After decades of working in church ministry and bible colleges, Ally Cawthorn has seen what it takes to shape a Christian leader who can go the distance. The difference, she says, is to know that it is a journey, not a destination.
“There’s never been a point in the almost thirty years of leadership in ministry where I have thought ‘oh I’ve made it.’
From biblical studies to church planting, Ally has developed a deep passion for working with leaders from all realms of life and denominations with a desire to create an ecumenical environment, where different experiences and expressions of faith can sit alongside one another and help create faithful Christian Leaders.
Her understanding of this didn’t come about from one experience, but has been shaped by the many contexts in which she’s served God. From her extensive experience leading across various Christian ministries alongside her passion to see leaders grow and mature in ecumenical environments Ally and Arrow’s paths eventually crossed.
Coupled with her vision for Christin Leaders, Ally has always strived to be a ‘lifelong learner’ surrendering her journey over to God and allowing him to work through her as she grows, upskills and changes. This attitude is part of the reason the role of Director of the Executive Leadership Program aligns so well with her hopes and desires for Christian Leaders.
A call to faith and ministry
As a child, Ally had an acute awareness of God’s presence, despite not growing up in a Christian household. Her parents were slightly perplexed by her desire to pray and participate enthusiastically in religious education at school. Ally’s mustard seed of faith continued to grow during her early childhood, ultimately leading to her baptism through the local Anglican Church.
Like all teenages, Ally went through a time of growth and discovery which slowly led to her drifting away from her faith, but at eighteen she began to realise that none of the things she was chasing after had given her the life she wanted. She remembers this period as the time when her faith became both active and mature. But the idea of working in ministry had never crossed her mind.
Instead, she had a career in the health promotion and prevention industry, working for the Cancer Council on skin cancer prevention awareness and messaging. She’d thought she would remain in the health industry, until she had her first child and her perspective began to shift.
Who I am, not what I do
“It was like I birthed him and I birthed a call to ministry at the same time,” Ally recalls.
After having her son, Ally stepped into a new world of biblical studies and ministry training, completing her doctorate in spiritual formation through Fuller Seminary in the United States. Her studies took her to the teaching and equipping spaces and she lectured at Harvest West in Western Australia, as well as working part time roles in church based ministry. Eventually Ally and her husband planted a church Urban Church, in Perth which led to a season of full time ministry work.
It was another chapter in her leadership journey that would continue to take her through different expressions of church and ministry. She describes each experience as another layer to her understanding of what it means to lead faithfully.
During her time at Urban Church and later at Neuma Church, Ally became increasingly aware that her own experience and church context represented only a small part of the intricately woven tapestry of God’s Church.
“I have always been interested in how people live their faith and how their faith fits within their life and church expression,” she says.
In Ally’s own life, she acknowledges that rather than one particular ministry experience shaping her leadership, God used a thread of experiences to form the leader she is today. Each season broadened her understanding of God’s Church and challenged her to see beyond her own experience and denomination.
Her time at Neuma, in particular, gave her valuable executive leadership experience within a large global and multi-site church. Success meant strong leadership skills and experience, but it also reinforced something more valuable; effective leadership is not simply about what a leader knows. For Ally she came to a point in her leadership journey where she realised that leaders lead from who they are.
“I understood that I will be leading from who I am, not what I know,” she explains.
Your story is part of a bigger plan
It is this perspective that Ally brings to her role as Director of the Executive Leadership Program at Arrow. The program takes leaders who are Christians working in high level roles through a twelve month process to develop them into resilient, Jesus-centred leaders who can lead with faith and integrity.
“What excites me about the program is how it is not just about leadership skills, but it’s also deeply formative. It’s about being led by Jesus and being more like Jesus. It needs to be deeply formational to make any difference in people’s lives long term,” Ally shares.
As Ally reflects on her own leadership journey, she wants those in the Executive Leadership Program to appreciate the formation that occurs when leaders come together from different backgrounds and Christian denominations under the uniting love of Jesus.
But the most important thing for Ally when walking alongside these leaders is the spiritual formation that is happening. Ensuring these leaders are listening to God as they lead is one of the top priorities for Ally. “There are lots of other leadership programs out there. But it’s not about ‘what does it mean to be a leader?’ It’s about ‘what does it mean to be a Christian leader?’”
Ally wants to shape leaders who can say to people ‘follow me as I follow Christ’ and mean it truthfully and genuinely. No program other than Arrow offers the same mix of robust content and continual challenge to reflect on their spirituality.
Leaders who last are not simply those who accumulate knowledge or achieve positions of influence. They are leaders who understand who they are, remain a ‘life-long learner’ and recognise that their own story is part of God’s bigger plan for his Church.
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