Mark & Kirsty Johnson

Tākaka is known for its strong counter-cultural and alternative spiritual community. Mark and Kirsty and their team have embraced this context, seeing it as a mission field rather than a barrier. After years building relationships, they have seen many people come to faith from new-age communities. They have shaped the parish into a missionary base—welcoming spiritual seekers, discipling new believers, and continuing to meet people where they are.

Christchurch - Main Hall

Dave Mann

Mission often begins not with a programme, but with people. Drawing on the story of Lydia in Acts 16, this workshop explores how to identify and invest in the people God is already at work among through intentional one-to-one conversations.

Christchurch - Auditorium

The Western church is approaching a leadership cliff. Burnout and retirement are outpacing the development of new leaders, and many churches are struggling to raise the next generation.

Christchurch - Auditorium

Across the world, many Christian leaders are turning their attention beyond the walls of the church and into the life of their neighbourhoods—through community organising, social enterprise, and long-term presence among their neighbours. This panel explores what it looks like to seek the flourishing of our neighbourhoods and the coming of God's Kingdom.

Christchurch - Auditorium

This panel brings together four experienced church planters from diverse traditions, each carrying hard-won wisdom from the front lines of mission. Together, they’ll reflect honestly on the tensions, failures, and breakthroughs that come with forming new gospel communities—and offer grounded insight for those discerning a call to plant, pioneer, or multiply.

Wellington - Pīwakawaka

Mark Barnard and Irene Farnham

How might our ministry be shaped if we attended deeply to ‘place’? Rev. Mark Barnard will consider how the story of St James Māngere Bridge has been formed by the whenua.

Wellington - Ngāke

Joseph Macauley

In this workshop, Joseph explores a generous orthodoxy that draws on the riches of the wider church—Catholic, Pentecostal, charismatic, and contemplative—and shares how these threads have been woven together in the life of St Luke's.

This panel brings together leaders who have wrestled with disappointment and emerged into constructive, hopeful, Spirit-led ways of planting new gospel communities.

Christchurch - Lounge

Nathan Hughes

Many have tried to realign existing churches away from comfort and toward mission, but too often the change doesn’t last. Nathan draws on research with Aotearoa pastors who have led healthy, lasting transformation to uncover the leadership patterns that make the difference.

Christchurch - Foyer

Alongside hosting Little Revolutions, CATCH is continually training church planters and renewal leaders. Over the past three years, more than 60 Christian leaders have been equipped through CATCH cohorts in church planting, revitalisation, and missional realignment.

Christchurch - Foyer

Justin Duckworth

What if our systems are working against us—built more for stability than mission, and unintentionally stifling the life we long to see?

Christchurch - Auditorium

James and Viv Anson

This case study will explore how these communities prioritise discipleship, shared leadership, and mission in everyday life, while remaining intentionally small and reproducible.

Wellington - Whātaitai

Alan Hirsch

Alan Hirsch explores mDNA—the core elements that have consistently fueled Jesus movements across history. This session invites leaders to recover the church's "native genius": a simple but powerful pattern embedded within the gospel itself.

Christchurch - Auditorium

Monique Lee and Dave Tims

This case study follows an unlikely friendship between a passionate community organiser (Dave) and a devoted church leader (Monique).

Wellington - Ngāke

Col Salisbury

Navigators cross vast oceans by reading the stars, currents, and winds—attentive to context and environment.

Christchurch - Main Hall

Sam Harvey and Hannah Frauenstein

Father George Elsbett wrote: “First and foremost, being a missionary Church means being a praying Church.”

Christchurch - Lounge