Special to ASSIST News Service
WELLINGTON, NZ (ANS) — Developments in the Hutt Valley – the dormitory suburbs of New Zealand’s national capital, Wellington – over the past 13 years have brought churches to the point where they can declare there is one church in Hutt City with many congregations.
The move towards a citywide church concept had its beginnings in 1993, when a ministry fellowship called Partners in Ministry was established by four Hutt Valley pastors who had a vision to see pastors come together to pray for one another, the churches within the valley and the city.
As relationships have grown within the fellowship, and respect for each other increased, the Christian influence and unity of churches in Lower Hutt has increased.
Partners in Ministry (PIM) provides a place where church leaders can meet and reach common ground to disperse distrust and competition through worship, prayer and fellowship.
PIM meets every first Friday morning of each month. The venue is rotated so the fellowship is “owned” by everyone. A monthly newsletter is sent out to update members of events to the city and to encourage and mentor attendees.
PIM has held seven prayer and fasting retreats. These provide a time to gather together the spiritual leaders of the city to humble themselves before God and encourage one another. It is at these retreats that great progress has been made in relational and then functional unity.
For many years there have been monthly citywide prayer gatherings. These are hosted by different churches and in the process we have learned to honor the diverse expressions of worship and prayer.
There have been a number of moves of God over the years in Hutt City that have caused many in the Christian community to be personally revived and become involved in community initiatives.
In 2004, the Impact World Tour was a catalyst in promoting extended unity between the churches and the business arena. Since then a group of businessmen and church leaders have met for prayer, and from that a group called Hutt Impact emerged to combine resources of the Christian church and business leaders to positively influence the community with hope and godly values.
The vision for this group is “Christians living our faith, sharing resources to impact the Hutt with Jesus Christ”. It has as its mission statement, “Connect business people and churches to fund and serve community programs that bring hope and purpose.”
Hutt Impact has identified nine spheres of influences the Christian community can influence: youth, children, family, community and health/social services, media, arts and entertainment, government (local, regional and national), church and ministry, education and school and business and professional.
It is facilitated by a core group of business and church leaders, with additional facilitators in each sphere who run regular meetings for those within their area of influence.
The initial process is to network together people who are involved to first pray and encourage each other and then look at ways of increasing Christian influence.
Lessons learned from both of these groups are to honor the different expressions of worship and to honor businesspeople who have key roles to play in God’s purposes.
We are on a journey which is exciting. The reality is that what is emerging is fragile, but vibrant. We have moved from simply having relational unity (being nice to each other) to functional unity (we recognize the strengths of different churches and pool resources and activities) to united mission.