A Season Well Served: Paul Carey Steps Back From the Bishops' Office
After fifteen years at the Anglican Centre and nearly six years at the heart of the Bishops' Office, Paul Carey is stepping back from full-time ministry supporting Bishops Justin and Anashuya.
From 30 September, Paul will no longer carry the day-to-day administrative mahi of the Bishops' Office. But as anyone who has worked alongside him knows, that is only half the story. His wider calling, the "Godly Administration" ministry he has spent years shaping across the Diocese will continue.
For Paul, the decision comes after months of honest conversation about what it means to serve well in a new season of life, having got his longed for SuperGold card in January this year. "We've been discussing this for quite a while now," he says. "I can't continue full-time, which is quite a normal thing for someone who has entered their retirement years." It's a practical decision, but one made without any loss of love for the ministry itself.
Ask Paul what he has loved most about supporting the Bishops, and there's no hesitation. "It's a privilege — an absolute privilege," he says.
"Being an assistant is the best job in the world. I don't know anything else like it. I've enjoyed this far more than any other role I’ve had.“
One of his guiding rules for the role, he says with a smile, has always been simple: "Read everything, discuss nothing with anyone."
Assistant Bishop of Wellington, Anashuya Fletcher said, “Paul has offered his gifts of administration to this Diocese so wholeheartedly and faithfully; always adopting the posture of a servant to best facilitate the ministry of the those that he serves. His role in the Bishops Office has positively impacted the entire Diocese - both through the care and competency with which he has lived into this role but also championing the ministry of Godly administration far and wide.”
What makes Paul's transition distinctive is that it isn't really a retirement at all. While his full-time, stipended support of the Bishops concludes at the end of September, Paul will continue in ministry on a self-supporting basis as Deacon for Administration — a role he was ordained into in October 2020, and one that, as far as anyone in the Diocese can tell, doesn't exist anywhere else in the Anglican Communion.
That ministry centres on what we now know as Godly Administration, and is worked out through Discipleship Groups, Retreats, and other means, helping people across the Diocese to see their behind-the-scenes administration work as a genuine expression of calling. Paul’s personal vision statement says it plainly: "to act out, demonstrate, foster, develop, encourage and celebrate Godly administration that enables our transformative movement of local faith communities."
That ministry will continue. Paul expects to support as needed whoever steps into the role at the Bishops' Office, and to keep building and developing the Diocesan Godly Administration ministry that he co-leads with Hazel Nugent.
Advertising is underway to fill this role:
Paul's path to the Bishops' Office was anything but planned. He first came to the Anglican Centre in 2011, applying for an accounts and administration support role while he was a house-husband and his wife was in a longer than comfortable gap between jobs. He was soon doing the Diocese's payroll, a role he held for years alongside a growing list of voluntary commitments, including as Parish Administrator at Whitby.
In 2016, while covering the front desk during a colleague's leave, Paul struck up a conversation with Gendy Thomson, then newly appointed Archdeacon for Mission and Ministry, who needed a voluntary PA. What began as eight voluntary hours a week within months became a wider full-time paid combination of roles, and over the following years Paul's responsibilities widened steadily.
Alongside this, Paul felt a growing sense of call toward ordained ministry. He was ordained a vocational deacon in October 2020, in a role created specifically for him: Deacon for Administration, the only one of its kind the Diocese is aware of.
It is that same sense of calling that carries Paul into this next chapter. His hours in the Bishops' Office may be ending, but the ministry that grew from a reception-desk conversation a decade ago is far from finished.
Please join us in thanking Paul for his years of faithful service in the Bishops’ Office.
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Advertising for the role of the Executive Assistant to the Bishops’ has commenced and available on Do Good Jobs and Seek.
