Seven Questions Plus One

1. Who are you, and where are you working from these days? 

   
   

Kia ora, my name is Glenn Melville, and I am the Director for the Carey Centre for Lifelong Learning at Carey Baptist College in Auckland, New Zealand.  

I am married to Kelly, and we have three beautiful daughters: Emma, Grace and Lily. 

Before working for Carey Baptist, I completed a PhD investigating the emotional well-being of Baptist pastors, and before that, I was a Baptist pastor. 

Last year my wife and I moved to Christchurch which is a beautiful city in the South Island! While much of my work is based online, I commute to Auckland on a regular basis. 

2. What’s the lifelong learning initiative you lead? 

   
   

The aim of the Carey Centre for Lifelong Learning is to equip Christian leaders and churches to help them thrive in ministry.

The centre provides accessible, relevant, and quality content from leading academics and practitioners to support Christian leaders' personal and professional growth. Resources include webinars (live and on-demand), in-person workshops, video-based teaching, training seminars, and small group studies. 

3. Who is served by your initiative? 

Most people engaging with our resources are associated with the Baptist Union of New Zealand. These include pastors, ministry leaders, church elders and deacons, and small group leaders. However, a growing number of clergy from other denominations are also engaging with our webinar content. 

4. What’s an “Aha!” moment you’ve had while doing this work? 

   
   

Two years into my role I determined the need to deepen the professional development pathways the Centre was offering to Christian Leaders so that their lifelong learning was more profoundly informational

. 

Since then, I have developed a supervision micro-credential and offered a workshop applying Bowen Family Systems Theory to Ministry with support from the Centre for Lifelong Learning at Columbia Theological Seminary. I am also exploring other learning modes such as asynchronous courses. 

5. If people wanted to mine your expertise on something related to lifelong learning, what could they ask you about? 

   
   

I have utilised webinars extensively to deliver lifelong learning content. Through experience and experimentation, I have learnt a few keys for how best to utilise webinars to facilitate pastors’ professional development. 

6. What do you think will be different in the future of lifelong learning? 

   
   

There will be increasing demand for flexible and accessible learning for the next generation of Christian leaders who are not able or willing to access traditional theological education (i.e., degree programs). 

Lifelong Learning will need to innovate to meet this increasing demand. There is also a need to develop customized learning options for migrant church leaders, where significant growth is occurring. I also see an opportunity to cultivate partnerships with other institutions to share knowledge and extend the range of training options and resources. 

7. How can people get in touch with you?  

   
   

People are welcome to email me glenn.melville@carey.ac.nz If anyone would like a longer conversation, I am happy to organise a zoom meeting. 

8. If you weren’t leading a lifelong learning program, what would you be doing? 

   
   

I would be expressing my passion to support pastors’ wellbeing in other ways, such as providing professional supervision for pastors and running well-being seminars. I would also seek to write a book based on my PhD findings and undertake further research on the well-being of pastors.