Education Opportunities in 2025

After our launch of Pro Sanctis in 2024 to meet a community need and desire for local education opportunities driven by and for the community of Hawkes Bay, we enter 2025 with some new opportunities and some redesigned plans.

One of the challenges we faced with Pro Sanctis was that many outside the church felt they were not supposed to engage with it, with a number saying "But I'm not a member" when they signalled interest in attending. To help address this, we are relaunching the community education initiative as Catalyst Education with a new website and separate branding and expression. We hope this will help a wider audience engage with the initiatives and bring a wider group of teachers and mentors forward to engage. While the prospectus for Term One is not yet complete, some of the options are tentatively available at the website www.catalysteducation.info

Alongside this, we recognised a need to offer something for members of our community and of the whole church in Hawkes Bay that met a learning goal somewhere between preaching and the formal education options that are available. This has seen has move to draw the theological, biblical and spiritual teaching components into a new offering that we will likely develop into a certificate in theological studies. While not a formal academic exercise, it will be led and taught by those who have engaged in the field of theology and offer an introduction to concepts, theology and practice that would be beneficial to licenced lay people, clergy and those exploring ministry. This would be coupled with an initiative to offer greater training opportunities for both clergy and lay across Hawkes Bay. This will see us hosting a leader's summit once every 8 weeks or so with a key speaker on matters of church leadership, pastoral practice, cultural exegesis and healthy leadership. This would be open to any and all involved in church leadership within the region.

We are really excited by some of the opportunities these offering give to us and to those who may engage as we seek to meet the need and desire of the people and of the leaders of our churches with relevant and accessible gatherings to grow together and in our faith and practice.