Leadership

We have two leadership teams that complement each other in terms of their specific roles. The Elders oversee the spiritual and pastoral needs of the congregation, while the Admin Team oversees the administrative, financial and building needs of the congregation. Both the Elders and Admin Team seek to lead the church with biblical wisdom as they make decisions on behalf of the congregation.

 

Elders

Chris Taylor (Full time pastor)

Chris became the pastor of Deni Baptist in February 2017 after nearly ten years at Grace Evangelical Church in Newcastle. Originally from Tasmania, Chris spent three years as a youth pastor before studying theology at SMBC from 2004–6. As a pastor, his desire is to be used by God to grow people toward spiritual maturity in Christ through teaching and preaching God’s Word.

Earlier in life, Chris worked as an employment consultant, training people to start their own micro-enterprise. His interests outside of church life are current affairs, politics, art and architecture. He plans to one day retire in a converted shipping container.

Cliff Hampton

Cliff is married to Ruth and has two children. They moved to Deniliquin in 2001 after living for a time in Goulburn. Cliff hails from the Emerald Isle, better known as, Ireland, but had made a number of trips to Australia with family before deciding that Australia was a great place to live.

For Cliff, the favourite things about our church are its friendly, caring atmosphere and the teaching of Bible truth.

John Fowler

John was an extension agronomist who has worked both publicly and privately in the Deniliquin district since 1980. His main professional interest is temperate rice production. He also has a small irrigation property where he grows rice (water permitting) and runs beef cattle. He enjoys the challenges and rewards of running the property which seems to take up all his ‘spare’ time.

John enjoys the diversity and friendliness of the Deniliquin Baptist Church. He appreciates the strong biblically based teaching of the church.

 

Admin Team

Derek Sanders (Secretary); Richard Fowler (Treasurer); Keith Bartlett; Jodie Graham and Doug Miller.

Outreach Worker

Penny Fowler (Part time two-days a week)

Penny moved to Deniliquin in 2017 when she married her husband, Richard, and together they have 2 young children. Since mid 2022, Penny has been employed 15 hours a week as our Children and Families Outreach worker. She also teaches SRE to year 7 & 8 students at Deniliquin High School. Penny loves talking about Jesus, being outside, cooking and talking about food.
 
Penny grew up in the small town of Gloucester on the mid north coast. She loves rural Australia and originally trained as a veterinarian before undertaking a ministry apprenticeship with AFES group at CSU, Wagga, followed by theological studies at SMBC.