What we hold as important

Our faith and values

At Wellington South Baptist Church, we are a community of people seeking to follow Jesus together in worship, community, and everyday life.

Our life together is shaped by our relationships, the love of God and neighbour, scripture, prayer, and a desire to grow in faith, hope, and love. We are not a church that has everything neatly wrapped up, but we are committed to walking together faithfully, listening well to God and to one another, and seeking to engage in the work of reconciliation that Jesus is all about.

We seek to be a church centred on Jesus Christ. His life, teaching, death, and resurrection are at the heart of our faith. We believe that in Jesus we see the love of God most clearly, and we want our life together to reflect the way of life that Jesus modelled.

We are committed to listening to what the Spirit has to say to us through the scriptures, acknowledging the complexity of the text, and seeking to be obedient to what Jesus is calling us to as a community. The story of scripture is an identity shaping narrative that helps us to know God, understand the story of Jesus, and be formed as a community of Jesus followers.

We believe faith is more than just what we think. It is something we practice together. As a church, we gather to worship, pray, learn, encourage one another, and share life together. We want to be a community where people can grow in faith, be honest about their questions, and find support and friendship along the way.

As a Baptist church, baptism and communion are important parts of our shared life. We practise believer’s baptism, and we share communion as a way of remembering Jesus and participating together in the life of his people.

Believers baptism is our norm, however we have Open Membership, meaning we acknowledge the importance of other forms of baptism and welcome people who have received baptism in alternative ways.

We believe that women and men are both called and gifted for leadership and ministry in the church. As a result, we are an egalitarian church. This means we welcome all, no matter their gender, to serve in all areas of church life, including preaching, teaching, pastoring, and leadership. We see this as part of our commitment to being a community where the gifts of all people are recognised, encouraged, and shared.

We are on a journey of honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi and growing in what it means to be a Treaty partnership church. We want to listen well, learn deeply, and walk respectfully with Māori as tangata whenua in Aotearoa New Zealand. We understand this to be an ongoing journey rather than something we have completed, and we want it to shape our relationships, our worship, our leadership, and our place in the wider community.

We are a part of the Baptist Union of New Zealand. This means we are committed to the work both regionally (in the Lower North Island Baptist Association) and nationally. Baptist churches are governed by the members of the local church, and we also freely and willingly commit to working together with the wider whānau of Baptist churches.

We recognise that not every question has been fully resolved or formally expressed in the life of our church. In some areas, we are still learning how to speak clearly and faithfully together. We want to be a church marked not only by conviction, but also by curiosity, humility, grace, and a willingness to keep listening for the voice of Christ.