letter from New Zealand
Christmas Day 1814 saw the first preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ on the shores of New Zealand.
The preacher was Samuel Marsden and he had arrived from Sydney convinced of the transforming power of the gospel to reach the indigenous Māori of New Zealand. The various tribal groups were gripped in cycles of “utu”, where one tribe would attack another as retribution for a previous conflict; the premise behind utu is one of restoring balance to society.
Marsden’s dreams of spreading the love and peace of Jesus amongst these groups were realised beyond his imaginings. By the 1850s it is estimated that 60–70% of Māori had embraced Christianity in some form (source: Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand).
Sadly this spiritual awakening of the 19th century is a distant memory in New Zealand, which has seen one of the most rapid declines in Christian belief of any Western Culture. Fast forward over 200 years from the first Christmas message and, tragically, over half of Kiwis say there is no God.
But amongst believers in New Zealand there is still the same confidence in the transforming power of Jesus. Multiply is an organisation that has been set up with the aim of turning the wave of secularism that has engulfed our shores.
They write that, under God, they seek to address three major gaps in the New Zealand church by establishing:
1. Apprentice Training programme: to develop a training culture in the local church, prayerfully confident that God will raise up the next generations of gospel workers
2. Leadership Development programme: to develop leaders holistically for ministry so they can lead with a vision for gospel growth.
3. Church Planting programme: to support healthy church leaders to plant new healthy churches.
Multiply has been establishing a network of churches that now spans several denominations, and their prayer is that God will bring about the spread of a spiritual wildfire similar to the one that Marsden and others experienced 200 years ago on these shores.
