By Charlotte Evans

According to Patsy Kingi, a part-time ministry worker with Takatutahi Church Centre in Whakatane, we hear a lot about having visions but never hear as much about them coming to fruition. Or about how time consuming and draining the process can be.

She speaks from her own experience. Five years ago, Reverend Ra Koia brought a vision to his congregation at Takatutahi. It was a vision of a spiritual river, the River of Life flowing from Takatutahi.

They sought the Lord earnestly with fasting and prayer about what the vision meant.

Slowly the answer came. "God wanted us to go out with the word of God into the community to help people," says Patsy. "The church used to be the social welfare, health, the place you came for help. Now a lot of those services are done by Winz et cetera. People don't look to the church. The church has lost its standing in the community for people.

"It's about meeting people's needs, not just helping them this far and then stopping. It's seeing the whole thing through," says Patsy.

As well as the church going out, there was to be the community coming back in.

"We had a lot of empty chairs and part of the vision was getting those empty chairs filled."

But while people would come, Patsy says getting them to stay was something else. There wasn't a committed membership. It led to another lot of hard questions and another answer from God.

Patsy woke up one morning with an image strongly on her heart a picture of a lighthouse shining out to the parishes of Te Aka Puaho, the mother church.
"I knew it was of God because it was to do with the church," she says. Admitting she's not much of an artist, Patsy went straight round to one of her aunties who helped her put together the poster which now stands at the front of Takatutahi.

"While we were doing all this, we were forgetting our own parishes. A lot of our parishes are dying and God was saying 'How can I bless you when you're not helping your own brothers and sisters'?"

Patsy brought her message to the congregation and received confirmation. Along with the community outreach in hospital visits, counselling, Food Link and liaising with CYFS and WINZ etc, Takatutahi is now fervently praying for spiritual revival among the parishes of Waimana, Opotiki, Wairoa-Nuhaka, Auckland, Hastings, Putauaki, Gisborne, Rotorua, Wellington and Taumarunui as well as for the tiny Native American congregation of Neah Bay in the USA with which one of the parish ministers has strong connections.

In March, a wananga was held at Te Maungarongo, attended by elders, ministers and members of Te Aka Puaho parishes. The wananga discussed how they could improve as a church and enabled a lot of grievances about the church to be released and to be replaced with new ways of serving and new strategies to make things more positive for the future.

"We would like to see the church change in worship, style and presentation. That doesn't mean you throw reverence out but on the other hand you can't bring young people back to the church with traditions.

"We must allow young people to have ownership of the church too. Not to just be members but to be active members - and that's more than just doing the overheads," Patsy says.