Meet the Team
Mike Enright - Senior Pastor
Mike has been at KBC since February 2004 following 11 years as Senior Pastor at New Plymouth Central Baptist Church and earlier spending 8 years as a youth pastor in Whangaparaoa. He is married to Lorraine and they have 5 children. Mike loves his family, food and sport, and is a very keen soccer player.
Andrew Bollen - Associate Pastor
Andrew has been at KBC since July 2007. Before that he was co-pastor at New Plymouth West Baptist Church with his wife Xanthia for 14 years. They have four children (one deceased). Andrew loves his family, movies, computers and Pink Floyd. Andrew is responsible for our ministry to families and children.
Dawn Withers - Youth Pastor
Dawn came to KBC in April 2005. Prior to that she worked as the BYM Regional Youth Consultant for 6 years and was the Youth Pastor at Lower Hutt Baptist for 8 years and Avonhead Baptist in Christchurch for 2 years. She originally started out as a secondary school teacher in Australia and misses the heat and cheap tropical fuit!! She loves travelling, reading and catching up with friends.
Vivienne Johnstone - Office Manager
Viv is responsible for the ongoing management and administration of our church. Her office hours are Monday to Friday 9.30am-3.30pm. Viv is married to Neil and they have four children. Viv is a keen runner.
Eldership
The eldership is responsible for the spiritual oversight and direction of KBC (governance). Our current elders are Chris Beard, Neil Johnstone, Mark Loveard, Keith Maslin, Rosie Pears and John Riley
Our Vision
We believe we are called to
Reveal the glory of God’s Kingdom
This vision is based on a conviction that God’s purpose, in and through Jesus, is to restore His entire creation to its original glorious perfection, where His reign is universally accepted and acknowledged. The mission of His people is to demonstrate here and now what that looks like helping others see and experience and marvel at what God’s reign, God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven, is like.
Expressed more fully
Our vision is for the Karori Baptist Church community to reveal the Kingdom of God on earth - to be a safe “sanctuary”, welcoming all people, and providing nurture and training, so that we are becoming courageous people who are making a Kingdom difference in our homes and neighbourhoods, in schools, universities, workplaces, businesses, clubs, community organisations, local and national government, and at the margins of society bringing the transforming blessing, beauty and life of the Kingdom of God to these settings.
The sanctuary idea is based on a picture we believe God has given us to help us understand and focus on what He is calling us to be and become ?
The picture is local, it’s an image drawn from the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary just down the road from our church centre.
The Karori Wildlife Sanctuary is aiming to restore an area of land to its original pristine condition, before outside forces intervened. And it is using that area of land, as it is being restored, as a haven for wildlife, a safe place.
Careful protection and monitoring are necessary for both of these purposes to be successfully achieved. And the time frame involved is long-term. But the fruit of all this, which we are already seeing, in Karori and much further afield, is the Sanctuary’s influence way beyond its boundaries bringing life, beauty, blessing. To have this influence involves significant risk for the birds of the sanctuary they have to leave the safety of the haven and face many dangers. But they can’t avoid this; as they become healthy, their dna takes over they’ve got to fly!
The concepts of RESTORATION, HAVEN, TIME, INFLUENCE, and RISK are central for us as a church community ..
- We exist as a faith community to be a sanctuary, in other words , to provide a haven not somewhere to hide away from the world, but a safe place where all can find and experience acceptance, love, support, nurture, training, and accountability as well as the challenge necessary for growth.
- In being and becoming that kind of community, we will be restoring the Kingdom of God on earth demonstrating what it looks like when a group of people live together under the reign of God, submitting to Him (Acts 2 gives us some insight into this), as we were created to live (before the outside influences of sin and the Fall intervened)
- And the unavoidable overflow of this, as we are becoming this sort of faith community, is that we will have influence way beyond our boundaries, bringing life, beauty, blessing to our community, city, nation, world.
- This will involve risk for us but if the sanctuary is doing its job, it will be natural for us to take those risks; our dna will compel us.
- Like the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, our vision is long-term - big enough that it will take time to be realised.
Our History
Karori Baptist Church is one of more than 240 Baptist Churches in New Zealand. Karori Baptist Church was founded in 1934,with an initial membership of 25. Before that time Baptists in Karori worshipped at Presbyterian or Methodist churches, the Salvation Army, or attended the Vivian Street Baptist Church in the city, later to become Wellington Central Baptist. The first church building was erected on the present site in 1952, and the present building was opened in 1992.
