We are fast heading into the day of Pentecost, and we’re excited to be joining nearly a hundred churches across New Zealand in the Pentecost Prayer Initiative.

Thousands of people will be going to prayer rooms and other prayer gatherings to seek God over these 10 days. Let's be asking God to revive His church and to rewire our culture so the lost will be reached and His kingdom advanced.

Let's pray the ancient prayer, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, here in Aotearoa New Zealand as it is in heaven”

We'd love to see your photos and videos of your prayer gatherings over this time, and also to hear the stories of what God does as we set aside this time to seek him. Please email us your photos, videos and stories to office@thestreet.org.nz

If you're posting to social media, the team at 24/7 prayer would love you to use the hashtag #247prayernz or tag them in your posts @247prayernz.

There is also a daily devotional for the 10 days that 24/7 prayer have produced, which you can check out here

We're excited to announce three staff vacancies at The Street Church:

Youth Associate Pastor
Work alongside our Youth Pastor, Matt Swank, to provide leadership and administrative support to our Youth Ministry. This role offers an incredible opportunity to be coached in Youth Ministry and play a key part in helping our young people become total followers of Jesus Christ.

Night Location Pastor
We're seeking a leader for the Night Location Pastor role. This position provides leadership for our Night community and offers a fantastic opportunity to develop your leadership and pastoral skills under the guidance of Senior Pastors, Simon and Jenny Gill.

Mt Vic Location Pastor
We're seeking expressions of interest for the Mt Vic Location Pastor role. If you're sensing a call from God to be involved in the leadership of the Mt Vic location, we'd love to hear from you! Please get in touch, and we'll connect you with Simon and Jenny Gill to explore this calling further. Interested in finding out more? Contact office@thestreet.org.nz to request a job description or to request a meeting to discuss these roles further.

Applications close on the 20th of May

Are you keen to be a part of the team that makes Sundays happen? If so we’d love to hear from you! We’re especially in need of people in the following areas, but anyone is welcome to put their hand up! Full training provided, all you need is a willingness to be a part of the team :)

Connections - The friendly faces you meet at the door on Sundays, the Connections team is there to make people feel welcome by greeting people, and preparing morning tea and Communion.

Media - The Media team make sure we can sing along by putting up the words on the screen and running the videos.

Sound - The Sound team make the speakers and mics work, and make it sound great.

 How do we interact with and love our neighbour when we hold differing values? How do we raise children to be confident in who God has made them to be? Traditional ways of communicating have often taken a defensive or argumentative approach. Jesus was never on the defensive. This seminar will look at how Christians can be confident in their faith while maintaining an openness to others who hold different perspectives and values.

The seminar is targeted at parents, but will be fruitful for anyone involved in raising or working with children or for adults wondering about these questions for themselves in their community or workplace.

Join Richard Black for a seminar titled: 'Cultivating a discipleship mindset to raise the next generation in a diverse world' If you come from a traditional Christian perspective, the changes in our society around gender diversity and sexuality can be confusing and confronting. This seminar will look at how Christians can be confident in their faith while maintaining an openness to others who hold different perspectives and values.

Date: Saturday 22nd June Time: 9am - 3:30pm (doors open at 8:30am)

Venue: The Street Church, 9 Hania St, Mt Victoria

Tickets: $20 per person

Register via the app or website

We have invited churches from around Wellington to join us for this event. Invite your friends, family and parents from your community. And above all, please be praying for Richard and every attendee as we wrestle with these important topics

Today we are in our third week of learning skills that we need to study the Bible well. We learn about using Bible maps and looking at the background of the book of the Bible we are reading from.

We continue our series on the skills needed to study the Bible well. Today, we are looking at how the Old and New Testaments are distinct from one another and why each part is important in understanding God's big plan for His creation. We learn the difference between Old Testament commands and New Testament commands and how they relate to us as followers of Jesus today.

Kia ora! Kids Zone is back this week and we are excited as we look forward to everything God has in store for our kids this year. This week we are recapping our Bible series from 2023, recapping some of the main time periods, along with themes, and key events through Bible history. Over term one, we will be digging deeper into our Bibles, and we don't want to leave anyone behind. It will be a fun lesson to kick the year off.

Money is a subject people are really private about. At the same time, it’s an important issue that affects many aspects of our lives. This is especially true as the cost of living continues to rise in our country. It’s not a subject we can continue to avoid. After all, Jesus talked about it a lot!

According to Jesus, how we see money and what we do with money are a strong indicator of what’s going on in our hearts. It affects the sort of Jesus followers we are becoming. We need therefore to take time to talk about money together, to understand God’s perspective and to encourage one another to honour God with all we have - even our money.

Watch this clip from Simon sharing his heart for this series

The Street Church partners with Christians Against Poverty to help people in Wellington get out of unmanageable debt, and also to share the life-changing message of Jesus!

We are looking for more people to get involved! There are three main opportunities:

Debt Coach

This is a voluntary role (approximately 8 hours per week), and full training is provided. A Debt Coach will visit a client and work with them through the process of their debt-free journey. It is not essential to be good with finances - CAP head office takes care of preparing the budget. People skills and a heart for those in difficult circumstances are most important.  

Support Friend

A Support Friend will visit a client alongside the Debt Coach. Their role is simply to be a friend, take the client out for the occasional coffee, and just generally be there for them. The Support Friend is not involved at all with the financial side - so you don’t need any accounting skills! Being a friend could involve sharing your faith and/or discipleship. 

Prayer and/or food donations

There is also the opportunity to pray for the work we are doing, and we have people who bake and make meals for our clients.

If you have compassion for people and want to journey alongside someone who is in need of support, this is a ministry that is truly changing the lives of people in our city who are in desperate situations. 

“After I signed up to receive help from CAP, I learned how to relax. Knowing that I no longer have to deal with this on my own, I can now sleep at night.”

“Before CAP, I felt mentally drained. Constant planning to try and provide for my wife and kids. Now for the first time, I feel like there is a future for me."

If you are interested in finding out more about getting involved with CAP, please email Merrie: cap@thestreet.org.nz

Dear church whānau,

As we journey together as one church, it’s important to keep you up to date with some of the significant steps we’re taking. For the latest update on City’s local services, watch Simon and Jenny’s update. We’re also planning a follow-up before Christmas.

Much love

Simon and Jenny

Dear church family,

Firstly, we would like to thank you so much for the time, prayer, and consideration that you have provided to the Elders and leadership through this consultation process. It has shown that you care deeply about this church and are passionate about seeing our facilities used for God's purposes.

This week, our Elders and leaders came to the united decision that we will not pursue this proposal with the Wellington Christian Education Project any further. We realise that this will come as a relief to some and be a disappointment to others.

There are a number of factors that played into this decision but one stands out above them all. 2022 has been a year of significant change for our church and we are conscious that we have not yet concluded some of these changes. As Elders and leaders, we have a growing clarity and excitement over where the Lord is leading us, particularly in the areas of making disciples and gathering in local communities. These are the things that require our focus and it has become clear that to pursue the school proposal would detract from our ability to pursue them.

We want to take this opportunity to thank Mark Larson from WECP. He is a great ambassador for Christian schooling and the Lord, and we pray that God will clearly show them the next steps in their journey. We would also encourage those of you who are passionate about a Christian school being established in Wellington to continue praying about this. We know that God can make a way even when it seems impossible.

Much love

The Street Church Elders and Leadership

As you may have seen in the last couple of newsletters; Strathmore Park Community Centre have been having major renovations done this year and are now fundraising to be able to kit the new centre out with nice new furniture and a new sound system. They have been so generous towards us allowing us to run Community Dinner there for free and so we’d love to support them in this. We’ll be making a donation on behalf of The Street - East, but if you would like to make a donation here is the link https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/spcc-transformation#!

The Street Church has been approached by the Wellington Christian Education Project regarding using the Life Centre for a Christian School in the CBD.

We have come to a place as Elders and leaders where we believe this could be something the Lord is calling us into. The next step for us is to invite feedback from the wider church on this question. Please be assured that our desire to enter consultation is genuine, and any commitment is contingent on this process. To support this process, we have put together a document outlining the nature of the commitment and providing answers to questions we expect you to have. You can read it here.

If you are part of our church community, then please take some time to prayerfully consider this proposal and then send comments and questions to questions@thestreet.org.nz. The deadline for this is 25 September.

Life Groups really are the heart of our church. They are small groups of people who can encourage one another as we all seek to follow Jesus together. They are spaces where you have the opportunity to get to know people on a deeper level than will ever be possible at a Sunday service. They are places where you can dig into the Bible together and pray for one another. If you are not in a Life Group and you’d like to be, please get in touch and we would love to help you find one.

Here’s the latest update from Rach Duff. Check out what she’s been up to!

Would you love to go a bit deeper in your knowledge and understanding of God and the Bible!? The Street is about to start two new Systematic Theology courses going through the book: Wayne Grudem's "Systematic Theology". 

The 2 courses are:

1. All-women group: Monday evenings (starting March 7) 7-830pm at 21 Hania St, Mt Victoria (or Zoom) - led by our very own Gemma Wills!

2. All-men or mixed: Thursday mornings (starting March 10) 645am-8am at 21 Hania St, Mt Victoria (or Zoom)

The courses are 7 weeks long and both kick off in the second week of March. There is a cost as you will need to purchase the book which is available from The Street at the discounted price of $50.

If you'd like to know more or to register please email city@thestreet.org.nz. If you're interested but can't make either of these groups please also get in touch in case we're able to put together another group.

See a course overview here.

Is there more to life than this? Where am I going? What’s my purpose? Does God really exist?

Over June these questions will be dotted all around Wellington - on billboards, bus stops, posters and online - inviting people to engage with these questions and join an Alpha course. Have you seen any of the big red Alpha posters around Miramar, Kilbirnie and Island Bay?

While Alpha is being promoted so widely, we would love you to consider who in your world you could invite to explore life, meaning and the Christian faith. We'll have a course starting at the beginning of August so watch this space for more details.

Email alpha@thestreet.org.nz if you’d like to be involved or if you know someone who would be interested in attending.

Please make sure you check your children into Kids Zone before the service and get your security stickers. It’s super important for the safety of the kids that we know exactly who is in the programmes in case of an emergency. We also use the stickers to make sure we’re releasing your child to the right person at the end. The check in desk is just by the Devonshire Road entrance to the building. Thanks so much!

2020 has been a year with plenty of surprises.

From the perspective of the church, we’ve had to grapple with different ways of being the church. To ask what it means to be the church, how we engage with our society, and how we can share the gospel in our time.

Through this time Nick and Sarah have felt a strong and growing sense of call to a new season of mission. Today we are sharing that Nick and Sarah are stepping down as Senior Pastors to pursue this call.

The Street has always been a sending church. A hundred years ago we started as a mission, not a church. That heartbeat remains and we remain on mission as The Church.

In April 2021, Nick and Sarah will be starting a missional, disciple-making movement based in people’s homes, which they have called The Way. Take a look at the video below to find out more.

We are deeply grateful for Nick and Sarah’s leading, service, and care for us over the last 24 years. And there will be many opportunities in coming months to honour them for everything they’ve given to The Street. In the meantime, we invite you to join with us in praying for The Way, and this new era for our church.

We will be commissioning Nick and Sarah for this new season of ministry in the New Year. If you have any questions in the meantime, in the first instance get in touch with your Lead Pastor.

In our Sunday services, we're looking at the book of Genesis. We know this book raises lots of questions.

To help you explore, we're creating a set of short companion videos for this series. You'll find them on the Resources page of The Street website, under the Media menu.

We'll be releasing the videos as we go along. The first one is live right now! It looks at how science supports the big idea behind Genesis chapter one.

https://www.thestreet.org.nz/our-resources/genesis