of knowledge. For me, a key result of the whole process has been a confidence that I am able to fulfill the calling God placed on me, along with a humility in acknowledging that effective life-changing ministry is fully dependent on how much I keep on learning and how I allow Jesus to be Lord in the daily details. God bless Carey!!"
Andrew Picard - former student
"Someone once told me that preachers can tend to fall into two categories: those who have something to say but don’t know how to say it and those who know how to say it but have nothing to say. I can assure this person that Carey College tries very hard to produce preachers that have something to say and know how to say it. Whilst Carey, importantly, places high emphasis on learning the art of preaching, it prepared me in a much deeper way for pulpit ministry. Carey prepared me through Biblical studies, Systematic Theology, Church History and Pastoral studies. In Biblical studies I was not given a bag full of sermons to use in ministry but rather key tools that helped me to deeply exegete the Word so that the Word could deeply exegete me. In Systematic Theology I did not learn all the important answers about God and the Christian faith but rather I learnt how to ask the important questions of God and the Christian faith and that through this God could ask the important questions of me. In Church History I learnt how God has shaped and transformed the community of Jesus Christ through time so that I might sense how God is shaping and transforming the community of Jesus Christ today. In Pastoral studies I learnt that preaching is always spoken into the lives of fragile, messy people, just like me, who God intensely loves. Finally, at College we learnt about preaching through the staff modelling excellent preaching to us at Chapel services that we wanted to emulate. Carey prepared me for pulpit ministry through holistic training within the context of the community of disciples that is Carey Baptist College . I thank God for Carey College."
