Ever been to your local Christmas Parade and noticed the breadth of businesses and groups participating… but no mention of Jesus?
“We’d noticed that everyone from everywhere was involved in our local parade,” says Pakuranga Christian Fellowship Pastor Ken Hutchinson, “but no Christians talking about the real reason for Christmas.”
So this year, for the first time, more than 40 volunteers from Pakuranga Christian Fellowship came together to take part in the Howick Santa Parade on Sunday 7 December. “Using signs and costumes, we told the salvation story, beginning with the nativity story and finishing with the cross—pointing to Jesus as the way, the truth and the life.”
Alongside this desire to be part of the parade, Ken says the church has been growing in its conviction to share the gospel outside the four walls of the church building. “If we don’t have a presence in the local community the Christian message can get lost.”
They recently ran an outreach in Mission Bay, where a team set up a gazebo and took anyone interested through an ‘Are you a good person?’ test on a flip chart. The results were encouraging—and surprising.
“We met some people who had lived in New Zealand for two years, and they shared they had never heard of Jesus. This was a real eye opener for our team.”
Ken says they had over 100 conversations with people who wanted to engage—and every single person was interested in hearing the gospel at the end. “People were very open to talking and it was incredibly successful. We had many long conversations with people from all sorts of religious backgrounds who were happy to chat.”
Pakuranga Christian Fellowship Program Director Diana Hutchinson says it was an amazing experience: “I’ve never had anything like it. We also found out through the day that there were other Christians who came to Mission Bay to pray for people there and were excited to see us sharing the gospel. It really felt like God co-ordinated even extra prayer warriors to partner along with our church family who were praying at home!
“We had a team from Blenheim with us to help, and they had never had anything like that happen before either—such openness and opportunities to speak to people from all over the world. It re-energised them to share the gospel in Blenheim too.”
The Pakuranga Christian Fellowship evangelism team is led by elder John White, and Ken says they’ve been encouraged by many gospel opportunities: “We’ve had two ladies start to come along to church after meeting our team at the beach, and we’re planning similar outreach events over the summer in neutral spaces where people feel comfortable and free to chat.”
