Our Leadership

John Hindley

Elder

I am a Yorkshireman originally, although you’d never guess from my accent. After growing up in a Christian family, the Lord saved me as a university student in Exeter. That was when I finally realised that the stories I had grown up believing were not only historically true, but true in a way that left nothing else the same.

I married the lovely Flick in 2002 and we moved from Manchester to the Broadland area in 2009 to establish the team that would plant Broadgrace Church. Since then I have become the grateful and constantly-learning father of our four children.

 I’ve served as an elder at Broadgrace since the church was established in 2010. I love Jesus, and am increasingly amazed that he would have me as his follower. In all the joys and struggles, I am grateful to the Lord for the church he has put me in and I love life in this part of Norfolk, especially the beaches and the sausage rolls.

Matthew Hall

Elder

I am married to the lovely Sarah who puts up with me remarkably and have 3 great children Annabel, Ethan & Linya. We were among the founding members of BroadGrace and have learned to appreciate God’s grace more and more. His undeserved, unstopping, never giving up love for us that’s not dependant on anything we do, so we can enjoy every day in the present with its glimpses of Jesus in everything and look forward to living with Him in perfection later. Don’t get me wrong, life is hard - disability, business concerns & responsibilities and not enough time, to name but a few, but God is good.

Steve Michael

Elder

I am married to Hannah and we have two grown up children, Jed and Katie.  We moved to Norfolk in 2013 to be part of Broadgrace and to try to help to share the good news about Jesus in this part of the world. We love living here and being part of such a caring church family.

I work as a residential surveyor and, when I'm not doing that, I try to make sure the business and finance side of church is kept in reasonable shape (very ably assisted by others).  Together with Hannah, I lead one of our church community groups.   

I love good music and cinema trips.  I play a bit of tennis and really enjoy long walks, especially exploring the beautiful North Norfolk coast.

Matt Timmins

Elder

I was saved in my early teens as the Lord met me through the faithful ministry of a local church’s youth group.  It encourages me no end that Jesus is delighted and determined to offer Himself to wandering, weak and wounded sinners through wandering, weak and wounded sinners.  

I am married to Rhianon, and we have three school aged children. I spend my time training for church ministry part-time with Crosslands seminary, and working part time for the award winning Norfolk bakery Bread-Source when I am not studying.  

For hobbies I enjoy running, supporting Manchester City, making (and eating) pizza and collecting Transformers toys.  

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 Bible, leadership (or 'elders') seems to be made up of 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.