Review Roadmap

A sample ‘Statement of Belief’ was provided in the RAC recommendations. This has been considered and re-worked by Arise staff with theological experience.

The new Statement of Belief is crafted to be biblically founded, simply worded, and remain applicable as Arise continues to grow and change in God’s purposes. The re-worked Statement of Belief has been approved by the Board and the Arise Leadership Team.

This new statement is included in the new Trust Deed for Arise Church. The statement is published on the Arise Church website.

The RAC provided an exemplar Trust Deed for the Board to consider. This deed has been reviewed by Parry Fields lawyers, with suggestions provided by the Board to ensure the deed will serve Arise Church well in the current legal/statutory environment. The new Trust Deed has been approved by the Board and is awaiting signing at the next board meeting.

Arise Church purchased ‘Employsure’ policies for HR related issues. These have been adapted for our employment related policies. These policies were also the basis for our ministry and volunteer handbooks.

For our other areas of our operation, it was agreed a better approach for these Arise policies would be to develop documentation that specifically reflected our unique nature as an organisation. This has been applied to policies such as health & safety, drawing on externally sourced standards. An extensive suite of policies has been developed and approved by the board including:

• Building Use Policy
• Business Continuity Plan
• Campus and Lead Pastor Vehicle Policy
• CCTV Policy
• Complaints Policy
  • Internal Complaints Policy
  • External Complaints Policy
  • Bullying, Discrimination and Harassment Policy
  • Grievance Handling Policy
  • Protected Disclosure / Whistleblower Policy
• Child and Young Person Protection Policy
• Confidentiality Policy
• Conflict of Interest Policy
• Credit Card Policy
• Data Protection & Security Policy
• Delegated Financial Authority Policy
• Device Use Policy
• Emergency Relief Donations Policy
• Employment Handbook
  • HR Manual
  • Disciplinary Process Policy (Misconduct)
  • Overtime / Work hours Policy
  • Parental Leave Policy
  • Smoke-free Workplace Policy
  • Drug & Alcohol Policy
  • Social Media Policy
  • Personal Development Policy
  • Internet & Email Policy
  • Phone & Hardware Policy
  • Leave Policy
• Finance Office Manual
• Flexible Working Arrangement Policy
• Health & Safety Policy
• Incident Management and Reporting Policy
• Management Procedures
• Media Policy
• Ministry School Handbook & Acknowledgement
  • Health, Safety and Wellbeing
  • Complaints
  • Time sheeting
• Ministry School Enrolment Policy
• Ministry School Mentor Standards
• Ministry School Supervisor Standards
• Ministry School Withdrawal & Refund Policy
• Motor Vehicle Policy
• Pastoral Care Policy
• Payroll Policy
• Performance Appraisal Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Recruitment Policy
• Refund Policy
• Risk Register
• Smoke-Free Workplace Policy
• Staff Wellbeing Policy
• Volunteer Handbook & Acknowledgement

Arise is committed to continuing to review and develop policies that ensure we provide clear guidance for all aspects of our operations.

The Lead Pastor and the General Manager are now required to attend and participate in Arise board meetings but have no voting rights at these meetings.

Clear financial policies are now in place covering spending, honoraria, gifts, etc.

Management is reporting the financial performance of Arise to the Board at each trust meeting. Arise is also providing quarterly online webinars with financial updates for the Arise congregation.

The Arise website clearly sets out financial processes, accountability, and controls, for the wider community to access.

Recognising that our previous practice of reserved front row seating created a perception that it was based on status, Arise Church has moved away from reserved seating, other than a limited number of seats required for good service dynamics.

Teaching/training processes have been implemented to ensure all Arise staff clearly understand and operate in a biblical reflection of honouring. We recognise that these trainings will be needed on an on-going basis to remind ourselves of our biblically mandated responsibilities regarding giving and receiving honour.

The Arise website has an easily accessible method for feedback from those who identify inappropriate or unhealthy conduct or expectations.

A current ad hoc on-boarding process occurs for new Board members. This includes processes for seeking people with a wide range of skills and diverse backgrounds to better represent the wider Arise community.

New trustees are no longer allowed to be employees of Arise. A pastoral oversight check is undertaken to ensure new members meet the Arise "Biblical requirements of an elder". New potential members are also required to sign agreement to the ‘Arise Statement of Belief.’ These on-boarding requirements are currently in the process of being formalised in a new "Trust on-boarding policy".

As per changes in 2022, new trustees must be approved by a 75% vote of existing trustees. Church members can nominate potential trustees for consideration.

Based on RAC recommendations, a Spiritual Advisory Panel Policy has been developed and approved by the Board. The Board and the senior leaders are identifying potential members and inviting them to be involved. The implementation of this advisory will be an ongoing process, with the initial group being a smaller team of approximately six members from within and external to Arise.

Organisational restructuring is well underway with the appointment of both our new Lead Pastor and our new General Manager. Communication continues across Arise to agree on roles and boundaries and to ensure all pastoral roles (paid & voluntary) have clearly defined access to a spiritual carer who can support them in their role.

The implementation of both an Employee Handbook and a Volunteer Handbook has been a great step towards bringing clear organisational structure across Arise. Provision has been made to ensure all Arise Pastoral staff receive regular professional supervision/counselling.

Arise recently completed an HR information gathering exercise, including external consultancy and internal staff feedback over the course of four months. The period for feedback and consultation has finished. The Lead Pastor, General Manager, & Leadership team have considered all feedback and formed a new organisational structure for the staffing of Arise. They are now beginning the implementation phase.

Our Mission (Arise 'Statement of Belief'):
Our mission is to demonstrate and proclaim the love of God, that has changed our lives, to the rest of humanity. We are to inspire all people that they and their cultures are to be reconciled to God and honour Him by living according to His Word. The church of Jesus Christ is to actively work at positively transforming the world, through to Jesus promised return, the resurrection of the dead, and eternity with Him as King of every tribe, nation, and tongue in His new heavens and new earth.

Our Vision:
Pursue Jesus
Build His Church
Advance His Kingdom
Impact Our World

Our Values:
People of Prayer
House of Worship
Mountain-moving Faith
Life of Service
Filled with Joy

The strategies to see our vision and values become reality will continue to develop on an on-going basis.

Arise has appointed privacy officers to ensure personal information collected is handled with good stewardship. The Arise website clearly sets out our current privacy policies for handling personal data and information. Our planned work to complete Privacy Impact Assessment of systems and databases is still pending. Our cybersecurity framework upgrades are underway in order to get Arise up to a baseline standard.

A project is underway to relaunch Kingdom Business in 2024.

Kingdom Business has gone through a time where the Arise business community haven’t had a vision or a place to meet. Campuses ran their own Kingdom Business communities, and the Finance Update webinars became a replacement for formal Kingdom Business events.

There were aspects of how Kingdom Business was formerly operated that members reported to the RAC as being detrimental to the church culture. We have four actions we want to implement for a new form of business support network; Life Groups, events, webinars & quarterly update emails.

We want to align our new church vision statement with how we operate and run Kingdom Business in 2024 and beyond. Currently the planning and report writing is being completed. Sharing of our new Kingdom Business vision for feedback with a wider selection of the Arise community is underway.

We are looking to re-launch in the third quarter of 2024.

The Board have started allocating budget to implement ongoing board member training. This is scheduled to commence in August 2024 with an external training session for board members.

Regular development requirements for board members will be formally established through the new board charter document currently being prepared. The new board charter document will also formalise a self-review process of the overall board performance in an ongoing basis.

A campus eldership model has been happening in an ad hoc manner in some campuses. All campus pastors/leaders have been tasked with identifying pastoral hearted people, who would be potential trusted advisors for the local pastoral staff.

The next stage is to begin a more formal implementation of this eldership structure. The endeavour is to slowly grow into an effective, enabling eldership model. This will be achieved as we review, learn, and adapt to what works for Arise over the next couple of years.

Work is yet to formally begin on our Operations Panel Policy. In the meantime, management recognise the wealth of talent and expertise that sits within the wider Arise community and continue to lean on this resource where appropriate.

A formal structure will be implemented in the future to facilitate an Operations Panel(s) as an effective part of Arise.

Informal Hui has occurred in some Arise campuses to initiate conversation around cultural inclusion at Arise. A framework for advancing our journey of learning to express God's love through cultural inclusion, is yet to be established.

Our primary response to all at Arise is to demonstrate the love of Christ in everything we do & to encourage continuous personal growth into His likeness. Arise Church will commence a process to welcome, understand, and love LGBTQI+ individuals attending Arise, reflecting that God is love and that Jesus provides salvation to all people, regardless of circumstance. Senior leadership and pastoral care staff have begun this process.

Arise staff who served on the RAC provided feedback that gender equality is being practised in filling roles within Arise. Employment contracts have been clarified to ensure additional expectations are not being placed on the spouses of those being employed. A clear policy requiring a culture of gender equality in all aspects of the Arise community is to be put in place.

This policy is yet to be started.

Arise Church will define a process where members may register interest in volunteering their professional skills and expertise for Arise’ benefit in either a local or national capacity.

This process is yet to be started.