Christian World Service (CWS) Board Chair Sally Russell has welcomed school principal and Baptist layman Mr Murray Overton as the new National Director of Christian World Service.

Ms Russell commended Murray Overton to CWS supporters, partner churches, colleagues and international partners as she introduced him in a letter to CWS stakeholders this week.

“I am confident that Murray will build on the organisation’s 75-year history of providing relief assistance, supporting local development and undertaking advocacy work to end poverty and injustice.” she said. 

“He brings to the job leadership experience, strategic and analytical skills and the ability to establish strong relationships.”

Murray comes to the role from his current position as principal of Te Kura Tuatahi o Kaiapoi – Kaiapoi Borough School. Before taking up educational leadership in Kaiapoi, Murray worked as a teacher and school director in Bangladesh and Ethiopia and has taught and offered leadership in a number of schools in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

In Ethiopia, Murray served in the leadership team of SIM (formerly, the Sudan Interior Mission). His interest in making a difference for those living with poverty began earlier however, when he was a teacher at a mission school in Bangladesh, seconded to the Servants’ Mission to Asia’s Poor.

Murray is a member of Southwest Baptist Church in Christchurch and strongly supports the CWS vision of helping local communities to build a world where all people have food, water, justice and lives free from violence.

Murray will support CWS staff and as they work with local partners in over 20 countries and alongside its partner churches: the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia, Methodist Church of New Zealand, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Christian Churches New Zealand and Uniting Congregations of Aotearoa New Zealand. 

Another perspective Murray will bring to his work at CWS is a good understanding of how Te Tiriti o Waitangi must inform the organisation’s work in Aotearoa New Zealand schools and in the wider community. 

Murray Overton will take up his role as National Director of Christian World Service Monday next week, 23 August 2021.

This year CWS marks 76 years since Archbishop West Watson launched the first Christmas Appeal for the National Council of Churches to assist “the millions in the east and the west, who are hungry, cold, and homeless”.

CWS is a founding member of ACT Alliance (Action by Churches Together), a coalition of more than 130 members working in over 120 countries with a focus on humanitarian aid, development and justice advocacy.