For Pastors
Vic Francis combines his background as a journalist with decades of pastoring, national church leadership and practising as a supervisor and spiritual director to champion pastors and their holy calling in an uncertain world.
For Pastors aims to inspire, encourage and help pastors and Christian leaders keep saying yes to the call of God on their lives.
For Pastors
Holy Spirit Activism
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What is a Christian activist? Should Christians be involved in politics, protests and picket lines? If so, which fights should we choose and which should we avoid? And where does the Holy Spirit fit in?
In this episode, Vic Francis talks to Wellington vicars Alison and Martin Robinson, who have been ministering at the margins of society for over three decades alongside refugees, prisoners and the urban poor. And then in more recent years, they have led the replanting and renewal of St David's Church in Naenae.
Martin and Alison are proudly activist, but they're also proudly Holy Spirit.
If you would like to connect with the Robinsons, you can do so through the St David's Naenae website. Or click here for Catch Network Aotearoa or Common Grace Aotearoa.
Meanwhile, for more information on Vic and Solace, check out our website or search for us on Facebook or Instagram. And if you would like to support this podcast, please become a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/forpastors
Enjoy the podcast!
Kia ora, I'm Vic Francis, and welcome to this episode of the For Pastors podcast. I'm combining my background as a journalist with decades of pastoring, national church leadership and practising as a supervisor and spiritual director to champion pastors and their holy calling in an uncertain world. In this episode, we're talking about activism. Should Christians be involved in politics, protest and picket lines? And if so, which fights should we choose and which should we avoid? I'm joined today by Wellington vicars Alison and Martin Robinson, who have been ministering at the margins of society for over three decades alongside refugees, prisoners and the urban poor. And then in more recent years, they have led the replanting and renewal of St David's Church in Naenae. They are proudly activist, but they're also proudly Holy Spirit. Welcome to For Pastors, Holy Spirit Activism. Alison and Martin, welcome to the For Pastors podcast.
Martin RobinsonKia ora. Good to be with you.
Alison RobinsonThank you so much for having us.
Vic FrancisI'm excited about you being here, and uh, we're gonna talk about your story at Naenae and in other areas a little later in the podcast. But I wanna start today with a live community action that you are both part of and your church, and it involves, of all things, your local Resene factory. Tell me what is happening at Resene, and why have you needed to get involved?
Alison RobinsonResene is only about 200 metres down from our church entranceway, and there's a campaign with the living wage that is happening because the workers are wanting to be paid a living wage, and there's some worker rights issues that have been exposed. This is not something that we looked for at all. It was out of the blue. I was contacted by the coordinator of the Living Wage Movement Aotearoa, and he asked if we would like to meet some workers and get involved. And so we did. We met in the church, we heard their story and stories of people who had been working there in a supervisory role, working there for 10 years, 12 years, 15 years, and were still barely above the minimum wage. So it was funny because I thought, "Oh yeah, this would be good. Yeah, we'll meet them. That's fine." And then a few days later, I heard from a friend in the church that she had been doing a prayer walk around Naenae and had felt really heavy about Resene. And had felt God say to her, "Pray for the workers because they're not thriving." So her prayer story and my approach by the living wage kind of merged together and we really felt like that was a confirmation that God wanted us in there.
Vic FrancisAnd tell us what you're doing there. What does it look like?
Alison RobinsonSo we really are just serving the campaign. We are in constant communication with a guy, Finn, from the Living Wage Movement, and that has meant joining on the picket line. It's meant being willing to speak to media. But one thing, we wanted to stay in our lane as the church. So we're not the union, we're not the workers, we're not the Living Wage Movement. We're the church community. So we felt invited by God to make part of our contribution prayer, and we do prayer vigils outside the Resene factory at 7am every Friday morning. We also, before Christmas last year, we had several months where we did pop-up protests, and others from all round the place would join us, but we always started those with prayer too. So that's been a big part of our, our involvement. We've also had people from our church fasting. But it's just been, let's hold Jesus at the centre and be responsive because we don't need to be the union. The union are being the union. We're the Christians. We've also done things like put the hat round, and there's been a bit of money contributed to support the workers. So it's all sorts of things. Just this week, we provided doughnuts for the union workers at the factory just because it's been a really long haul, and we sent them some doughnuts and said, "These are love from St David's." So it's prayer help, it's being on the picket line. It's just being friends and being involved where they want us to be involved. And so that has meant a lot of public meetings, a lot of speaking at public meetings. But it's also been doing our thing.
Vic FrancisAnd what has that looked like in terms of your communication with Resene, with the workers and even within your church? How have they bought into that?
Alison RobinsonOur church have been amazing. There's probably about 40 people in the church who've been involved, and we encourage people, a bit like the loaves and the fishes, bring what you've got. And so people have brought what they've got. So some have given generously. We have a group of about 10 people who faithfully pray. We have had people who turn up to the protests. We've had people organise. We had a little barbecue with the workers. So it's just, yes, do it as you can, not as you can't. And then I meet with the person from the Living Wage Movement quite regularly. We have coffee to catch up so that we're keeping our finger on the pulse and knowing what's happening. And then we've had the odd coffee with the workers as well, and coffees with people from the union. So just relational connection where we can.
Vic FrancisSounds like an amazing story. Marty, maybe on a broader basis I wanna use the word activism, that you are activists there on the picket line or even delivering doughnuts. Is that a word you're comfortable with? Is that what you're doing, or do you understand it differently? How do you describe the heart behind it?
Martin RobinsonIt's
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Martin Robinsonbeen a bit of a journey for us. And I would call it, an awakening for me, for us, and for many of us in our kind of faith context around faith and works, and the sense that justice and righteousness are inseparable in the heart of God. That the missional heart of God being a, a heart of love also includes that sense of justice. Justice being the kind of the outworking of love in the public square. So I think that's been an awakening for us. And also a realisation that we're seeking to contextually listen in our particular place. There are so many issues that could take our time or focus. But what is it that God has led us into specifically in a corporate sense of hearing that voice and responding to that voice so that may lead us into action. So activist, I think yeah, I guess we're trying to cultivate a, a culture of listening to the Spirit. What is the Spirit saying to us here in this context? How will we respond? So if that's activism, I guess I could go along with that. But I think we're just trying to be responsive to Jesus and His heart for people that are struggling.
Vic FrancisIt's activism, I guess, in way. And Ali, you were saying before that the Resene factory's a couple of hundred yards down the road. You've done some thinking I know about what it means to be a good neighbour, maybe as a church, maybe as an individual. What are your thoughts around there?
Alison RobinsonEvery church is located in a particular neighbourhood, and being good neighbours as a church, in a sense, is not hugely different from being good neighbours over the fence. And so we have tried to really practise being embedded in our neighbourhood. So that means we're not just coming in to save the neighbourhood or rescue the neighbourhood or help it, or be the great white hope in the neighbourhood, but it's the image of planting a tree in the soil. You become deeply rooted in the soil. And so that means just knowing the people, knowing the places, knowing the joys, knowing the aches of our neighbourhood, and becoming involved as good friends, as good neighbours. And a lot of what we do, most of what we do, all of what we do, is not particularly grand. It's about being good neighbours. And if there's something happening in the neighbourhood, we're not involved in everything because we can't be. But I feel like being good neighbours is sometimes just joining in on what's happening, and at other times it's initiating something. And I think if we only join, we sell ourselves short as the church. But if we only initiate, it can be a little bit top-down. So we are firm believers that good neighbouring is both joining and initiating, and being deep in the soil of what's going on around us.
Vic FrancisI'm inevitably drawn into this idea of Christians and politics and is it a good thing or a bad thing, and how should we get involved? You guys are in Wellington, of course, which in a New Zealand context is obviously a, a political city, but more a political place than some other parts of the country. But um, Marty, politics and Christianity and faith where do they intersect, do you think?
Martin RobinsonYeah, I think the challenge for us potentially at this time is to think about how we come across, how we are perceived as a church. And if we're kinda going for power, possibly we lose the opportunity to really be missional and it might not be perceived as loving. So how can we engage with bold humility, be people prepared to listen to others and respond and principally people that are listening to the Spirit. So I come from a suburb Karori which was a very politically oriented suburb. That's kinda deeply in the DNA there for me, but even more so is a missional DNA. So, uh, I guess I'm principally wired about what is the political engagement that communicates love. How am I engaging so that the folks who seem to be missing out, seem to be struggling, seem to be forgotten might be remembered and loved and cared for. And possibly the state's not gonna do that. Maybe that's more of a role for the church just like, uh, we used to do back in the very old days before we relied on the state maybe.
Vic FrancisI love your little phrase, bold humility. Could you explain that a little more?
Martin RobinsonYeah. I think there is a real place for us to not grab power and enforce our particular sensibilities on a community or a nation, but to actually deeply listen. To learn from one another, to listen to one another and to build build relationship. Yeah. To, to be responsive to the Spirit. If we can engage boldly, courageously listening to the Spirit but humbly listening and working with others.
Vic FrancisYou're not alone in doing what you're doing. There are other organisations and churches who are involved both in Wellington and I'm sure in other parts of the country. There's an organisation called the Catch Network, which I know you're part of. So Ali, how active are Christians overall, do you think, in justice issues in Aotearoa?
Alison RobinsonI'd want to be very slow to judge, but my inkling is that often people almost divide into two camps. There are those who are about the Spirit, and there are those who are about justice. And sometimes I get a little nervous that because we're involved in justice, there's an assumption that we're not about the Holy Spirit. I think there is a real invitation for the church to be responsive in recognising that it's the call of the Spirit that's on the heart of God to be involved where issues of injustice are happening. And so I think in the Wellington Anglican Diocese, I can confidently say I think there's been a real move towards putting justice, arms and legs onto our faith. We have a wonderful bishop to thank for that, bishops. But we also have had the benefit of Common Grace Aotearoa, which was born in Wellington, and so they've connected a lot with the churches, and they've helped us as churches to engage in issues of justice. But I do think there's room for more, and I think this is something that's really important in this day and age, that we are engaging in this way.
Vic FrancisI sensed some of that Holy Spirit leading when you say you don't undertake every issue that you might. So any issue that you may become involved in, no matter how lightly or how how much you're able to be involved, comes from the sense of a prompting of the Holy Spirit by the sound of it.
Martin RobinsonSo for myself in terms of my journey, I am a charismatic Pentecostal Anglican. I've been involved in an AOG church, and I've been involved in a charismatic non-denominational church historically. And I'm back in the Anglican fold. So we do take seriously that sense of listening to the Spirit, that sense of prophetic imagination, that sense of prophetic response. So part of our journey at, at St David's, for instance, was a few years back, we were during the Easter period, and it was gonna be Palm Sunday in a few days or a few weeks' time. But we sensed a call in prayer within church, a prompting to go and camp on the land opposite our church, which had become vacant because Housing New Zealand houses had been demolished and had been left vacant for years. There's no kind of response. There's no plans around building anything. But it seemed a genuine sense amongst us that God was saying, "Go and camp on the land." So that's what we did. And of course, that became a political thing in the sense that it became a feeding into a national issue, and then political parties all wanted to jump on the bandwagon and be photographed et cetera. So there was nothing party political in any of that. That was purely a sense of responding to the needs of our neighbours 'cause we knew plenty of folks who were couch surfing, living in garages. This might be solo mums with kids or guys out of prison, so on and so forth. Just a lot of folks who seemed to be desperately in need of housing. Meanwhile, lots of government stock, nothing moving or being built. So that was a sense of responding to the Spirit and something being precipitated in terms of the national conversation for the sake of others.
Vic FrancisAnd what was the outcome of that? You've got the benefit of hindsight now. Did anything become of that?
Alison RobinsonA lot became of it. In fact, a lot more than we thought. And I think that was a really good example actually of the body of Christ all working together. So I was really passionate around the idea. Martin and our beautiful neighbour Wayne did a lot of the media connection. Martin's a journalist, so he fronted up with the media. We've got a man who's great on logistics. He organised the marquee and got the shape of the weekend happening. But there was a far bigger response than expected. We had the police come along, Kainga Ora came along, the media came along. It was television, it was radio, it was print. And then Kainga Ora then consulted with us, and then Martin became a bit of a spokesperson for the campaign after that, and we weren't looking for any of that. It was simply in the first instance, there was just this seed that was planted looking out of the window of church of like, "I want you to camp on the land." And so there was a big impact and when the houses were first built, we were asked to come along to the blessing, and then we had a lot of relationships over there as well.
Martin RobinsonI think also a major part of our impetus is when Jesus says, "Go and make disciples and teach them to obey all these commands," I guess we're looking in all of these instances to how Jesus is encouraging us to be discipling. So what is the discipleship journey the apprenticing journey? How can we enable others, as followers of Jesus, to continue to get to know Jesus more and to be responsive about loving one another, loving our neighbour, et cetera. So that, yeah, that's a prime driver for us.
Vic FrancisReally important and two great examples there of the current Resene situation and the camping on the land. And we're going to take a break now, but when we return, we're gonna hear a little more of Martin and Alison's story and particularly their story of the rejuvenation of Saint David's in Naenae 'cause it's part and parcel of what we're talking about here. So we will be right back. Welcome back to the For Pastors podcast conversation about activism and justice and many other things with the vicars of St David's Anglican in Naenae. And so, Alison, could you tell us a little bit about who you guys are, where do you come from, your family maybe, just anything that may be helpful to the conversation.
Alison RobinsonWe've been married a very long time now, and over those years we have had four biological children, and we have fostered two along the way. So we have a beautiful full family of six, and we now have five grandchildren in tow, which is pretty beautiful. Our earliest ministry season was involved with working with East African refugees, and early on in our married life we moved into a high-density housing block and we involved ourselves in all aspects of lives with East Africans. And that was the season that was immediately before where we find ourselves now. So that was a good 10-year chunk. Actually, prior to that, we lived in Christian community, a big Christian community, for the first few years of our married life. So I guess, suffice to say, all the way along there's been some sort of expression of our faith that we wanted to put arms and legs on. So we were in this community called Te Piringa, which was a residential community, then we did a big season with East African refugees, and then we sensed a calling out here to Naenae, which was connected with our role in the prison.
Vic FrancisYes, that's important, I know. So Martin, maybe you could pick up the story there and talking about the prison work.
Martin RobinsonYeah. I had at that point become a freshly minted priest in the Anglican diocese after 14 years in an AOG church prior to that. And my bishop at the time had given us an offer which kind of made a lot of sense. It was probably the offer that I was the most interested in within our diocese. But both Alison and I sensed an alternative, which was to take on prison chaplaincy together at Rimutaka Prison. So we together applied for a full-time role and kind of divvied it up. So that was quite a challenge in learning to be in that environment. And we found the prisoners on the whole pretty amazing actually to deal with and relate to, and had just many significant times that the system itself was more challenging. But through that we also sensed actually we need to move to a neighbourhood that actually has an obvious population that connects with the prison world. And uh, so decided that Naenae was gonna be the one, because we both had independently had this series of encounters really from God confirming that. So for myself, one of those had been actually during a prayer time a vision of my maternal grandfather walking through the door and kinda laying down a wero on the table. And this sense of the challenge, will you pick it up? 'Cause we had also said that we thought God was calling us to Auckland, actually. Um, so this was quite a U-turn. And the twist in that was that my grandfather actually had been the parish vicar out here in the '60s for four years, Charles Haskell, and had been a missionary in Pakistan for 27 years before that. He was a big figure in my life and a bit an influential figure. And yeah, that really did set a course of feeling like Naenae was the thing.
Vic FrancisAnd so it led you towards picking up the responsibility for the Naenae congregation. How close is that to the Rimutaka Prison?
Martin RobinsonYeah, about 15 minutes.
Vic FrancisIt's all in the local community. And just to get you right, so you picked up the responsibility for the parish that your grandfather had at once been vicar for?
Martin RobinsonYeah. There was no intention actually of taking over the church when we came here. The driver was actually just to form an Urban Vision ministry community. That's part of our missional community, Urban Vision. Been connected with that for 30 years now. And we were just forming a little team around support for folks who are articulating faith in prison to have a place of belonging when they came outside prison. So we had a little team with Wayne and Jill Kirkland, who are our close neighbours here. And that was the initial driver, but then we realised the church here was clearly gonna close for a whole range of reasons. And we thought, "Oh, here's an opportunity maybe to reimagine this space and place and see if we can do something with it."
Vic FrancisOh, that's a fantastic story. It's a progressive story of the things that God has had in mind perhaps for you. And uh, so you ended up at the Naenae Church. It's close to closing because I guess it's dwindling in numbers and you need to give it a new sense of direction, a new vision, I imagine. Tell us how that's gone.
Alison RobinsonAs Martin said, we weren't intending to take over the church. Even though Martin had had this "will you pick up the wero" from his grandfather, it felt more like just a call to Naenae. But when we arrived here, Martin was unpacking boxes, and I think on the first day we were here he picked up a photo, and there was the photo of his grandfather holding him as a baby on the vicarage steps, the actual vicarage, but it took a little while for us to actually realise that the church was part of the call out here. So initially it had been to support prisoners, but then it became very obvious that was to be part of the call. I was not ordained at that stage. That was a little bit further on. And it took us a wee while just to land around what's our living situation going to be, where are we in relation to the church. Cut a long story short, we discovered a piece of land that was actually owned by Kainga Ora right next door to the church. It was a double lot, one of the many vacant pieces of land, and it was like, "Oh my goodness, we need to contact Kainga Ora and see if we can put in a tender." And so got the land with our lovely neighbours Wayne and Jill, and we halved it and built houses, both of us. And so we're right next door to the church, and so that's become like a bit of a papakainga. We are really one extended site. It's our local marae.
Vic FrancisAnd you have also built at some stage low-cost housing or, housing for the community. Is that on that same land or is that is that another piece of land?
Martin RobinsonSo we're just adjacent to the church site. The church site itself has a vicarage where we have a Sudanese family kind of living there. Then we're able to build a couple of units also on the church site, and then adjacent to the church site on the other side, we've got five other units that are in a separate trust. So this was happening around the same time as we were, obviously involved in drawing attention to the housing crisis. So it felt like we at least were able to have some skin in the game and say "Yeah, we're about this as well."
Alison RobinsonI think just the important point to note, again, this has not all been the Robinsons doing this. Our neighbour Wayne is really skilled in project management, and so he set up the trust, which is right next door to the church for the five units. And so that was his brainchild, and he's been very much our hands-on practical housing man. But again, just a great thing that he's been able to bring those skills, and we are more dreamers, and we have dreamed for different parts of the church. But it's been very much a communal effort.
Vic FrancisThis is a podcast for pastors, and our pastors I'm sure will be very interested in some of your work in the community, and we'll continue to talk about that as we go on. But tell us about your church. What does that look like now? How has it grown and evolved and shaped and what do you love about it?
Alison RobinsonIt's just grown as we've gone. I remember at the time that we took over, I had four small children and I was working at the prison, or four primary and secondary school-aged children, and I just thought, "I haven't got time to grow a church." But I felt like God promised and said, "I'm going to grow the church. This is not actually just your responsibility." And so it's been slow and gradual. I'd love to say there was some magic thing that we did. I think, again using the body of Christ, being community, not just being a one-man band, but just slow ways of each bringing our gifts. Martin is really good at curating sacred space, of rethinking how we do church. And there've been so many different iterations along the way of the way we've done church and being responsive to what the particular season required of us. And so I'd have to say that Martin really has been the one that has more shaped and curated church for us, and I have been more the one that's been involved in the neighbourhood. But it's been so important being in tandem. And so over the years we've been very committed to a daily rhythm of prayer. We have really valued small groups. We have championed getting involved in our local neighbourhood. We have talked about being accountable and living as prophetic community where we are. So there's been all sorts of iterations along the way, but it's been very much a team effort. And the church has grown, and obviously now a large number of people are involved in a whole range of different things. And I think there is a vibrancy in our church life.
Martin RobinsonIf you had to characterise us, I think, we're a kind of Vineyardy, Anglican kind of setup who appreciate the gifts of the Spirit and are very much interested in how we can engage in transformational ways in our community, in loving ways. I think where we've tried to be a little bit more experimental is recognising that if Jesus called us to make disciples and to obey, how can we run that little call across everything we do including that church service, for instance. How is that feeding making disciples? And so as a part of that, we decided to go for a larger gathering on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month, break into these smaller groups, house churches, on the second and fourth to prioritise that sense of deeper belonging and deeper knowing of one another and of God, and of eventually becoming more fully involved in owning a missional engagement, a particular specific missional engagement in the community, whether that's for one group, it's around refugees, for another, it's around this trade school kitchen or our community-facing place called Te Puna Manawa, or whether it's replanting the stream where folks have planted thousands of trees, et cetera, to restore, and a few other things like that. Yeah, that prioritisation of love God, love one another, and loving our neighbour, how can we ensure
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Martin Robinsonthat's a kind of culture that we embed and yeah, enable people to grow into?
Vic FrancisAnd has that uh, been a good reflection of the two aspects, the work in the community and the work within the church? And sometimes it's kind of hard to blend those, isn't it? But it sounds like with your alternate Sundays and the way that your church is connecting with those other projects are a happy medium.
Alison RobinsonI hope so. And, I don't want to kind of overstate it. Like not every group has been able to have a particular missional focus. We've got two of our house churches are full of small people who are under five. That's a really busy stage of life. And so again, we do try encourage serve as you can, not as you can't. And some of the groups have a very clear focus in their groups. Others it's emerging. Others, different people are involved in different things. We have one group where one person in the group helps out with waffles for students in the morning, one morning a week. Another person in the group is a volunteer at our drop-in centre, which is largely for, you know, people in the neighbourhood, mainly men. There's another person in the group who goes and does some volunteering at the prison. There's another person in the group who's involved in a Christians Against Poverty programme, and they're all in the one house church. But they're all just serving in really beautiful ways. So I think while some of them have a kind of a homogenous focus, others there are just people are all doing their bit and they're all supporting one another in the different kaupapa that they're involved with.
Vic FrancisIs there anything as we speak today that is pounding on your heart that you're thinking, "This is what I'd like to do next," or "This is something that God might yet have for us"?
Alison RobinsonOoh. It's interesting you ask that, Vic, for me, and I think for both of us, but for me, our involvement with Catch around church planting. So that's an involvement that we have on the side, where we're involved in teaching different cohorts, training them in some of the tools of church planting. So we have planted St David's. We've also had a little plant within the plant. Actually, for about seven years there was a little small church plant of sort of 20 or 30 people which was more for the local neighbourhood, which was soft entry church. Church in a very flexible sense of the word. We've sent out some people to support a couple of church plants within the Wellington diocese. But there's something in me that would love to plant again, but this time I would love to be doing it differently insofar as last time Martin and I and our neighbours were very much at the helm. With our age and stage, I would love to have a couple of young families or some singles, and for us to be really supporting them, but bringing obviously several decades worth of experience, but I'd love to do another plant. But that doesn't necessarily mean abandoning St David's. This is random brains, but we could move a few Ks down the road, and we could still be supporting St David's, which is actually a church that resources people coming into ministry. That's one of the roles that's growing in the diocese. But potentially we could have a little plant happening where we're supporting others to do that, but kind of involved there as well. So I think there's another plant in me, but we'll have to wait for Jesus to invite me to that, and it not just to be a good idea. It needs to be a God idea.
Vic FrancisBut I love that ongoing sense of the fact that there are things over the horizon yet that God might be calling us to and indeed calling you guys to. Thank you for your inspirational story. It's it's been beautiful to hear. We're gonna take a break and when we return, we're going to ask a little bit more about what does this all mean for the rest of us. So we'll be right back. Welcome back to Martin and Alison Robinson as we begin this final session, and let's broaden this out a little bit. Should justice be part of the mission of every church? I know we're not all gonna be a Naenae church, but is justice critical for every church to be involved with and engaged in?
Alison RobinsonI would say certainly yes. And in fact I loved listening to your podcast, Vic, with Nancy and John Ortberg. Just listened to that recently and one of the things that Nancy said was that Jesus mentions care for the poor more than he mentions prayer. So I just don't think that we can separate us being the people of God, being the body of Christ, from engaging with the poor. Now, certainly don't think it's going to look like how we've done it at Saint David's. Again, it's about starting from the place of prayer. It's about sensing where God is calling us and being obedient. But we have to be actually asking that question, saying, "God, where do you want us to engage? How can we be your hands and feet in this neighbourhood?" And so for us, what we do in Naenae is gonna be different from what someone's going to do up in one of the suburbs of Auckland. We need to be deeply embedded in our neighbourhood, and there's a little phrase that we like to use. We think it's important that we all "exegete our neighbourhoods", and that means knowing the history of our neighbourhood. It means knowing who lives there and what are the grievances of the past? What dreams do people have in our neighbourhood? What are their idols? What are their narratives? What are their aches? Where do they hang out? And so it's about getting to know the neighbourhood so deeply that we can hear where the heart's cry is, and that then we look at how the good news of Jesus might speak to that particular ache. So we're not only about social justice. We are. We're about hearing from our neighbourhood, knowing them, and responding to that. But we're also about understanding where is the ache of the neighbourhood and how specifically does the good news of Jesus, the saving work of Jesus, actually impact our neighbours. We would say it's a both/and.
Vic FrancisYeah, both and. Such a great phrase that, exegeting your neighbourhood, and maybe that might be the beginning of the process, Martin, of discerning what God might be inviting your church to engage with, and just as importantly perhaps what not to engage with. So do you have any advice for pastors who might be thinking, "There's just so many needs, I'm not even sure where to start"?
Martin RobinsonI guess it's taking the time to know the neighbourhood. That can be challenging if we're in a commuter kind of set up. I realise that. And yeah, how can we actually hear the voices of our neighbours? And what are our people actually passionate about as well? Where are the spaces that we can actually hear the passions and see the giftings potentially operate? Depending on whether we're an apostle, pastor, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher. I'd say we always need to hear the voices of those who have different giftings around us and are picking up particular things, that it may be that, that is the seed that kind of drops in to change a perspective or to enable a new expression to happen. Thankfully our church is not relying on me. Because if they were yeah, it would look a lot like me. Uh, instead it looks like, a lot like a, a whole range of voices and expressions and passions, and so forth. So, um, yeah, how can we activate the priesthood of all believers and enable folks to fully dream, have a prophetic imagination, a sense of dreaming for what could be in a particular place? And there might be just one starting point. There might be just one presenting moment that gives that first step, that is a doorway that then opens other doorways, and so on and so forth.
Vic FrancisI think that's great advice because I think as pastors we can get a little overwhelmed with the fact that we've got to come up with the idea or we've got to come up with what God is doing. But by spreading it among people who will have hearts also fed by the Holy Spirit, it seems so much more like something that can be done together and therefore something that is more likely to be, I don't know, fruitful or successful in long term. My hunch is that as you work for justice, it creates conflict. If you go out on a picket line you might get something thrown at you or you be in the weather or something like that at the very least. What sort of price have you guys paid for taking public stands along the way, Alison?
Alison RobinsonIn a sense I don't feel like I've paid a particularly high price at all. And that's not because I'm really wonderfully spiritual, but I see it as a real privilege. And for me personally, not everybody in our church has always agreed with everything that we have thought or initiated, and we've always welcomed dialogue. And so, yes, there's been some more challenging conversations. I don't know whether that would be us particularly suffering, but I think just being open to having those conversations and giving people space to think differently and not being too kind of dog with a bone about it.
Martin RobinsonOccasionally we do get some pushback, of course. I just remember when we were putting up the first tents for that protest on the land and a, a guy in a freshly minted Merc kind of parked across the road and came racing across to me and, just got right in my face and said, "What are you doing? What are you doing?" And we said this is what we're, attempting to do." He said, "No one's gonna listen. It's a waste of time," and it was like it was very strident and very in-face, and of course it was actually completely the opposite in terms of what happened. It became an incredible marker on our kind of journey of God's faithfulness. But
audiomartinrobinson21185158797um, I guess
Martin Robinsonthe other thing is that when you go out on a limb like that, people can assume that's the entire iceberg. So a little bit of ice above the water, and they assume the entire iceberg is only about that. Whereas, you know, we want people to encounter Jesus. We pray for people to encounter Jesus and to have lives changed, to be born again. We're passionate about the Spirit of the Lord is upon us to bring them good news, and for people to be released from oppression, whether that's drug addictions, et cetera, et cetera. So on the personal level, as well as some of the more kind of macro societal kind of levels. But certainly it's crucial that we meet Jesus and we're passionate about that. So I think it's that potential kind of misreading of us, "Oh, they're just about that," I think it's a possibly a mistake to read that.
Alison RobinsonYeah. I think there've been assumptions that we're not of the Spirit, that we're not serving people coming to know Jesus. But I quite like being someone that can't quite fit into a box, because I am a full-on Pentecostal. I love the gifts of the Spirit. I'm a full believer in the prophetic. We practise the prophetic. We pray for healing. But I'm also out on the picket line, and I like to be both/and. I'm passionate about unjust systems being changed, but I'm passionate about people coming to know Jesus and experiencing the power of the Spirit in their lives. And so I don't go with this kind of dualistic approach. But I, I guess sometimes my pride gets wounded where I feel like people put me in a box and they go, "Oh, so you're Anglican. Oh, so you're involved in things in your neighbourhood," and there's a kind of patronising thing that will be an assumption that we're not very excited about the good news of Jesus, but I am.
Vic FrancisOh, Alison, you've just given me my quote, which we'll put on social media, and it's "I'm a Pentecostal and I'm full on for the Spirit, but I'm also out on the picket line." Yeah, I love that as a quote. Well done you. I guess, though, you run into people in your congregation sometimes who think, you shouldn't be so political, or you should be more left, or you should be more right, or something like that. Is that a problem or is it something that you are able to find a constructive way around negotiating?
Alison RobinsonI think I've tried to, and it is easy because certain issues get attached to certain political stances, and we all vote for something in an election. We do have a political position, if you like. But I've tried to, and I think actually where we've had challenge in our congregation where people haven't agreed, it's been good for us in a sense because as iron sharpens iron. And it helps me to come back to the fact that, am I doing this just because this is a particular political position or are we as a church championing this because, one, we feel like it's on the heart of God around justice. Is it in keeping with the Beatitudes, with who we see Jesus to be? And is it aligned with where we feel the Spirit is calling us? 'Cause we can't be on every single issue. So I hope, and I don't think we've always done this perfectly. We haven't. But challenge from the congregation helps us to hone, oh, are we still facing true north? Are we listening to the Spirit? Is this on the heart of God? Are we not just attaching ourselves to whatever might be a pro or anti-government stance or whatever.
Martin RobinsonOn things like that, there's no way that we would just ourselves unilaterally just gonna leap out on some kind of issue without a sense of hearing from key folks within our set up, getting a sense of, is this something that the Spirit is saying to us, and really test that out. And so while we might not be, a massive 100% endorsement, but just a clear sense of, now, this really does seem like a thing. This seems to be the Spirit prompt.
Vic FrancisSpeaking of politics, there is an election coming up just around the corner. Do you have any advice for pastors in that very, you know, kind of difficult situation? Presumably we do have different people who vote in different ways in our congregations. What should they be paying attention to in the lead-up to the election, do you think?
Alison RobinsonA really good question too. I don't think as pastors we are to be up the front certainly promoting a political party. One thing we've done in our church just recently is really supporting a campaign to get people on the electoral roll, and that's not a big issue for our church, our church are on the electoral roll, but we live in a neighbourhood where a lot of people are not on the electoral roll. And so we are supporting that everybody having a voice. I think in our church we try to really encourage people to wrestle with the issues. And so it's not just the issue, but it's the why. And we've had forums before where we've wrestled with issues together. And so I think also we'd be encouraging our people to be prayerful, but there won't be the championing of a particular party, certainly not by us there won't be leading up to the election.
Vic FrancisThat's great advice. I'm just gonna have one final question, maybe for both of you before we just go into a question that I'll ask you about hope and then ask you to pray for our pastors. But what would be your dream for the church in Aotearoa? And you can be as specific or as broad as you like in answering that. So Martin, shall we start with you? What would your dream be for our church?
Martin RobinsonIt seems to be pretty clear that when we are not loving as a church, that that is noticed. People really do pick that up. And likewise, when we really do seem to be about love and care and compassion, inclusion, people seem to notice that as well. And I think when we do not have loving action, we lose our credibility, and I think that's the first part of the, that kind of power cycle, if you like. There has to be a sense of action and integrity. We are actually about what we say we're about. We're talking about the God of love. May we be known for that love rather than power grabs or maybe making a name for ourselves, that kind of thing. So those three temptations of Jesus power, greed and fame. Yeah. How do we just actually self-empty and be about love of the other?
Vic FrancisAlison.
Alison RobinsonFor me, I think, off the top of my head, there are three things that I am really passionate about for the church in this country, in Aotearoa. One is that we are truly passionate about the good news of Jesus, that we still believe that the good news is good news. And I think in this economic climate, in these dark times, nationally and internationally, that we see that there is this beautiful alternative in Jesus. I think that we would be embedded in our neighbourhoods, that we love our neighbours, that we know our neighbours, that our neighbours have names, and that we seek to be fully engaged, and that people say, "Oh, yeah, that church down the road, they're awesome," because we care about our neighbourhood. And the third thing I think that I hope for the church is that we learn to work in partnership, Māori and Pakeha. That Pakeha will be tangata tiriti, and that we do that really well because I think that keeps us humble. We need to be listening to the Māori voice. We need to be aware of the sins of the past and not perpetuating those into the future. And so I think working alongside Māori, supporting Māori to flourish in leadership, being humble as Pakeha, but also bringing what we have as Pakeha as well, and I think relationships of mutuality and partnership feels very important.
Vic FrancisWell, fantastic answers both of you. Thank you so much. And yes, I ask all my guests what gives them hope and I just love the broad range of responses. So Marty, maybe we'll start with you again, and, and Alison.
Martin RobinsonThere are plenty of things that give me hope actually, but I'll just narrow it down just to two brief little things. So I was just at a conference in Brisbane, Exponential it was. It was around kind of church planting and enabling church planting and multiplication, et cetera. And the beauty of that was just simply the passion for growth and the sense of wanting to work together communally and across denominational boundaries. Just a commonality around the mission of Jesus to love others and to be good news to new people and new places and new ways. And likewise just a little meeting this week and the beautiful sense of passion to form the cross-party missional community around engaging this country in creative and Jesus-centred ways. It was incredibly refreshing, and it didn't have any kind of posturing or kind of grand designs.
Alison RobinsonAnd it was interdenominational.
Martin RobinsonInterdenominational. And just the humility and the listening and the excitement around what God is doing. Yeah, there just does seem to be a sense of God doing new things. Of course, God's always at work, but maybe we're listening to that.
Vic FrancisHopeful indeed. How about you, Ali?
Alison RobinsonI think there's a couple of things that give me a lot of hope, and one is when I see ordinary people doing extraordinary things. We have such a range of people in our neighbourhood who are doing beautiful, prophetic, transformative things. We've seen people who've come out of prison who are now taking leadership, who are influencing others, who are doing beautiful things with their life. And so that gives me hope when I see the transformative power of God in people's lives, and then they pay it forward. They are involving themselves in the neighbourhood, in other people's lives. I think the other thing that gives me hope is when I see glimpses of the kingdom now, but that it is also not yet. And there are moments where we're round the dinner table and there's someone there who might be sharing something really vulnerable, or people who we've had experiences, people from different gangs having a beautiful reconciling conversation round our dinner table. We had a Matariki celebration down at our community centre, and seeing people deeply engaging with wanting to put their prayers in a prayer box, feasting together. So I think I feel a great deal of hope where I see there's the kingdom. It's not quite yet, but there's a glimpse of it. Diverse people enjoying life together, feasting together, praying together, being vulnerable together.
Vic FrancisAnd out of that, I wonder if you would both be willing to pray for our pastors. We're all in it together. We all have our sense of vulnerabilities and maybe how we're not measuring up. But with the podcast, we're trying to champion pastors and their holy calling in this uncertain world. We've talked a bit about all of the above, I think, and I'm sure it will be a great treasure to the rest of us if you were willing to pray for us, both of you.
Alison RobinsonWould love to. I mean, Just aware that it's hard pastoring, I think, in this day and age. You know, you're always risking getting cancelled. But I've got a blessing that I'd like to read, and I wonder, do I read the blessing first and then you just pray? Would that be good?
Martin RobinsonSure, yeah.
Alison RobinsonThis is a beautiful blessing by a woman called Jan Richardson from a book Circle of Grace, but I think it's really apt for our wonderful pastors out there. And it's called Blessed Are You who Bear the Light. "Blessed are you who bear the light in unbearable times, who testify to its endurance amid the unendurable, who bear witness to its persistence when everything seems in shadow and grief. Blessed are you in whom the light lives, in whom the brightness blazes, your heart a chapel, an altar where in the deepest night can be seen the fire that shines forth in you, an unaccountable faith and stubborn hope and love that illumines every broken thing it finds."
Martin RobinsonJesus, you are Lord, and we just ask that your Spirit would continue to enable us to put roots deep into the soil of your life, of your abundance, that your life would flow through us afresh and that we would be people grounded and established in you, that we would be people that are fruitful because we abide in you, Lord. We ask for your protection, for your deep encouragement, for your strengthening, that we would become mature in places of safety, encouragement and empowerment uh, for others. Thank you, Lord, for all that you do and for all that you enable us to be. Amen.
Vic FrancisAmen. I wanna thank you, Martin and Alison, for joining me on the podcast today. And to champion you for being bold and humble, if I can tie those words together. For long service that's well done, for putting the gospel first, for being a voice for the poor and the underprivileged and the needy, and being willing to remind the rest of us of that, for bearing the light in unbearable times and for the light that lives in you. So we, I'm sure, on behalf of those who listen, champion you too and your holy callings in this uncertain world. God bless you very much.
Alison RobinsonPleasure to be here. Bye.
Martin RobinsonBlessings.
Vic FrancisThank you for listening to this episode of the For Pastors podcast. You can find more about the Robinsons' work through the St David's Naenae website, which is linked in the podcast notes. And while you're at it, how about liking or rating this podcast and passing it on to a pastor you know who may benefit? Meanwhile, I'm back in a fortnight with something different again, talking with Baptist leader, author, researcher and explorer of spiritual formation, Alan Jamieson, about how souls grow, pastors' souls and the souls of the congregations in their care. I hope you'll join me. Bless you