How we see leadership

Jesus is the leader of each Christian church. He is the senior minister or pastor, the one who actively and perfectly guides and governs his people for our good and for his glory.

He does this through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is one of the three persons who make up the family of God: the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. It is this family that Christians love and worship. The Holy Spirit lives with those of us who follow Jesus, he lives in us and he guides us as we follow our King. The principle way the Holy Spirit does this is through the Bible, the collection of books that he wrote about Jesus.

To put it simply, King Jesus rules his church through his Spirit and the Bible. He does this through two groups of people – the leadership and the membership (see our membership page for more on this group).

In the leadership (or 'elders') seems to be made up for two groups of people. One group is the 'overseers' (like an overseer on a building site) and the other is the 'servants' (often left as the Greek 'deacon' in English translations of the Bible). The overseers (often called simply 'elders') are to make sure the building of the church goes up straight and their main work is praying and teaching the Bible. The servants make sure the church is looked after well and their main work is looking after everything else – the finances, administration, care of church members, and everything else that needs doing!

Both groups are humble positions of service – it is the building that will look beautiful, not the builders, and it is the master-builder, Jesus, who will get the credit, which is fair enough as he does all the work!

Our hope as a church is to grow to have a body of gentle, Spirit-filled, loving, relational, servant-hearted overseers and deacons to lead the church. This may take some time as the Lord raises people up to fulfil these responsibilities over the months and years. Our current leadership is made up of the following people.

Overseers (elders)

John Hindley

I am married to the wonderful Flick, and father to the beautiful Daisy, born on 2 September 2010. The greatest joy and happiness in my life is being loved by Christ and having him as my king, hope, treasure and my all. To have a great wife and gorgeous daughter is simply blessings upon blessings from God. I love being part of BroadGrace church and living in Norfolk. I grew up in a Christian home, and came to know Jesus for myself gradually, with the final pieces falling into place when I was at university in Exeter.

I worked for a church as youth worker for a couple of years before going to Oak Hill College in London to study theology for three years. After that I worked as an assistant minister for a Church of England church in Bolton before moving to Manchester to be part of a team starting a new church, The Plant, there.

Flick and I have been visiting Norfolk since we were married in 2002, as her mum and dad moved here then. We have come to love the county and to feel the Lord calling us hereto establish churches to better share the good news of Jesus with the people of north Norfolk and Broadlands. We enjoyed city life in Manchester, but are enjoying living in a village just as much. We are loving the lack of rain in East Anglia and the friendly welcome we have received.

I serve full-time as minister of BroadGrace, and count it a privilege to serve Jesus by teaching and praying for this wonderful family of his here in Norfolk. The things I love most are hanging out with my wife, hanging out with the church and teaching the Bible. Good food and a cold beer on a sunny day come pretty close too!


Matthew Hall