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Knox Centre lures Kiwi back for Auckland position

The Rev Mark Johnston has been appointed to the newly created role of Auckland coordinator of ministry formation and leadership development, commencing January 2009.

Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership principal the Rev Dr Graham Redding says Mark’s priorities will be to oversee the ministry internships in the top half of the North Island, encourage and facilitate ministry training opportunities in the greater Auckland region, and help resource the processes of ministry formation within Te Aka Puaho, the Pacific Island Synod and the Council of Asian Congregations.

Some will remember Mark as former minister at Wadestown Presbyterian in Wellington. For the past five years he has been in a slightly chillier climate, as associate minister at Cove Church in Aberdeen, Scotland, where he focused on community, children and youth.

Cove Church is part of the Church of Scotland’s initiative to start new forms of church that engage with contemporary society. Mark describes the congregation as “small but energetic by Church of Scotland standards”.

“It meets on Sundays at a primary school in a slowly expanding housing estate, with other gatherings during the week at people’s homes and community facilities. It’s predominantly a working-class area, but this is changing gradually as more expensive developments are built. Our challenge is finding the right ‘key’ to minister and relate in.

“It has felt like a spiritual wilderness for a long time”, he says. Consumer lifestyles, “glacial” relationship building and a reluctance to engage with the institutional church for anything other than the traditional rituals of passage pose significant barriers.

But small breakthroughs have occurred, through community ministry projects such as “Blue Horizon”, which works with disaffected teenagers and their parents as well as being a resource for the local high school, police and social work agencies.

Mark says he’s enjoyed the freedom to spend time and energy working beyond the bounds of the church in the community. “I have been able to look back upon the church or what we call ‘church’ and ask questions I didn’t get to ask when I was immersed in ordained ministry in the middle of a parish system.”

The newly created role that Mark will take up was created to support the intern-based model of training that began this year. He says the idea of nurturing leaders is appealing, particularly maximising the gifts and strengths of others and preparing them for different ministry contexts. “We can train people to drive cars, but if in 20 years time we will all be taking public transport it’s probably going to be more important to train people to catch buses.

“This might mean being part of a church-planting team as a training ordinand, being encouraged and supported in starting a spiritual focus group in the local gym, doing a placement as a chaplain to a rugby league team, or spending three months creating a children’s church in a primary school. The skills and awareness learnt in this context may turn out to be as important as learning to preach.”

However, Mark says that this doesn’t mean de-emphasising spiritual focus, disciplines and capacity for theological reflection.

By Amanda Wells