by Chris Clark

Last year we (the Eldership team at Snells Beach Baptist Church) decided to take part in the Christian Leadership Course micro-credential run through Carey. This was an online only course that ran in the evenings. We formed our own little CareyLocal cohort of students as we met weekly for the teaching.

Each week we would meet in my living room – with all the appropriate snacks of course – to hear what the teaching staff at Carey would bring us for that session. It was really special to hear from so many of the lecturers at Carey within the one course, and for me personally, it was nice to share the lecturers that I have known for some time with the rest of our Eldership team.

Our decision to give this a go was largely an opportunity for us to grow as a team and to spend good time learning together about things that matter. We most likely entered the learning with different motivations (or reservations about studying again) but gave it a good go all the same. What we found happen during the course was that we grew to understand each other better, we found ample opportunities to laugh and connect and we were given some fantastic topics to wrestle with. In our context we have different views on many topics which was encouraged in the class and allowed us as a team to have the time and space to listen to one another irrespective of any differences. One of the most helpful aspects of this was the common language the course gave us – we can now navigate Christian leadership with the same understanding and language to communicate it. We are now able to hold each other accountable to good Christian leadership from the base of trust we developed as a team and from the learning Carey gave us.

To be totally honest, none of us wanted to do the assignments. For most of our team it was their first venture into academic theological teaching, so the assignments presented a certain level of unease. What was encouraging was that the teaching was very accessible for first time theological students and the assignments really did ground the learning in our particular context. Through doing the assignments, we all managed to get the micro-credential (Go Team!) and we all continue to find ways to apply the learning to our church here in Snells Beach.

Since completing the course, we have decided as an Eldership team to invest in the leadership of others in our church. We set aside $5000 in our recently approved budget for leadership development. While it remains to be seen how this will be used and play out, it does highlight the value that we all see in training good Christian leaders – and that we are prepared to invest in it.

Chris Clark graduated from Carey in 2022 with a Bachelor of Applied Theology and Diploma in Youth Pastoral Leadership. He is currently the pastor at Snells Beach Baptist Church.

If you’d like to sign up to study Intro to Christian Leadership in Semester two please get in touch. You can study as an individual student, or perhaps you might like to gather your leadership together (or combine with other local church leadership) and form a CareyLocal cohort?

Fully Online. Tuesdays starting 22 July. Enrolments close 15 July. Only $320 per student.