Over the past three years, I've shared charges with you that carried images many of you will remember. Three years ago, we named the reality of decline – the hole in our bucket. Two years ago, we lifted our eyes to hope – hope in the boat – and the revitalisation journey began. Last year, we saw signs of fruitfulness – harvest in the basket – and launched the Haere Mai project, calling us to intentional evangelism.
Each image marked a step in our journey as a diocese: recognising our struggles, daring to hope, and stepping into mission. The revitalisation journey continues – and this year, the image shifts inward.
While strategies and plans are vital, they are not enough. For the revitalisation road ahead, we need fresh fire. We need clear conviction. We need a renewed sense of passion.
As I've travelled across the diocese and read your yearbook reports, I've been so deeply encouraged. God is moving in so many parts of our Church.
In Marlborough, at St Christopher's in Blenheim, a series of Haere Mai groups gathered more than thirty people each week – thirteen of them brand-new connections. Out of those groups sprang a Filipino Bible study and the first young adults group in years. On Pentecost Sunday, five people stood up to give testimony of how Jesus had changed their lives. Their hearts were burning with fresh faith.
In Nelson, at St Stephens, Tāhunanui, a programme called Kids and Kai taught vulnerable families how to cook affordable meals, while children were cared for. Out of that practical love, networks of support were formed – and one parent came to faith and joined the parish family. A fire was kindled around a kitchen table.
In Golden Bay, we've seen families respond to God's call to relocate, joining Mark and Kirsty in planting something new. Some left behind careers and community to follow Jesus into that mission. Their obedience is a living testimony that when hearts burn for Jesus, they burn for the communities he loves.
At the cathedral, a reimagined Good Friday service with John Stainer's Crucifixion drew 230 people – nearly double the usual crowd, half of them newcomers. One left saying, "So Jesus died for me". In that moment, a heart was ignited by the beauty and truth of the good news!
And in Havelock, four new families have unexpectedly moved in and committed themselves to the parish. This small rural parish, once struggling, suddenly saw new sparks of hope and life. God is not finished with us yet.
These are just a few of many green shoots we're noticing across the diocese. Baptisms are rising. People are being invited to explore faith through Alpha, Christianity Explored, and other ways. Leaders are being equipped. Communities are being reconnected with their parishes. These are signs of fire taking hold.
Thank you for the part you play in extending God's mission.
But alongside these breakthroughs, we cannot ignore the battles we also face.
We battle to find leaders. We battle to reach children and families. We battle to sustain ministry in remote rural communities. We battle for financial resources to do the Kingdom mahi God has called us to do. And we battle with the pain of letting go – pruning good ministries whose season is coming to its natural conclusion.
These battles are real. And I know many of you feel the weight of holding both joy and sorrow, growth and struggle, side by side. But friends, don't be discouraged by the presence of these challenges. Fire both warms and refines. Our struggles are the crucible in which passion is tested and strengthened.
Thank you for the part you play in contending for God's mission.
Earlier this year, I gathered the Standing Committee and the Trust Board together to face the facts of our situation. Together, they committed to finding a way through our financial, structural and governance challenges.
Recently, I invited three of our larger parishes to consider new models of parish oversight. Last week, I spent time with the vicars of these parishes, who have made a courageous commitment to a two-year learning community to explore how we might adapt the Resource Church model for our ongoing revitalisation story within the diocese.
This is why passion matters.
Because we are on a long journey, not a sprint. We’re on a challenging adventure, not a comfortable holiday. We are at an inflection point as a diocese. The Spirit is moving – we are seeing breakthroughs. And at the same time, the challenges we face are real. It is good, but it is also hard. And this is precisely why having hearts that burn with passion is so important right now.
Strategies and programmes are valuable, but they cannot sustain us through our tiredness, worries or disappointments. But what will sustain us is a fire in our hearts. Hearts ignited by Jesus. Hearts fuelled by the Word of God. And hearts sparking with the Holy Spirit's fire to share the good news.
As your bishop, I hear you sharing both your excitement as people are being drawn to Jesus. And I hear your heartache as the future seems unclear in some of our parishes. But I want to say, “Take heart! Don't lose your nerve! Don't lose heart!”
As Jesus taught in Matthew 5:
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
If we lose passion for Jesus and the work he is calling us to do in our diocese, then we will lose the energy that carries us forward. However, if we nurture that passion and stoke the flame, we will have the energy to go the distance.
Luke 24 tells us about two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They were discouraged, confused, and ready to retreat. Their hopes for redemption seemed crushed. They were walking away from Jerusalem, and away from the place of promise.
But Jesus himself drew near. They didn't recognise him at first, yet he walked with them, listened to their grief, and then opened the Scriptures. As he spoke, something stirred. Their hearts began to burn. And when he broke bread, they saw him clearly.
What did they do? They didn't stay put. They ran back to Jerusalem to share the good news. This passage shows us what God is calling us to in this season: to be a church whose hearts burn for Jesus, for the Word, and for the mission of God. Like those disciples, we may feel weary or uncertain, but Christ himself comes alongside us, rekindling the fire within each of us.
The fire begins with him.
The Emmaus disciples didn't recognise Jesus at first, but he was present with them in their confusion. And when they invited him in, their hearts began to burn within them.
Passion comes from our encounter and connection with him. It comes from inviting him into our pain, our longings, our ordinary lives – and letting him transform us daily.
I see this already across our diocese – in retreats being led, in small groups journeying together, in leaders calling for deeper prayer. But it begins for each of us personally: have you invited Jesus to walk with you? Do you notice his presence in the ordinary moments of your life? Are you inviting him to be Lord over all of your life?
The courage of the early disciples in Acts 4 was not a result of their training, but rather because they had been with Jesus. That is what ignites the heart. To be with Jesus, to linger in his presence, to cultivate intimacy with him – this is where the fire begins.
The disciples on the road said, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he opened the Scriptures to us?" Passion without Scripture burns out. But passion fuelled by spending time in the Word endures.
This diocese has long been known for being grounded in Scripture and taking it seriously. And for us to remain passionate, that must not only continue, but it must deepen. I ask you: How will you bring the Word of God into your vestry meetings, leadership decisions, personal life, and preaching? How will you let the Word not just inform, but transform your life, and those around you?
The Word of God is our fuel. Without it, the fire in our hearts will flicker. With it, the fire grows hotter.
Let the Word dwell in you richly.
Meditate on it. Journal it.
Pray it. Obey it. Share it.
Teach your children from it.
Wrestle with it in your leadership.
Let it become like Jeremiah said: “a fire in my heart, a fire shut up in my bones”.
When the disciples' hearts were burning, they did not stay in Emmaus. They ran back to Jerusalem. When our hearts burn, we too will move outward – in evangelism, compassion, and service.
Let me share a story from my own journey.
After graduating from Bible College, I joined Nairobi Chapel, where Bishop Oscar mentored me. From day one, the message was clear: we are all called to go. In 1999, Watiri and I, with two other couples, were commissioned to plant a church in a growing suburb of Nairobi. We were warned: it will be tough, you'll want to give up, but don't come back. Keep the fire burning.
And it was tough. We delivered milk door to door to meet neighbours. Power cuts would often spoil the milk in our fridge. Every Sunday, we set up and packed down in a rented facility – it was exhausting. Both of our daughters were born during those years, so we were tired parents too. It was at times stretching, exhausting, and overwhelming.
But by God's grace, we saw lives changed. We started a pre-school to reach children. The gospel transformed a community. And it wasn't strategy or strength that carried us – it was passion, a fire in our hearts for Jesus and his mission.
When John Wesley's heart was "strangely warmed," he led the Methodist Revival, which was characterised by passionate preaching, social reform, and missionary zeal. One quote attributed to him was: "Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergy or lay; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the Kingdom of Heaven on earth." And it's that kind of passion that will carry us through.
As our prayer book says,
Lord, Holy Spirit,
You are the kind fire who does not cease to burn,
Consuming us with flames of love and peace,
Driving us out like sparks to set the world on fire.
So how do we cultivate hearts that burn? As William Booth once said: “The tendency of fire is to go out; so watch the fire on the altar of your heart.”
The Bible mentions the heart more than a thousand times. Real transformation starts there. As Thomas Cranmer put it: “What the heart loves, the will chooses, the mind justifies.”
We need to examine our hearts. What do your hearts burn for? And where perhaps have your loves become disordered?
I know from my own life the difference between love rightly ordered and love out of place. To take my wife for granted is to let passion grow cold where it should burn brightly. To feel more deeply about small losses than about my walk with Jesus is a sign of misplaced fire.
Remember - the church in Ephesus had sound doctrine, but sadly had lost its first love. They had stopped burning with the passion of Jesus.
But friends, passion is not just about emotion. It's not about hype. It's not about spotlights and rousing talks. The kind of passion God calls us to is much more than that.
Tend the fire. Stir it. Protect it. Feed it. Find others whose hearts burn for Jesus and surround yourself with them.
So, I ask you: What is sapping your passion for Jesus? And what feeds it? What do you need to attend to in order to keep the fire burning in your own heart, and in the heart of your church? These are questions for all of us, clergy and laity alike. They are questions that will determine the future of our diocese.
So what do we long for? A Church that is alive!
Alive to the presence of Jesus – walking with him daily. Fuelled and ignited by the Word – rooted in God's truth. And sparking into the world in mission – carrying God's fire into our neighbourhoods.
This is what it means to be a Church with hearts that burn.
The good news is that God longs to give us the fire to burn. As we read in 2 Chronicles 16:9, "For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."
So, I ask you: will you pray for the Holy Spirit to rekindle the fire in your life and in your parish? Will you return to your first love, and invite Jesus to walk with you? Will you let the Word fuel you, and to ask God to give you a renewed passion to propel you outwards into the world?
"Were not our hearts burning within us?" May it be said of us in this diocese.
And so I charge you: tend to the fire within you. Stoke the flames. Guard the embers. For this is not the moment to neglect your inner passion for God and go cold.
This is the moment to burn brighter for Jesus – both in the breakthroughs and the battles ahead.
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
We have invited these writers to share their experiences, ideas and opinions in the hope that these will provoke thought, challenge you to go deeper and inspire you to put your faith into action. These articles should not be taken as the official view of the Nelson Diocese on any particular matter.
Over the past three years, I've shared charges with you that carried images many of you will remember. Three years ago, we named the reality of decline – the hole in our bucket. Two years ago, we lifted our eyes to hope – hope in the boat – and the revitalisation journey began. Last year, we saw signs of fruitfulness – harvest in the basket – and launched the Haere Mai project, calling us to intentional evangelism.
Each image marked a step in our journey as a diocese: recognising our struggles, daring to hope, and stepping into mission. The revitalisation journey continues – and this year, the image shifts inward.
While strategies and plans are vital, they are not enough. For the revitalisation road ahead, we need fresh fire. We need clear conviction. We need a renewed sense of passion.
As I've travelled across the diocese and read your yearbook reports, I've been so deeply encouraged. God is moving in so many parts of our Church.
In Marlborough, at St Christopher's in Blenheim, a series of Haere Mai groups gathered more than thirty people each week – thirteen of them brand-new connections. Out of those groups sprang a Filipino Bible study and the first young adults group in years. On Pentecost Sunday, five people stood up to give testimony of how Jesus had changed their lives. Their hearts were burning with fresh faith.
In Nelson, at St Stephens, Tāhunanui, a programme called Kids and Kai taught vulnerable families how to cook affordable meals, while children were cared for. Out of that practical love, networks of support were formed – and one parent came to faith and joined the parish family. A fire was kindled around a kitchen table.
In Golden Bay, we've seen families respond to God's call to relocate, joining Mark and Kirsty in planting something new. Some left behind careers and community to follow Jesus into that mission. Their obedience is a living testimony that when hearts burn for Jesus, they burn for the communities he loves.
At the cathedral, a reimagined Good Friday service with John Stainer's Crucifixion drew 230 people – nearly double the usual crowd, half of them newcomers. One left saying, "So Jesus died for me". In that moment, a heart was ignited by the beauty and truth of the good news!
And in Havelock, four new families have unexpectedly moved in and committed themselves to the parish. This small rural parish, once struggling, suddenly saw new sparks of hope and life. God is not finished with us yet.
These are just a few of many green shoots we're noticing across the diocese. Baptisms are rising. People are being invited to explore faith through Alpha, Christianity Explored, and other ways. Leaders are being equipped. Communities are being reconnected with their parishes. These are signs of fire taking hold.
Thank you for the part you play in extending God's mission.
But alongside these breakthroughs, we cannot ignore the battles we also face.
We battle to find leaders. We battle to reach children and families. We battle to sustain ministry in remote rural communities. We battle for financial resources to do the Kingdom mahi God has called us to do. And we battle with the pain of letting go – pruning good ministries whose season is coming to its natural conclusion.
These battles are real. And I know many of you feel the weight of holding both joy and sorrow, growth and struggle, side by side. But friends, don't be discouraged by the presence of these challenges. Fire both warms and refines. Our struggles are the crucible in which passion is tested and strengthened.
Thank you for the part you play in contending for God's mission.
Earlier this year, I gathered the Standing Committee and the Trust Board together to face the facts of our situation. Together, they committed to finding a way through our financial, structural and governance challenges.
Recently, I invited three of our larger parishes to consider new models of parish oversight. Last week, I spent time with the vicars of these parishes, who have made a courageous commitment to a two-year learning community to explore how we might adapt the Resource Church model for our ongoing revitalisation story within the diocese.
This is why passion matters.
Because we are on a long journey, not a sprint. We’re on a challenging adventure, not a comfortable holiday. We are at an inflection point as a diocese. The Spirit is moving – we are seeing breakthroughs. And at the same time, the challenges we face are real. It is good, but it is also hard. And this is precisely why having hearts that burn with passion is so important right now.
Strategies and programmes are valuable, but they cannot sustain us through our tiredness, worries or disappointments. But what will sustain us is a fire in our hearts. Hearts ignited by Jesus. Hearts fuelled by the Word of God. And hearts sparking with the Holy Spirit's fire to share the good news.
As your bishop, I hear you sharing both your excitement as people are being drawn to Jesus. And I hear your heartache as the future seems unclear in some of our parishes. But I want to say, “Take heart! Don't lose your nerve! Don't lose heart!”
As Jesus taught in Matthew 5:
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
If we lose passion for Jesus and the work he is calling us to do in our diocese, then we will lose the energy that carries us forward. However, if we nurture that passion and stoke the flame, we will have the energy to go the distance.
Luke 24 tells us about two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They were discouraged, confused, and ready to retreat. Their hopes for redemption seemed crushed. They were walking away from Jerusalem, and away from the place of promise.
But Jesus himself drew near. They didn't recognise him at first, yet he walked with them, listened to their grief, and then opened the Scriptures. As he spoke, something stirred. Their hearts began to burn. And when he broke bread, they saw him clearly.
What did they do? They didn't stay put. They ran back to Jerusalem to share the good news. This passage shows us what God is calling us to in this season: to be a church whose hearts burn for Jesus, for the Word, and for the mission of God. Like those disciples, we may feel weary or uncertain, but Christ himself comes alongside us, rekindling the fire within each of us.
The fire begins with him.
The Emmaus disciples didn't recognise Jesus at first, but he was present with them in their confusion. And when they invited him in, their hearts began to burn within them.
Passion comes from our encounter and connection with him. It comes from inviting him into our pain, our longings, our ordinary lives – and letting him transform us daily.
I see this already across our diocese – in retreats being led, in small groups journeying together, in leaders calling for deeper prayer. But it begins for each of us personally: have you invited Jesus to walk with you? Do you notice his presence in the ordinary moments of your life? Are you inviting him to be Lord over all of your life?
The courage of the early disciples in Acts 4 was not a result of their training, but rather because they had been with Jesus. That is what ignites the heart. To be with Jesus, to linger in his presence, to cultivate intimacy with him – this is where the fire begins.
The disciples on the road said, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he opened the Scriptures to us?" Passion without Scripture burns out. But passion fuelled by spending time in the Word endures.
This diocese has long been known for being grounded in Scripture and taking it seriously. And for us to remain passionate, that must not only continue, but it must deepen. I ask you: How will you bring the Word of God into your vestry meetings, leadership decisions, personal life, and preaching? How will you let the Word not just inform, but transform your life, and those around you?
The Word of God is our fuel. Without it, the fire in our hearts will flicker. With it, the fire grows hotter.
Let the Word dwell in you richly.
Meditate on it. Journal it.
Pray it. Obey it. Share it.
Teach your children from it.
Wrestle with it in your leadership.
Let it become like Jeremiah said: “a fire in my heart, a fire shut up in my bones”.
When the disciples' hearts were burning, they did not stay in Emmaus. They ran back to Jerusalem. When our hearts burn, we too will move outward – in evangelism, compassion, and service.
Let me share a story from my own journey.
After graduating from Bible College, I joined Nairobi Chapel, where Bishop Oscar mentored me. From day one, the message was clear: we are all called to go. In 1999, Watiri and I, with two other couples, were commissioned to plant a church in a growing suburb of Nairobi. We were warned: it will be tough, you'll want to give up, but don't come back. Keep the fire burning.
And it was tough. We delivered milk door to door to meet neighbours. Power cuts would often spoil the milk in our fridge. Every Sunday, we set up and packed down in a rented facility – it was exhausting. Both of our daughters were born during those years, so we were tired parents too. It was at times stretching, exhausting, and overwhelming.
But by God's grace, we saw lives changed. We started a pre-school to reach children. The gospel transformed a community. And it wasn't strategy or strength that carried us – it was passion, a fire in our hearts for Jesus and his mission.
When John Wesley's heart was "strangely warmed," he led the Methodist Revival, which was characterised by passionate preaching, social reform, and missionary zeal. One quote attributed to him was: "Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergy or lay; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the Kingdom of Heaven on earth." And it's that kind of passion that will carry us through.
As our prayer book says,
Lord, Holy Spirit,
You are the kind fire who does not cease to burn,
Consuming us with flames of love and peace,
Driving us out like sparks to set the world on fire.
So how do we cultivate hearts that burn? As William Booth once said: “The tendency of fire is to go out; so watch the fire on the altar of your heart.”
The Bible mentions the heart more than a thousand times. Real transformation starts there. As Thomas Cranmer put it: “What the heart loves, the will chooses, the mind justifies.”
We need to examine our hearts. What do your hearts burn for? And where perhaps have your loves become disordered?
I know from my own life the difference between love rightly ordered and love out of place. To take my wife for granted is to let passion grow cold where it should burn brightly. To feel more deeply about small losses than about my walk with Jesus is a sign of misplaced fire.
Remember - the church in Ephesus had sound doctrine, but sadly had lost its first love. They had stopped burning with the passion of Jesus.
But friends, passion is not just about emotion. It's not about hype. It's not about spotlights and rousing talks. The kind of passion God calls us to is much more than that.
Tend the fire. Stir it. Protect it. Feed it. Find others whose hearts burn for Jesus and surround yourself with them.
So, I ask you: What is sapping your passion for Jesus? And what feeds it? What do you need to attend to in order to keep the fire burning in your own heart, and in the heart of your church? These are questions for all of us, clergy and laity alike. They are questions that will determine the future of our diocese.
So what do we long for? A Church that is alive!
Alive to the presence of Jesus – walking with him daily. Fuelled and ignited by the Word – rooted in God's truth. And sparking into the world in mission – carrying God's fire into our neighbourhoods.
This is what it means to be a Church with hearts that burn.
The good news is that God longs to give us the fire to burn. As we read in 2 Chronicles 16:9, "For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."
So, I ask you: will you pray for the Holy Spirit to rekindle the fire in your life and in your parish? Will you return to your first love, and invite Jesus to walk with you? Will you let the Word fuel you, and to ask God to give you a renewed passion to propel you outwards into the world?
"Were not our hearts burning within us?" May it be said of us in this diocese.
And so I charge you: tend to the fire within you. Stoke the flames. Guard the embers. For this is not the moment to neglect your inner passion for God and go cold.
This is the moment to burn brighter for Jesus – both in the breakthroughs and the battles ahead.
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
