//n8andwhitney.com/blog

This Blog Has Moved

2011-05-16T07:30:00.004-04:00

This blog is no longer active.

If you're looking for regular updates, see Whitney's blog:

http://abeautifulmiscellany.tumblr.com/

Replanting

2011-05-11T06:31:00.001-04:00

"It feels like we're re-planting the church." Nate made this comment during a post-earthquake staff meeting as we took time to reflect on the many changes to our young congregation due to the devastating tremor last February. Everyone seemed to share the sentiment, but along with it a common feeling of resolve, a sense that God was pulling us through, trusting that we were going to be better off because of it.

The biggest challenge we had to face dealt with something dear to us: our people. Several key families and individuals had to move away from Christchurch after the quake. Some were seeking employment in other cities after losing jobs, others were university students moving back home or transferring to another school, still others simply needed to start fresh in a new city with clean water, smooth roads, and no aftershocks. We've estimated that about 20% of ourregular attenders have moved away, which mirrors the migration trend in the city as a whole. Many of the people who moved were involved in the Worship and Creative Arts ministry. Gutted, Nate had to say goodbye to over half of his volunteers.

"You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, 'Lord, blessed be your name.'"
Matt Redman

Remarkably though, our average attendance hasn't dropped at all. We've had heaps of first-timers at Rechurch over the past couple of months and two record-setting Sundays in terms of attendance. And as for the Worship and Creative Arts ministry, Nate's added five new people in the past three weeks - two of whom have great potential as future worship leaders.

So yes, it feels like we've re-planted the church from some perspectives. But we're scrappier now, more determined than ever and ready to tackle more challenges.

Sunday by Rechurch :)

2011-04-24T09:32:00.001-04:00

Shaken...

2011-03-30T08:10:00.002-04:00

On February 22, 2011, our city of Christchurch, New Zealand was rocked by it's second major earthquake in six months. Though smaller in magnitude, the destruction of this second episode was far worse, claiming homes, businesses, and lives.

We were lucky. We escaped the quake with only 1 minor injury (a bump on Lane's head) and very little property damage. Here's a brief recap of our second quake experience:

Whitney, Lane, and Henry were at home, preparing for lunch. All three were in the kitchen/dining area when the 40-second shake started. Whitney grabbed Lane and stumbled toward the dining table (recommended procedure). Once Lane was underneath, Whitney grabbed Henry's arm and pulled him under the table and climbed under herself. For the final seconds she looked up and watched the computer dance back and forth on the desk (but thankfully not fall off!). The three of them remained under the table, eating lunch and reading books and keeping ice on Lane's head, until Nate arrived home...
Nate was at the Rechurch office, about a 10-minute drive from home. When the shaking began he jumped into his office doorway and waited it out. Immediately afterward he ran outside to survey the damage (NOT recommended procedure). Realizing quickly that it had been a devastating event and that cell phone towers would soon be down, he called Whitney to let her know he was safe. He then updated Facebook (thank you, God, for the iPhone!) with the same information, so family and friends in the States wouldn't have to worry. Knowing that Whitney was home alone with the kids, he climbed into his truck and started the hour-long drive in grid-locked traffic. [To view some video footage he took on the way home, click here.]

We spent the rest of that day and night checking in on our teammates, neighbours, and church attenders. We helped where we could, offered prayer and encouragement where we could, and tried to get some sleep. We came to the realization that home was not a safe place to be with two small children and limited access to food, water, and electricity. So the following day we packed up some things, dropped our dog off with some friends, and hit the road for seven days. It was a restless time, but a good break from aftershocks and an opportunity to focus on supporting each other.

Since we've been home, we've been trying to put the pieces back together (sometimes literally). Rechurch is meeting again, but in a new location for the forseeable future, as The Palms Shopping Centre has sustained considerable damage. We are attempting to follow a weekly routine, aided by a few of Lane's activities which have started up again. We have power and running water, which feels like such a luxury, even though we are still under a boil order for all drinking water. We are attempting this new version of a normal life, and hoping that we can begin to put this tragedy behind us.

Support Rechurch's Earthquake Response

2011-03-11T05:00:00.001-05:00

Support Christchurch EQ Relief from rechurch on Vimeo.

Earthquake Update

2011-02-26T20:27:00.000-05:00

Our Kids

2010-11-12T05:34:00.003-05:00

Lane and Henry are growing up so fast! Henry is a very healthy 4-month-old. He's nearly 20 pounds! His sister loves to make him laugh, hold his hand, squeeze him, and sometimes sit on him. It doesn't seem to bother him yet.

Laney is quite a character. She's taking a gymnastics class every Wednesday, learning some ballet with mummy at home, and even some french! Both are continuing to demand our time and attention. We're getting used to the beautiful mess that is parenthood.

View more photos on facebook.

Christchurch Earthquake

2010-09-06T06:28:00.021-04:00

If you hadn't already heard, the city of Christchurch was hit with 7.1 magnitude earthquake at 4:35 am last Saturday (September 4th).

OUR STORY

Whitney and I were sleeping soundly with wee Henry (our 2-month-old) in the room when we were startled with a feeling that might be described as really bad airplane turbulence, except in your house! I sat up and thought for a couple of seconds and said, "earthquake!" and immediately attempted to make my way down a bouncing hallway towards Lane's room (our two-year-old). Lane was sitting up in bed saying, "it's too loud, daddy!" I snatched her up and made my way back to our room where we waited the quake out in the door-frames. Whitney, clutching baby Henry and still obviously waking up, had suggested we get in the bathtub. I had to reminded her that it was an earthquake, not a tornado :-).

CHRISTCHURCH AFTER THE QUAKE

Amazingly, we had virtually no damage done to our house or our neighborhood. Things were thrown from shelves, pictures had to be put back on walls, drawers had to be shut, and sliding glass doors closed, but nothing was broken - not a single piece of glass! This was also the case with all of our fellow team-mates and rechurch staff members, but many in the city were not so lucky.

Not a single life was lost and there were only two people critically injured, but thousands had their homes and/or businesses destroyed and everyone lost electricity and water for a significant amount of time. Now that the initial shock has worn off, power and water have been restored to 90% of the city, and the damage has mostly been assessed, the cleanup can begin.

Rechurch is helping to organize some relief efforts. Tomorrow we begin by helping a family shovel the silt and mud from their drive and move out of their condemned home. Another group will be joining the Canterbury University student body in a united effort to help cleanup Christchurch.

We appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers. We are truly blessed to have our lives, our health, and a safe place to live after such a disaster. Pray for more opportunities for us to be the hands and feet of Christ in Christchurch.

More of our photos from the earthquake.

More photos of the worst parts of the earthquake damage.

Babies, Babies, Babies!

2010-07-26T07:16:00.005-04:00

The Rechurch team has nearly doubled in size since moving to New Zealand. Lane Hutchison and Liam Taylor are both 2 years old now. They're quite a pair. Every time we get together as a team they're 100% occupied with each other. Brooklyn Flammer was born in March, Dillon Taylor was born in May, and Henry Hutchison in June. Needless to say, we're all a bit distracted, but we're loving every minute of it (well, not EVERY minute...you know what I mean). Our Rechurch family has been like an extended family. Even some brand new attenders at Rechurch have stepped in to lend a hand by cooking meals for us. Life is happening and God is providing as usual.

1+1=4

Whitney and I are enjoying our new little family. Laney has stepped right up as the loving big sister. She's usually very interested in what Henry and Mummy are up to and offers plenty of hugs, kisses, and nosey-noseys for the little guy.

Henry is Here!

2010-06-25T07:18:00.003-04:00

Henry James Nathan Hutchison was born today, June 25th 2010 at 12:22pm at Christchurch Women's Hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand. He tipped the scales at 4.18 kgs (9 lbs, 3oz.). He's 56.5 cm (22.2 in) long. Once again, Whitney is my hero, having bravely faced every contraction and painful push with no medication. She is recovering well tonight with baby Henry sleeping at her side. We're a happy family of four now. How did that happen?!

Rechurch@TheRace

2010-06-09T18:41:00.005-04:00

On Sunday Rechurch went off-site to the 30th annual Christchurch Marathon. The Rechurch name and branding was exposed in a positive light to well over 5000 people that day. We ran a water station for 10K, half-marathon, and full-marathon runners.

Nearly 30 volunteers from rechurch ran the station filling up water cups, handing them out, encouraging runners, and picking up used cups. It was cold and rainy the whole morning, but I'd much rather be handing out water than running the 42 Kilometers, which is what most of the rechurch staff were doing last year at this time. It was also a nice change of pace from the usual Sunday services and a great way to serve the Christchurch community.

Growing a Church...Slowly.

2010-05-23T08:14:00.004-04:00

Slow growth is still growth! Over the past three months, Rechurch has averaged about 50 people on Sunday mornings. We've seen three people make a public acceptance of Christ and become baptized in the past three weeks. We're encouraged every day by the fact that heaps of the people getting involved in our church are either trying church again or, for some, for the very first time. It's hard work, but it's rewarding work. When someone meets Jesus and begins to make changes to their lifestyle for the better, it's amazing! I'm just glad to be a part of it.

This Sunday I had a unique opportunity. Hamish Taylor, Leadership & Teaching Director, took some time to be with his family after their second baby was born. Since Joseph Flammer, Outreach & Community Director, had just done the teaching the week before, I was up! So, I prepared a worship service and a sermon! Admittedly, I was a bit nervous about being up for the whole hour, but it actually went well! It was fun, but I'm glad it's over. I think I'll stick to leading worship for the most part.

View more photos like this on facebook.

More Musicians!

2010-05-04T07:49:00.003-04:00

Leading worship at rechurch has been a blast! One family in particular played a huge part in kicking off the worship ministry at the end of last year during our preview services and continue to serve in the rotation. The Dad plays bass, the mum sings, the son plays drums, and the daughter runs ProPresenter (the lyrics/media display program). I don't know where we'd be without them. They say good musicians attract more of the same. We've added to our number consistently since launching our weekly services in the cinemas. Now, just 12 weeks in, Rechurch has enough singers and musicians for two bands and then some! We've also been blessed with outstanding sound and media volunteers. These guys have heaps of talent and big hearts. God is providing!

Until We Meet Again...

2010-04-05T21:44:00.001-04:00

Nate's grandmother passed away today.

In a quiet hospital room in Paris, Kentucky (made a little less quiet by the sounds of hymns and Scripture), surrounded by her family, she slipped quietly into her new life - one where arthritis and pneumonia and the afflictions of age can no longer hinder a tenacious and generous spirit.

Albertine was born in 1921. She had grit and verve and gumption - all of those wonderful qualities that characterize women of her generation - women who survived The Great Depression, World War II, a presidential assassination, and the dawn of the nuclear age. She valued hard work; she understood the value of a dollar; she had an unflinching desire to do the right thing (and when she couldn't, she'd make sure someone else did).

I only knew Albertine for 10 years, but I knew her to be a courageous and generous woman. She loved her family, cherished her friendships, and clung to her faith.

We will miss her.

A Thought for Today

2010-03-12T05:36:00.001-05:00

Church Offices

2010-03-04T23:56:00.020-05:00

For the past 2 months, the Rechurch community has been working hard to create a space of its own. The idea is that this will not only provide offices for Rechurch's full- and part-time staff, but that it will also serve as a hub of activity during the week. After acquiring some really stellar rental space (great location, great parking, great price), we set to work to fix it up, as it was in some not-so-stellar condition.
The building is now freshly painted, and is fitted with three offices, phone lines, WIFI, a reception area, a kitchen, and a community room/lounge. Here now you can see our progress...there's still heaps to be done in the coming months, but we are proud to call this Rechurch's semi-permanent home.

Reception

before

after

Lounge

before

after

Offices

before

after

before

after

Rechurch has launched!

2010-02-23T20:15:00.003-05:00

Sorry it's been so long - busy, busy, busy! Here's a quick update. We had a successful day for our launch last Sunday. More than 75 people were in attendance. The cinemas felt full and alive. Hamish preached about finding meaning in life. Worship went well. I had a full band for the first time (if you count preview Sundays). The atmosphere was encouraging, uplifting, joyful. Almost all of the people reporting on our communication cards told us that they were non-Christians or if they were, that they didn't currently attend church anywhere - exactly what we wanted! It was great for me to see several people I had been praying about in attendance that morning. Thanks for all your support and prayers!

A New Venue for Rechurch

2010-01-29T22:20:00.005-05:00

We knew that it would be just a matter of time until the logistics of the Fox & Ferret no longer permitted Rechurch to use that venue. So we have continued to do our research for a semi-permanent solution which would enable us to continue to grow without hindrance.

All along, we knew that our primary choice was Reading Cinemas - the movie theatre located in The Palms Shopping Centre, just about the Fox & Ferret where we held our Preview Sundays. But the estimates we received from Reading were 2-3 times our alloted budget for renting service space, so we continued looking at other options.

Disappointed with the other available venues (which were not many), and more certain than ever that location plays a big part in how the community perceives us, we decided to place one more bid with the Cinemas, knowing that our small budget would only allow us to pay a fraction of what they had previously estimated.

Truly, God is faithful. The management of Reading Cinemas responded favorably to our final proposal, and not only accepted our reduced price, but offered even more space than we had requested! Overjoyed, we accepted the contract and decided that we would hold Launch Sunday in the Cinemas, coming up in just three weeks!

Another Baby!!

2010-01-09T00:59:00.003-05:00

We are pleased to announce that we are expecting baby #2! He or she should arrive sometime in late June or early July. Please keep us all in your prayers as we prepare for another adjustment during an already eventful year!

And in case you didn't already know, the Taylors and the Flammers (our teammates and fellow rechurch staff members) are also expecting. They're due in May and March respectively. Babies...lots and lots of babies!

Christmas Preview Sunday

2009-12-20T05:53:00.003-05:00

Rechurch had it's fourth preview Sunday this morning. It just keeps getting better! We maintained a good attendance of 41 people even though the weather was nice and a lot of people were out of town on holiday. For me, personally, it was a lot of fun to play and sing some Christmas songs again.

It's been a very encouraging week at rechurch. We received notice from Reading Cinemas that they have accepted our proposal to hire their cinemas as phase two venue for rechurch. This was indeed a Christmas miracle as our offer asked them to reduce their price by nearly 60% to a weekly rate that we felt we could afford. It was yet another confirmation that God is driving our church plant forward! Reading Cinemas is the absolute ideal 2nd phase venue location after we outgrow the Fox and Ferret.

Meanwhile, we're off to Motueka (at the top of the south island of New Zealand) for a much needed holiday with our friends, the Flammers for a week. Happy Christmas everyone!

Go to facebook for more photos from the Christmas preview sunday.

Rechurch has a shiny new website!!

2009-12-18T03:45:00.004-05:00

www.rethinkchurch.co.nz

rechurch is rolling

2009-11-22T00:40:00.005-05:00

It was smooth sailing this morning at rechurch's third preview sunday. We're starting to get the hang of setting up church at the Fox and Ferret (our complicated but very atmospheric worship venue).

We were all quite nervous going into this Sunday. It felt like we were coming up against some obstacles in the church plant, but God answered our prayers in a big way. We know of at least two people in attendance who checked the box labeled "Not a Christian, but I'd like to find out more" on the communication card. That's why we're doing this!

Overall, there was a 50% increase in attendance from the last two preview services. Perhaps the best moment of the morning for me was when the band dropped out and I heard 45 voices loudly singing, "Salvation is here."

Salvation is here, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Sizzlin' Summer

2009-11-01T05:48:00.003-05:00

A lot is happening in the life of rechurch during the weeks between preview Sundays. So much, in fact, that it seems hard to imagine what life will be like aer we launch the church and offer weekly services in 2010 and beyond. One thing that kept us busy last weekend was a “Sausage Sizzle” fundraiser we did at the Queen Elizabeth II Sports Complex. e Rechurch staff rolled out the barbecues and sold nearly 300 sausages on Saturday. All proceeds went to help the victims of the recent Tsunami in Samoa - a cause that means a lot to many kiwis due to the proximity of the island. In fact, many people in New Zealand have loved ones who were effected by the disaster. In addition to raising funds for World Vision, we raised awareness about Rechurch, as each person who bought a sausage received a rechurch pen and an invite card to our preview Sundays.

Our second preview Sunday was on October 18th. We had another great day despite a few technical issues during setup. Our growing worship band gave us a great start to the morning and paved the way for Joe Flammer to preach the Word. Hamish shared some inspiring thoughts before communion as well. We did see several new faces in the crowd, but we retained our original attendance of 31 people. Many of the people who came to the first preview Sunday, but missed the second said they would be back for the third in November...Rechurch is growing!

Preview Service #2

2009-10-13T19:02:00.003-04:00

Rechurch has it's 2nd preview sunday on the 18th. We're getting a lot of feedback from the community after a couple of big marketing pushes, so pray that we get a great turn out for the event!

Top 10 Reasons to Visit New Zealand

2009-09-30T00:11:00.002-04:00

If you didn't catch John Key (New Zealand's Prime Minister) on David Letterman the other day, check this out. It was quite a treat for the kiwis watching at the bottom of the world.

Rechurch is here

2009-09-19T23:52:00.004-04:00

Rechurch has gone public! We had our first preview service this morning at the Fox & Ferret in the Palms Mall. It was a true success. We had plenty of help with setup and pack down. A friend and brilliant musician from Auckland flew down for the weekend to help with worship and with training on our new sound system. Hamish's sermon was a bulls-eye and Joe's communion thoughts and notices went over very well. 31 people turned up altogether - not bad considering we're just beginning monthly preview services as we build up to our full church launch on 21 Feb. Our launch team is beginning to grow as another family has come on board. They were a huge help to us this morning filling several guest services and techy roles. God is moving in Christchurch. Stay tuned!

Click for more photos on facebook

Marketing Rechurch

2009-09-02T02:03:00.006-04:00

Whitney has been working with the church staff to produce some promotional materials that will capture what Rechurch is all about. Our aim with all of our marketing pieces is to promote:

1. Our monthly preview services (starting in only 3 weeks!!)

2. Our church

3. Our website (www.rethinkchurch.co.nz).

Below are samples of some ads that will be posted in the Palms mall and the cinemas this week, which are both in the same complex as our worship venue (The Fox and Ferret).

Rechurch.co.nz

2009-08-22T01:38:00.003-04:00

We're still hard at work on the full rechurch.co.nz website. We'll be launching the full site in September, but for now, have a look at a few temporary pages. Browse through our pages often. Doing so will give us a higher rating in search engines, which will help people to find us sooner. Thanks!

Building Rechurch.co.nz

2009-08-11T19:06:00.008-04:00

A church website these days is most likely going to be the first impression the average person will get of your church. It's like a front door or a welcome mat. You want people to feel at home - to feel free to explore - to have a look around.

Whitney and I are working with a web development company based in Christchurch called Hairy Lemon to manage the overall website project, but specifically the creative side of rechurch.co.nz. Yesterday we went to the Addington Coffee Co-Op to take some inviting photos to use on rechurch's website (see below).

The website is now under construction and due to be up in September, but please visit our holder page. Doing so regularly will move us up in the google search database, meaning more people searching for a church in Christchurch will find our site. So, support us by making rechurch.co.nz your home page!

Hoops Academy

2009-07-30T21:31:00.003-04:00

On Thursday afternoons I volunteer as an instructor for the hoops academy at the Queen Elizabeth II Sports Complex - a sports and leisure facility just down the road from our house in Christchurch. I assist in running fundamental basketball drills for kids ages 5 to 9. It's a great way to get to know kids in the community and their parents, not to mention a good way to brush up on my own basketball skills as I am probably at an elementary level at this point. I hope to be playing on a team in the social basketball league at the QE II sometime soon.

At the Market

2009-07-09T23:53:00.011-04:00

We took the opportunity today to visit one of Christchurch's many open-air markets. This one in particular specializes in fresh, organic foods, and is open every Friday afternoon. With the local schools closed for a two-week term break, it was a popular place to be (in spite of the chilly winter weather)...

Nate snacking on a "Kransky" (a type of Bratwurst)

stacked display tables

Lane watching the birds from her pram

colorful crates

We thoroughly enjoyed chatting with the vendors while we tasted coffee & cupcakes, and purchased some carrots (no, the alliteration was not lost on us). A convivial time was had by all.

What's in a Name?

2009-07-02T04:21:00.002-04:00

What's in a name? These famous words of Shakespeare have been especially poignant for us lately, as we have been discussing and choosing a name for the church plant. From brainstorming to ranking to getting feedback from some Kiwis, we have been busy with this exciting but weighty task.

After much debate and even more prayer, we have decided upon the name that will be the main identity of not only our church plant, but also what we hope to accomplish here in Christchurch, and New Zealand as a whole. So, without further ado, the winner is...

RECHURCH

What we like about it:

It's noticeably different, yet sounds kind of familiar.
It encourages people to ask questions, or to investigate what it's about.
It can grow with us.
It has limitless possibilities for application (rediscover, reconnect, regift, regroup, etc...)

Most of all, we believe that this name encapsulates what we desire to accomplish with this church plant - we want to bring the people of New Zealand back to church. We want them to try it again. We want them to rediscover the faith and tradition that 90% of New Zealanders have abandoned.

Searching for a Venue

2009-07-02T03:52:00.008-04:00

Currently, one of our most important tasks is searching for a church venue. We've viewed office spaces, schools, theaters, community centers, warehouses, and more. The pressure to find the "perfect location" can be overwhelming, as can the long list of needs we want the space to meet. One of our top priorities is to find a location that already has "pull" on the community - in other words, an area that people already go to regularly for shopping, family time, or just hanging out. A venue that is well-known by community members is much more likely to provoke feelings of curiosity and familiarity.

Please pray hard for our staff as we seek the perfect venue for RECHURCH. Monthly preview services begin this September!

Happy Birthday, Laney!!

2009-06-17T01:00:00.004-04:00

What a special day it was yesterday. We celebrated Lane’s first birthday with our friends and teammates, and we had a wonderful time! Lane got to open lots of goodies - books, shapes, toys, blocks, and even a new dress.

We all had lasagna for dinner and some yummy cupcakes. Lane got a special creation - an all natural, no sugar, no salt cupcake that I adapted from a recipe online. I know, it sounds terrible, but let’s face it - she’s used to food without flavor.

After the kids went to bed, the grownups watched Madagascar 2 and played Taboo. It was a special day made even more special because we were surrounded by people who love Lane.

Nate Finishes the Christchurch Marathon

2009-06-07T22:17:00.002-04:00

May 31st was the day we'd been training for since January. That day I (nate) joined two fellow staff members, Joe and Amy Flammer, in the Christchurch marathon. We laced up our running shoes and clothed ourselves in three layers of running shorts, pants, and shirts as the forecast called for a "white Queen's birthday" (an annual New Zealand holiday honoring the Queen of England). Just before the gun fired, hail started raining down on the 8,000 runners as cheers went up from the crowd. As we ran along the Avon river in Christchurch city the weather turned from hail to rain to sleet to sunny and warm and then to snow and wind. I must have put my gloves and ear coverings on and off about 20 times during the 4.5 hour run.

I had a lot of fun meeting interesting people from Christchurch and chatting along the way. I ran for about 15kms with an Italian runner. After the 27 km mark he left me in his dust as my legs began to cramp uncontrollably from the cold winds. From that point on I had to stop a lot to stretch my legs and wait for the muscles to relax. Three people stopped to help me along the way. I must have looked like I was in a lot of pain! One older gentleman even pulled his truck over and rubbed some "tiger balm" on my muscles and gave me some stretching tips, which really seemed to help for a while. I wasn't sure if my legs were going to allow me to finish, but I was determined. I finished with an official gun-time of 04:29:40 in my first ever marathon.

Afterwards I vowed to never run again, but since I'm now in charge of a running club for the church as a form of outreach and marketing, I'll be back on the streets of Christchurch very soon. By the way, my mates Amy and Joe finished in that order a few minutes ahead of me! Here's to running for Christ in Christchurch. Over and out.

We Made it to Christchurch!

2009-05-20T00:32:00.004-04:00

We've been in Christchurch now for 3 weeks looking for a house to rent and settling into the community. We'll finally be in our on home on 25 May! We can't wait! We bunked down in a motel for a week, but since then we've been staying with friends. Whit and I have joined the Queen Elizabeth II Sport and Leisure complex which is less than 3 kilometers from our house! This will be a great place to meet people, a task that is at the top of all of our to do lists these days. I've already been to the QEII several times running on the treadmills as I prepare for my first full marathon in Christchurch on 31 May! Yikes!

WHO WE ARE NOW

As of the first of May when all of the families on our team arrived in Christchurch, the New Zealand Church Plant Team no longer existed. We have now morphed into two new groups: the launch team (a group that we hope to increase to 40 members by launch day next February) and the church plant staff. We're excited to continue to update you as our launch team begins to grow. Our first monthly preview service is just four months away!

Meet the Launch Team (formerly the NZ church plant team)

Joe and Amy Flammer / Hamish and Molly Taylor (son Liam) / Nate and Whitney Hutchison (daughter Lane)

Meet the Staff

Amy: youth and family / Joe: outreach / Hamish: Lead Pastor / Nate: Worship and Creative Arts

Saying Goodbye (again)

2009-04-27T13:39:00.004-04:00

Our time in the United States is quickly coming to an end and we're back to a far too familiar task...packing. We fly out of Columbus, OH Tuesday afternoon and land in Christchurch, New Zealand on Thursday afternoon (NZT).

Our teammates are already on the ground searching for their new homes, so we'll have some friendly faces waiting for us there as we say goodbye for a long time to friendly faces here. Goodbyes are always hard (especially when taking a cute baby girl from her grandparents), but that harsh reality is softened by the knowledge that we are leaving our homeland for the highest of callings - to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people who need Him desperately (as we all do).

Please be in prayer for us as we deal with physical and emotional stress over the next few weeks. We'll be searching for a home to move into as soon as possible before we begin planting the seeds for our new church in Christchurch, New Zealand. Stay tuned!

Frantic Furlough Turns to Family Free Time

2009-04-14T22:39:00.005-04:00

First of all, please excuse the alliteration in the title. Secondly, I've heard from other missionaries that their time back home on furlough could get a bit hectic. Travel between speaking engagements, supporter updates, and fundraising adds up quickly. I know of one former missionary who, back in the day, spent a whole year on furlough visiting over 50 supporting churches!

One of the best and most important parts of furlough, however, is time spent with family which can be easily neglected due to a full schedule. So, while we were planning our furlough schedule before we left New Zealand, Whitney and I set aside plenty of time to spend with family. This was especially important for our families to get to meet and then spend some quality time with Laney (let's be honest - she is number one on their lists)! Here are a few of our favorite pictures from family time:

Hello Old Friends

2009-03-13T11:50:00.008-04:00

The past 6 weeks of furlough have rushed by. Today I'm taking a deep breath, resting, and reflecting on the whirlwind tour we've just been through. It's been so great to see old friends and make new ones. This inspires me to share some lyrics from an old Rich Mullins song (may he rest in peace).

Hello Old Friends

And so we meet again after all these many years

Did we sow the seeds we're reaping now that the harvest calls us here

It seems that love blooms out of season

And much joy can blossom from many tears

After leading worship and updating our friends at Bedford Acres Christian Church this weekend, next up is spending time with family before heading back to New Zealand to get started on the church plant.

No News Is Good News!

2009-02-26T13:25:00.002-05:00

Our time in the states so far has been jam-packed with visits to churches, friends, and family and with fund-raising meetings for the launch of our church in New Zealand. So, blog-posts have taken a backseat to face-to-face updates. I'm sure you understand. We're in Kentucky this week and Indy next week. We hope to see you soon!

What a Difference a Week Makes!

2009-02-12T11:24:00.005-05:00

From this...

To this...

Winter never seemed so coooooooold! After arriving in Columbus, OH on 31 Jan and spending a few days with family, we were greeted with a quickly accumulating snow storm as we drove through Cincinnati. Not the warm welcome we expected, but it was a bit exciting. One week earlier we were basking in the warm summer New Zealand sun.

Our first two weeks in the states have been a whrilwind. We've been involved in Kentucky Christian University's chapel service, Sunday morning services at Worthington Christian Church in Columbus and North Terrace in Zanesville, and now we're spending time with friends and meeting with churches in Indianapolis. Laney has been with us the whole time. She is loving meeting new friends and family, but the cold weather and crazy schedule has handed her her first cold.

We'll be traveling back to Zanesville, OH and then Frazeysburg this weekend where I'll lead worship services there. Hope to see you soon!

Running the Race

2009-01-23T22:39:00.007-05:00

For about 18 months now I've devoted myself to running. Why? There are a lot of reasons to run - staying in shape, training with friends, maintaining discipline. But the one reason that has driven my training lately is thinking about this one thing: worship. No, I'm serious. God is honored when I take care of myself - especially when it's for Him...when I'm "offering my body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is [my] spiritual act of worship" (Romans 12:1). If God was coming to my house for a visit, I would definitely clean up. My house would be spotless. So, while I'm running I tell myself over and over, "Jesus lives here - I'm just keeping house."

The last event I ran in was the hardest one yet, but the most memorable and my favorite one of all: 25ks across Waiheke Island - an island about 8 kilometers off the coast of Auckland city just beyond a volcano named Rangitoto.

Our starting point was so remote we had to take a boat to get there. As we ran in the heat, the sights were breath-taking: blue water beaches where no one swims, vineyards on rolling hills, and miles of untouched New Zealand landscape. There were so many steep hills and it was a hot day, but I was loving every wonderful, horrible minute of it. I'll be honest, I did have to stop and stretch and walk a bit after both legs started cramping 19ks into it, but I finished the run in 2 hours, 35 minutes. What an experience! Thanks for letting me share a little bit of it with you.

In other news, I'm joining some friends from Shore CCC at Parachute (the largest Christian music festival in the southern hemisphere) this Sunday where I'll get to see David Crowder Band and then we're leaving for the States on Wednesday. We hope to see you soon! Cheers.

Moving is Starting to Feel Normal

2009-01-10T00:17:00.005-05:00

After one year in Auckland, we're packing...AGAIN! Over the next couple of weeks Whitney and I will be organizing and boxing all of our things and adding it to our team's storage unit here in Auckland, NZ. There it will sit for three months until we return from our trip to America and have it moved to Christchurch (by the way, in case you're new, Christchurch is where our team is moving with the objective of planting a new church. Auckland is where we spent a year working with Shore Community Christian Church and adjusting to kiwi culture).

Moving (or "shifting" as they say in New Zealand) is becoming quite familiar. Since May 2007 we have moved three times and lived in four different homes. But this time is a wee bit different. For the first time we're packing with a 7-month old baby who is just learning to crawl and wants to pull on anything that isn't bolted to the floor! Just the other day I caught her yanking on a drawer handle, opening it and reaching inside. Lucking all we had in that drawer was clothing. Needless to say, when we set that dresser up again in Christchurch in 4 months time, we will be adding child-proof latches.

This is also the most organized move yet. For this combined move, each of our three families was assigned a color (ours is yellow). Every possession we store in the unit will have a sticker that corresponds to our family color. Every box has a number. Every number has a list of possessions contained in the box (mostly for insurance purposes, but I think most of us get a kick out of the structure of organized packing). Then, early in May while we're leaving America and arriving in Christchurch to look for homes to rent, a shipping company will pick up our items in Auckland and ship them over the Cook Strait to Christchurch on the south island. Three separate deliveries will be made in Christchurch to three separate homes...yellow, green, and red.

Wow. We've been working full-on and have been in transition since 2006. All of our efforts have gone into getting to our church plant location and getting started on the work there. It's finally about to happen!

Happy Christmas from Laney and Rory!

2008-12-25T19:30:00.002-05:00

Big Girl

2008-12-16T20:50:00.004-05:00

Laney playing with a wee friend at our December coffee group

We're so proud of our little Laney. Actually, "little" is a relative term and may not be the best word to describe her at this point. The nurse we see each month places Laney at the top of the growth charts in both height and weight! With a 6'3" dad and a 5'9" mum, perhaps we could've seen it coming, but we're still quite shocked each time she tips the scales. Today marks her half birthday and she's well over 20lbs now! If she keeps it up I'm going to start her on basketball early! Or maybe we'll let her give rugby a go.

Overflow Worship Night

2008-12-09T23:43:00.002-05:00

Besides helping with worship at Shore Community Christian Church during our first year in New Zealand, I've made a few connections with other churches in the area. This Sunday night I was invited to lead two of these churches in a time of fun, informal worship at a beach on the Whangaparoa Peninsula - beautiful!

The opportunity came about when I was giving guitar lessons to a fellow church planter from West Auckland. Their church is still in it's beginning stages, so with no worship leader on staff they have very few times of "worship through song" for lack of a better term. He shared his idea with some other friends of ours from a partner church on the north shore and the Overflow Worship Night was conceived. About 60 people in all, representing four different churches attended the event. We played games, ate food, sang christmas songs and a few other worship tunes. Whitney and I were blessed to be a part of it. So was Laney.

Speaking of Lane...wouldn't it be cute if she wore cute baby glasses? No, she doesn't really need glasses, but there's something adorable about a baby in a pair of specs. See what I mean? We had her try this pair on at the mall today. Love it.

It's Beginning to Look NOT Like Christmas

2008-12-03T00:52:00.003-05:00

Even though we know what to expect this year, it's still a bizarre experience for us to celebrate Christmas in the summer. Kiwis have lots of warm weather traditions that make Christmas here a unique experience:

Christmas dinner is often prepared on the grill rather than in the oven.
Instead of watching football on TV, we watch cricket (some matches can last for days!).
No fuzzy reindeer sweaters here - everyone's wearing shorts, t-shirts, and jandals (sandals).
Instead of being huddled up at home, families are at the beach enjoying the warm weather (a great way to work off those extra holiday calories!).
We see more palm trees these days than pine trees.

However, some things are the same no matter where you go. Christmas means lots of time with family, exchanging gifts, and enjoying holiday traditions - we're looking forward to starting some of our own this year!

Summertime!

2008-11-24T20:20:00.006-05:00

The intention of this blog post is not to make you jealous about the fact that in New Zealand we're enjoying lovely, warm, sunny summer days while in the USA you are most likely suffering through bone-chilling, finger-numbing weather. No, my intention is to remind you that on February 1st (right in the middle of New Zealand's incredible summertime, mind you), Whitney, Lane, and I will be joining you in your winter suffering back in the midwestern United States for three full months. Yes, we're leaving this for that. Why? ...because we love you.

Here are some pictures from Laney's day in the big city (Auckland) on our day off last week. See you in February! brrr.

Worship Leading @ Shore

2008-11-18T22:54:00.003-05:00

One of the most rewarding parts of my first year in New Zealand has been worship leading at Shore Community Christian Church. Initially I was expecting to take more of a behind-the-scenes role in their worship ministry, but opportunities have come up for me to take the lead in Sunday morning services.

Shore has several talented worship leaders with whom I've been privileged to come alongside in the past year. With nearly ten years of worship leading experience, I'm so glad to have the opportunity to share some of the things I've learned with these guys. We've planned services together, prayed together, prepared together, and even led worship together on occasion.

Musicians here tend to be pretty laid back. It's been a learning experience for me as I've tried to catch the "cruisey as," go-with-the-flow mentality. I'm loving every minute of it and learning a lot myself. I have a feeling that this experience is going to be quite beneficial once we get to Christchurch with our team and start our own church plant.

We're all excited to get down to Christchurch next year, but as the last couple of months in Auckland close in on us, we find ourselves dreading the day we have to leave our friends, our church, and this new place that we're calling home...for now.

I Am A Rubber Duck

2008-11-09T23:31:00.013-05:00

Advertisements for the Auckland marathon this year told runners to think of themselves as rubber ducks. Rubber ducks can't get tired. They can't be broken. If they're crushed, they just pop right back up. I'm so proud of all my friends in Nate's Mates Running Club. We all finished well in the Auckland Half Marathon, with some of us recording personal bests. We were rubber ducks! By the way, I did end up redeeming myself from last year's run with an official finish time of 01:47:42 - that's 15 minutes faster than last year!

We had such a great time training together and getting to know the others in the running club this year, that we're thinking of continuing the club next year in Christchurch as a way of getting to know other runners in the community.

Race day was awesome. We had to wake up at 4am and take a bus to the start line. That was not awesome. But running from the north shore 21 kilometers across the Auckland Harbour Bridge through the CBD and into Victoria Park was, in fact, awesome. Here are some photos from race day:

Still happy 6ks into the race

Go daddy! Go daddy!

Strong finish! (be cool and don't throw up)

Nate's Mates Running Club after the race

Best looking support crew ever

What's Next

2008-10-28T20:25:00.007-04:00

Our initial year in New Zealand is almost up! The experts told us that experiencing a year-long internship at an effective church in New Zealand before planting our own would increase our longevity on the field and our effectiveness in ministering to kiwis. New Zealand feels like home to us now. We know so much more about the culture, which better equips us to bring the gospel to the people of Christchurch!

But before we get to Christchurch, there's yet another time of transition for our family. In January we'll be packing up (again) and moving all of our possessions into a storage facility (again). We'll leave our things here in Auckland and fly back to the USA for furlough from February to April. We'll be spending time with family, updating supporters, serving churches, and fund-raising for church start-up funds. Then it's back to Auckland for another big move over water (Christchurch is on the south island). Our whole team will meet up in Christchurch to get started on May 1st. From there our timeline looks like this:

Christchurch Timeline

2009

May/June: Move-in, set up offices, start meeting people

July/Aug: Outreach, Marketing, finding facility

Sept/Oct: Begin 4-5 months of "preview services"

December: Holiday outreach and promotion of "Launch Day"

2010

January: Ramp-up to Launch

February: Launch Day (21st)

And now, as a reward for reading the previous part of this post, cute pictures of Laney!!!...

Nate's Mates Running Club

2008-10-20T19:48:00.005-04:00

I used to hate running. I kind of still do, but now I also love it! Since mid-August I've been training for the Auckland Half-Marathon, which takes place on 2 November. I want to redeem myself from my lack-luster performance in last year's Akron, OH Half Marathon (my first one). Last year I trained mostly by myself. But this year is different!

I started Nate's Mates Running Club when I realized that a lot our friends here were also runners or at least interested in trying the Auckland Half-Marathon. We've been running all of our long-runs together on Saturday mornings since August. It's been a lot of fun to chat and catch up with friends as we run together. And best of all, it keeps us all motivated to train on our own throughout the week so we don't get blown away by the rest of the pack on Saturdays. Consequently, I have a suspicion that I'm in much better shape than last year. We have a fun group of people running. We even have Nate's Mates Running Club t-shirts! Check back in November for our Half-Marathon results - I hope it pays off!

A Caffeine Community

2008-10-08T22:55:00.002-04:00

When we first heard of coffee groups - groups offered to new parents to meet other parents in the area for coffee, tea, and conversation - we thought, "That'll never work. People don't have time to just chat with other people." Boy, were we wrong!

On September 27th we hosted our first coffee group...six babies and twelve adults showed up! Besides being a bit cramped in our little flat, we had a great time discussing the daily triumphs and struggles of parenting and other issues. We also learned last week that one of our friends still gets together with the former babies that were in her own coffee group when she was born - 25 years ago!

Coffee groups offer a unique opportunity to meet people in our community, and to learn about their lives in a relaxed atmosphere. We encourage you to think about ways you can meet new people in your community - you might be surprised at how many of your neighbors/co-workers are craving authentic relationships with others. Don't let doubts about the size of your house or the state of your coffee maker stop you - get out there and start a caffeine community!

Hamish Is Coming to America

2008-09-29T22:54:00.003-04:00

Our team leader, Hamish Taylor has just arrived in the States. He'll be visiting between 14 and 20 churches to present to them and raise some funds for the launch of our church plant. We were originally thinking of sending a few of us on the team, but with travel costs being so high, we decided it would be best to send him alone.

Would you do us a favor and pray for him as he will be on the road and away from his wife, Molly, and son, Liam, for three weeks? Our team is grateful for his willingness to go and represent the us on this trip. We totally trust that God is going to provide the funds we need to start this church, but it's a giant task. We also need you to pray for a LOT of positive responses from churches and individuals as we raise one-time gifts to cover this church-launch expense.

Jim & Elaine Go to New Zealand!

2008-09-23T05:15:00.003-04:00

The parents made an epic journey from Paris, KY to Auckland, New Zealand to stay with us from September 11-22. This was their first time to meet granddaughter, Lane, who they immediately began referring to as "Laney Bug."

Elaine meeting Lane for the first time in person (Auckland International Airport).

It was great to have them around. Lane warmed up to them in an instant. She was right at home in Grandma's embrace and smiling every time she heard Granddad's voice or saw his face.

This was also their first time in the country, so we took every opportunity to share with them the culture and our new-found knowledge thereof. We had lunch at the top of the Sky Tower in Auckland, had fish and chips on the beach, enjoyed many coffee shops and cafes, took a two-day trip to Christchurch (our new home next year), and visited several seaside towns, which are so typical of Auckland culture. Lane tagged along on all of our outings for maximum cuddle time with the grandparents!

Nate and Jim at Mission Bay Beach in front of Mt. Rangitoto.

It was also good for them to see us working hard with our team preparing for fundraising trips and the future launch of our church in Christchurch. I was particularly excited to have them at Shore CCC when I led worship in one of their Sunday morning services.

We were so blessed to have them visit us on the other side of the world. Thanks for coming mom and dad!

Happy Anniversary!

2008-09-23T00:01:00.001-04:00

Congrats on 30 years, Mom and Dad. And they said it wouldn't last...
(Okay, nobody said that, but it makes this post so much more dramatic, don't you think?)

Happy Birthday, Dad!

2008-09-12T20:49:00.005-04:00

September 12th is Bill Meaige's birthday! He's 54 this year - yep, he's gettin' old. But Bill wasn't always old. Nope, I can still remember the days when he would lay the smack-down on my brother and all of our friends on the driveway b-ball court ("automatic!"). He was once a spry young fellow, as the picture above clearly displays (that's me, age 1).

Growing up in the Meaige house wasn't always a bowl full of cherries. For most of my childhood we didn't have a lot of money - raising 4 kids on a Preacher's salary wasn't easy. We often had to go without the extras that other kids got to have, like Lunchables, name-brand shoes, and getting to take both of the twin-packed Little Debbies in our lunches (though I admit, I sometimes cheated). So on very special days, or when we had been really good, or when my Dad was just feeling extra generous, he'd shout down the hall to us four kids, "get in the car, we're going to the Candy Bar Store!" (It wasn't really called the Candy Bar Store, but we didn't know that.) We'd all pile in the van and drive to Vista View Meat Market on Route 60, and we'd each get to choose the confectionery of our choice. Courtney would either choose a bag of chips (remember O'Boises anyone?) or 5 boxes of Lemonheads. Ben was the adventurous one and would try lots of different selections. Alison would go with Sweettarts or Nerds. And I would stand for what seemed like years, trying to make the most of this rare treat by choosing the perfect candy bar option. (Should I go with the old favorite, or try something new? What if the new candy wasn't as good - I would regret my choice. But what if it was better? I could end up with a new favorite!) Eventually my Dad would have to threaten that he was leaving without me, and I would hastily grab the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and rush to the counter.

Savoring the chocolate and peanut butter combo was always a short but intoxicating treat. But there were lasting effects that came from hangin' out with Dad, eating our candy, and knowing that he had worked hard to make ends meet and provide everything that we needed, as well as the occasional candy bar run.

Happy Birthday, Dad! Miss you! Hope the game was great!

This is the City

2008-09-08T20:04:00.004-04:00

Whitney, Lane, and I took a quick trip to Christchurch to capture some images for our team publications last week. Here are some of our favorites:

Want to see more of our photos? Go here.

Survey Says Christchurch!

2008-09-01T23:30:00.006-04:00

Many people have compared the process of planting a new church with the process of pregnancy and childbirth. We understand that analogy well, because for the past nine months, we've been researching, praying, and traveling to determine where in New Zealand God is leading us to plant our new congregation. This all culminated over the past two weeks as we discussed in detail our final three options, and came to a decision about our location: the northeast quadrant of Christchurch.

Christchurch City Profile

Population: 400,000
New Zealand's second largest city
Known to be "the most English city in the world outside of Great Britain"
Also called "The Garden City" because of it's beautiful year-round foliage
Founded as a Christian city (much has changed since then)
Plagued with alcoholism and youth violence

Why Christchurch?

Great Need: A lack of enough existing healthy churches compared with large population.
Population Growth: The northeast region is home to several new housing developments, a large sports & recreation complex, and a suburban mall - all enticing for young and growing families, our target demographic.
Demographics: The least diverse of all of our prospective cities, it is also a very professional community that maintains a rural feel from the surround sheep country. This fits well with who we are as a team, so our hope is that people will be able to identify with us well in Christchurch. The fewer the hurdles to jump in relationship building the better!

We're so excited to have a firm destination in sight! We'll be finishing out this year in Auckland interning with Shore Community Christian Church before we make the transition to Christchurch in early 2009. Thank you for your prayers - we're going to Christchurch!

Olympic Fever!

2008-08-24T00:04:00.012-04:00

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of fund-raising for our church plant, team meetings, ministry at Shore, and finishing up survey work (final decision on our destination coming very soon!), our team has managed to catch Olym

pic fever!

I know what you're thinking - we've all been glued to our television sets watching the likes of Michael Phelps break world records left and right. This, I admit, has mesmerized the best of us, but the fever has gone a bit deeper with our team.

A few of us are overachievers and take a liking to some physical activity and competition, so we came up with some Olympic events of our own. A little distraction from the stress has made all the difference for our team in the last couple of weeks.

This is a full-on competition complete with team flags, medal ceremonies, anthems, and some very interesting events. I'm proud to say that team Hutchison is well within the lead halfway through our team Olympic games.

One of our events was a photo scavenger hunt, in which team Hutchison brought home the gold. Here are a few pictures from the hunt with our mascot (a new zealand all-blacks rugby player) for your enjoyment.

at the fuel station

trying on clothes at the mall

getting a manny/peddy

at maccas

at a public toilet

at a gym

using a calculator

at an ATM

having coffee with a mate

with a friend of another race

with some biscuits...mmmm

getting directions

reading the nz herald

with a cashier at a dairy

with the whole fam (winning a gold medal!)

The All-New SPCF Website

2008-08-07T04:59:00.011-04:00

Our sending organization, South Pacific Christian Fellowship, has a new website that was released today. It's a great way to get acquainted with the work our team and organization as a whole is doing in the South Pacific region of our world. Check it out:

www.spcfdownunder.com

Home Sweet Home

2008-08-05T05:41:00.013-04:00

Sometimes it feels great to be home. Whitney, Lane, and I joined the rest of the team last week for three days in Christchurch and three days in Wellington. The objective: to execute our second round of survey work. The result: tons of great insights about both cities, 6 exhausted teammates, and 2 sleepy babies.

Liam and Laney had plenty of snooze-fests during our travels

This trip was different than our first trips to these cities. We spent a lot more time on specifics like neighborhoods, suburbs, key churches in the areas, and social trends in the suburbs. I think our team left feeling a sense of unity about what we saw. We were encouraged by what we found, and yet heartbroken for the people in each city who seemed so lost.

A view of a typical Wellington suburb from the waterfront

Along with all of the survey work, this trip brought a few surprises for our team. This was our first survey trip where we asked friends and family to lift us up during specific times of prayer. Over three days we had hundreds of people from all over the world praying for this trip and we needed it! We couldn't have made it through this trip without your prayers. Thank you!

As if traveling over land and sea with two infants wasn't enough, here's a rundown of some of our run-ins. When we arrived in Christchurch we were greeted with the news that Hamish (our team leader) was headed back to the north island with wife, Molly, and son, Liam, due to the death of his grandfather. The rest of the team stayed in Christchurch to finish up the work. The Taylors were able to join back up with us in Wellington.

Cathedral Square in Christchurch

On our last day there Whitney woke up with a high fever. Joe, Amy, and I returned from a meeting and realized just how sick she was, so we spent the rest of that morning working to help her feel better, to keep Laney happy, and to get cleaned up and packed up in time to make our flight to Wellington.

Meanwhile, New Zealand was being bombarded by the worst storm in 10 years, though some people were saying it was the worst ever. They say Wellington airport is one of the most precarious places to land a plane even in good conditions, so this "storm of all storms" provided our little family with the scariest approach to land we've ever experienced (Laney's second landing ever). I kept trying to think of it as a roller-coaster, which helped me. Whitney thought we were going to die, of course. And Laney couldn't have been happier. She stared at me the whole time and drifted in and out of consciousness. Once we were finally safe on the ground, a few people cheered for the pilot. I started it.

We had a few other mishaps that made this trip interesting including power-outages during a cold night in Christchurch, car trouble, and misplaced keys. We were all ready to be home by the end of it!

Overall it was a trip that helped us tremendously in our quest to narrow down the final three cities to one. I can't imagine what would've happened on this trip if you guys hadn't been praying for us! After our final survey work in West Auckland, we'll be deciding on the location of our new church. We'll know where we're going by September 1st! Stay tuned!

Pray with us on July 27th!

2008-07-24T02:52:00.010-04:00

The New Zealand Church Plant Team believes in the power of prayer. That's why we're asking you to join with us as people all over the world pray continuously over a three day period for God's guidance as we continue the search for our new church plant location. Each couple on the team is asking their supporters to sign up to pray for our team for one hour on their given day. If you're a supporter of the Hutchison family, your day to pray is Sunday, July 27th.

What's so special about the week of July 27th? That's the week we're traveling to Christchurch and Wellington to do our second round of survey work to determine the location of our church plant. We would love to see God moving on this trip - opening and closing doors for our team and leading us to the specific place He has chosen for our new church plant.

What exactly are we asking you to pray for? Primarily we're asking for God's direction for our church plant location, but there are other things we need you to pray for during your hour. That's why we've put together a prayer guide to help.

Download our prayer guide by clicking here!

We couldn't do this without the faithful prayers of our supporters. We know you pray for us all the time, but here's your chance to let us know exactly when and how you're lifting us up! So come on! Join our prayer warriors!

Survey Says: Wellington, Christchurch or West Auckland

2008-07-15T22:49:00.007-04:00

It's been a long month in the Hutchison home here in New Zealand. We're falling in love with our little Laney girl. She makes us laugh every day with her squeaks and noises. She does, however, like to keep us up at all hours of the night, which is probably why I (nate) have the flu right now. So, pray for Whitney - she has to take care of both of us!

In the midst of the past few frantic weeks, there have been some major developments with our team, which I will share with you in this edition of:

Survey Says...

Wellington, Christchurch or West Auckland will be the city in which we'll plant our new church. It was a grueling process narrowing our choices down from the original ten to these three because we saw great need for relevant churches in every city. As is the case in most parts of the world, there just aren't enough churches out there bringing people to Christ.

So what's the next step? The short answer: more survey work - but a higher level of concentration this time. We'll be flying down to Christchurch and Wellington at the end of the month (the whole team this time, which includes two infants! pray for us!). West Auckland is a short drive from where we're living now, so we'll most likely tackle that one progressively. We'll be looking closer at suburbs and even neighborhoods in these cities. We plan to meet with more church leaders, real estate agents, council members, etc... Pray that God will open and close doors for us on these trips. Pray for unity among our team members and direction from God, so we can make a final, informed decision by our September deadline.

Share your thoughts with us by commenting below. Thanks for reading!

Exhilaration & Exhaustion

2008-07-01T04:53:00.014-04:00

First things first. In response to an overwhelming call for more Laney pictures by the readers of this blog, I give to you, photos primeros (photographer: mommy). Browse the album below:

And now, the rest of the story. I've never slept less over a single fortnight in my life and yet I've never felt more alive. Some of you may be perplexed as to why it took me two weeks to post an update about our little girl. If you have kids of your own, I'm guessing you already know why. Babies are time and energy consuming, havoc-reeking angel-faces who have the ability to melt your heart at the drop of a hat...or the drop of a pacifier, which is probably a better analogy for me at the moment.

Whitney was ill for a few days after we came home from the hospital. We were just about at the end of our ropes the night I took her to the local Accident and Emergency care center. Whitney had a temperature of 39.6 celcius (that's 103.3 fahrenheit). Thankfully, Whitney's mom, Tami, was there for us that week to provide meals, nappy changes, cleaning, and just about anything else we couldn't manage to get to.

Alas, better days came to us this past week as Whitney is on the mend, Laney is sleeping better, and routines are falling into place. When I finally had the chance to catch my breath and spend quality time with the little booger, I quickly realized that there is a fourth kind of love I had yet to experience in this life. I have felt love for God, love for my wife, love for family and friends...all very different in their own ways. But love for a child...that's something altogether different. I'm not even going to attempt to describe it because I couldn't do it justice, but I find myself tearing up just thinking about it.

Sorry - I should've warned you; I tend to get sappy when I'm tired. There is so much more to say - especially on the ministry and church planting fronts, but I'll leave it for another blog to come soon. See you then!

Lane Marie Hutchison

2008-06-16T06:25:00.002-04:00

Our girl has finally arrived. She was born this morning (16 June) at 1:45am. She tipped the scales at a whopping 9 pounds, 9 ounces! 22.5 inches in length. Whitney is recovering well at North Shore Hospital in Auckland. She is a champ - she was in labor for 27 hours and used no medication! Major respect points for Whitney.

Thanks for all of your prayers. God has blessed us: we have two happy and healthy girls (whitney and lane that is).

Happy Birthday, Ben!

2008-06-10T21:08:00.004-04:00

June 11th is Ben Meaige's birthday. He'll turn 26 this year - dude, you're getting old! We're sorry that we can't be in town for the event, especially since it usually results in a free dinner provided by "50 Dollar" Bill.

However, being in a different hemisphere than Ben will not prevent us from celebrating these 26 years of his life on this special day.

What can one say about such a character? I suppose one could focus on his bizarre spending habits (how much did that Distinguished Gentleman's outfit cost again?). Or one could highlight his inexplicable culinary preferences (eating the Kung Pao peppers at PF Chang's - crazy!).

But no. By far, my favorite story about Ben (or at least my favorite of the ones I am permitted to share on the internet) stems from his boyhood. It's not the one where he worked really hard and became the leading scorer on his Jr. High basketball team - that's my dad's favorite. And it's not the one about his fabulous dance moves during our Meaige kid dance contests - that's Courtney's favorite. It's the story about our mutual love for cartoons, particularly the Animation Block on Comedy Central in the late 90's. Every Sunday night, starting at 10 pm, we would defy all parental instructions and stay up late to watch the classics ("Space Ghost Coast to Coast," "The Tick," "Dr. Katz Professional Therapist," etc.). Those were the good days when blowing off all responsibility simply meant losing sleep to watch cartoons with the little bro.

Oh yes, Ben's a character all right. We miss him a lot these days, and we look forward to seeing his (sometimes mustached) mug again in the not too distant future (we're still hoping he'll show up to run the Auckland Half-Marathon in November with Nate). Until then, if you see him, give him a hug for us. He loves hugs from strangers.

Love ya, B! Happy Birthday!

Still Waiting

2008-06-06T20:51:00.007-04:00

It's the 7th of June (in New Zealand) and we're still waiting for that baby to arrive! Whitney is now 4 days overdue. She's been a total legend through the whole pregnancy, but as you can imagine, it's beginning to get quite uncomfortable. Her mom, Tami is in from Zanesville, OH helping us get ready for our girl. It's great to have her with us. Above is a picture of her and Whitney in front of Ragitoto island (a volcano) from Takapuna beach.

Stay tuned to the blog or website and we'll keep you updated!

Pray for Whitney!

Survey Says - Part 6 (South Auckland)

2008-05-31T08:28:00.003-04:00

Since the areas surrounding Manukau City in South Auckland are only about 30 minutes away from us on the North Shore, we took short trips to survey the area between rush hours on the last two fridays.

What we saw in South Auckland confirmed our research: this area is extremely ethnically diverse. No doubt, there would certainly be obstacles for a group of white americans trying to plant a church in this area. Alas, a leading from the Spirit would trump any such adversity.

Our jaunts into South Auckland were a success for the team, but I'll spare you the details. Instead, we'll have some extra fun with this edition of Survey Says. Have a look at this video of our drive from the North Shore down to South Auckland. Look for some great views of the Auckland skyline off to the left a few minutes in!

7 minutes thru Auckland

Thanks for reading and watching. Be in prayer for our team this month as we seek to narrow our list of prospective church-plant cities from 10 to 3 or less! Our big team retreat is June 26-27, where some big decisions will be made.

Taking Stock

2008-05-27T02:02:00.009-04:00

With our baby due any day now, I'm doing my best to wrap up any work I need to do for the team and for Shore, so I can spend a couple of weeks with Whitney and baby girl (yet to be named). Last night Whitney and I spent some time taking stock of all we've been through over the past year.

In May of 2007, we left stable lives and jobs at Northview Christian Church in Danville, IN, moved in with Whitney's parents in Zanesville, OH, and began traveling the country raising funds and getting training for church planting. One month before our departure for New Zealand, we realized that Whitney was pregnant! We moved to New Zealand and began looking for a car, a flat, and necessities that use electricity. We moved into our flat and started building relationships with the people at Shore Community Christian Church as we started our internship.

Now we've been here for six months. Among other things, we are part of a small group that we are helping lead at times, I am coordinator for The Well - a monthly worship service for youth and young adults, and we have made good friends, become involved in the worship ministry at Shore, and have visited 10 city centers with the team in our search for a church plant location. We're now starting to think about phasing out of our internship and phasing into the next chapter: planting a church - something we've never done!

If all of that isn't change enough for a year's time, we're looking at becoming first-time parents any day now! I'm reminded of a quote that Whitney has on her desktop:

"Change is not merely necessary to life, it is life." ~Alvin Toffler

Looking back on a year of so much change, we are reminded of God's faithfulness. We've taken huge risks for Him. He has provided for us and we know that as long as we're living for His glory, He will continue to do so. Here I raise my Ebenezer and say, "thus far has the Lord helped us" (2 Samuel 7:12).

Survey Says - Part 5 (Hamilton)

2008-05-19T20:00:00.004-04:00

The team spent a couple of days surveying Hamilton, New Zealand last week. Hamilton is the fourth largest city in New Zealand after Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington. We were surprised to find that it is the most ethnically diverse city in all of New Zealand with Waitakere City in West Auckland coming in a close second.

We met with three youth workers in and around Hamilton and some employees of Student Life (a Christian campus ministry organization) on campus at the Universtiy of Waikato. While Hamilton is the fourth largest city in the country it still has a rural feel to it. As one of our interviewees put it, "People in Hamilton aren't quite as cultured as people in other kiwi cities. They're not like Aucklanders or Wellingtonians." This could be due to it's background as a farming community in it's early stages.

We also took some time to do street interviews to find out what people think about church. 84% of the people we interviewed in Hamilton did not attend church and had no intention of going in the near future - a number largely consistent with the other towns we've visited in New Zealand. We also took a look at the churches that people considered to be "healthy" churches in the area. We found a smattering of churches that are making an impact on their sections of the city, but like all of our other cities, there aren't nearly enough churches in Hamilton that are getting the job done.

In conclusion, survey says - there is certainly a need for a church plant in Hamilton, but the city doesn't particularly stand out from any of the others. We've nearly come to the end of our initial survey trips - 10 cities in all. I'm starting to see the need for another nine teams to come to New Zealand and plant churches. Any takers?

Survey Says - Part 4 (Wellington)

2008-05-12T04:13:00.007-04:00

Our team's recent survey trip to the southern areas of New Zealand's north island (including Wellington, Hutt City, and Palmerston North) was unanimously agreed to be our best trip to date. A city of particular interest on this trip was Wellington - New Zealand's Capital city appropriately nicknamed the windy city.

A lot of factors go into making a survey trip a good one. We always do our best to prepare and schedule out the many sections of survey work in the weeks leading up to the actual trip. This time we did all the leg work, but prior to our departure, very little was coming together.

Our attempts to set up interviews with school administrators to discuss community issues were unsuccessful due to school holidays, phone calls to government officials were left unreturned, and potential ministry contacts fell through. I was, however, able to set up an appointment with Greg Simnor, the senior pastor at a Christian church called The Rock just outside of the Wellington CBD. After a one-hour flight and a few hours wading through rain-soaked Wellington streets observing the bar-hopping culture on Wednesday night, we retired to a hostel and woke up early the next morning to meet with Greg.

We spent three hours with Greg as he shared with us the great need for relevant churches in Wellington. Greg has a heart to see Christians in Wellington BEING the church instead of the faithful few simply theorizing on Sunday mornings and then going back to the status quo of a seemingly godless lifestyle.

From that appointment forward we saw God providing insight for us in Wellington. The four of us who made the trip were unified in our impressions of the city through each of our unique experiences. We observed the atmosphere and did demographic studies at cultural centers such as comedy clubs, hostels, the city center, coffee shops, and shopping centers. We administered street interviews asking questions about church attendance and people's impression of the church as a whole. We visited other churches in the area and saw God at work in areas such as Wellington's red-light district. It was great to make contact with some of the few churches in Wellington that are making a difference for the gospel in that city. The need for biblically-balanced, relevant churches was clear. Wellington has made a significant impression on our team.

Praise God for the opportunities and insights He provided for us on our trip to Wellington. Coming up: our final two trips - Hamilton and South Auckland. We hope to have our list of 10 cities narrowed to at least three by the end of June. Thanks for reading...stay tuned!

A New Team Member

2008-05-04T19:04:00.004-04:00

We were so thrilled as Hamish and Molly Taylor welcomed their son, Liam Michael, into the world. Liam was born on April 9th, and has already been popping up at some team events. It is an exciting time for our team, as we experience new life, new opportunities for ministry, and new relationships within the team and with the Kiwi people.

Whitney is now 8 months pregnant with our daughter (a friend for Liam) and beginning to feel the discomfort of late pregnancy. Overall, though, she is feeling great. Everything seems to be progressing normally. Pray for a smooth delivery and a healthy baby girl! She's due on the 3rd of June!

P.S. Our survey trip to Wellington was amazing! Stay tuned for the next addition of Survey Says!

The Well @ Shore CCC

2008-04-29T07:07:00.004-04:00

The Well is a monthly worship service at Shore for youth and young adults. It usually includes worship, a speaker, and some sort of activity aimed at getting the attender to think about the theme for the night.

I was asked to lead worship for The Well this past Sunday night. I was super-anxious as this was my first chance to lead worship at Shore. We did an acoustic set - just me on an acoustic guitar, another vocalist, a fantastic keyboard player, and an incredibly talented violinist. It was a wonderful night. God led us in an intimate worship time and we were touched.

The director for The Well is going overseas for the rest of the year, so I've been asked to take over the planning and executing of this event each month. The organizing and executing side of things isn't a problem for me, but the creativity for "youth related" events is a bit tricky. So, I've decided to put together a small creative team of young kiwis to help me plan the event. Pray that I get the right mix of people - a group that's dedicated to making every event a Spirit-led, inspirational, meaningful night.

I'll sign off for now. I need to pack - I'm leaving tomorrow with some of the team for a four-day survey trip to Wellington, Lower Hutt, and Palmerston North. Pray for Whitney. She's staying home this time because she's 8 months pregnant and feeling more and more uncomfortable. Stay tuned for an upcoming edition of Survey Says!

Put Me In, Coach!

2008-04-18T18:55:00.005-04:00

After patiently sitting on the proverbial sidelines of some parts of ministry for the past few months, I feel like I'm finally "in the game" at Shore (our initial host church). My role in the worship ministry has taken a big step forward this month as I've been more involved in Sunday morning worship - preparing and executing. It feels great to be so involve in worship directly again. Plus, the worship coordinator for Shore is going away for two weeks, so I'll be covering for her at the office!

Another great opportunity that has come up for me recently is leading worship at The Well (a monthly worship service for youth and young adults). I'll be leading worship this month - 27 April. On top of that, I've also been given the responsibility of planning and coordinating all of The Well services until October! Pray that God uses me to do what He wants with The Well.

And lastly, my friend had a great idea for getting to know some of the guys in the church and their friends who don't go to church - game night just for guys! It's a great way to develop relationships. While the usual host was away this month, I hosted game night for a couple of weeks. We had a great turn-out. Guys are really starting to connect with each other in this non-threatening environment. Have a great week!

Happy Birthday, Ryan Morrow!

2008-04-13T00:01:00.003-04:00

April 13th was Ryan Morrow's birthday. Ryan joined the Meaige clan on 16 May 2004 when he married Whitney's younger sister, Alison. But that wasn't our first experience with Ryan - oh, no. He was a fellow student at Kentucky Christian University for three of our four years there. In other words, we've known him longer than Alison has...and boy do we have the stories to prove it!

In honor of Ryan turning the big 2-7, we'd like to present you with our top 5 Ryan Morrow memories to date:

5. The Grace recordings. Our favorite is her rendition of Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down."

4. "First name John; last name Morrow. Middle name Ryan; you can call me Ryan."

3. The day Ryan became the first guy in KCU history to get demerits for inappropriately short shorts. To make it worse, he had just finished playing indoor soccer in them.

2. When Ryan attended a David Crowder band concert with Nate in Cincinnati, OH. During intermission, Ryan spontaneously broke out into a well-rehearsed rendition of the Napoleon Dynamite dance. Now, for most people, doing an 80's-inspired dance routine in the middle of a crowded performance hall full of sweaty Christians would earn a few dirty looks and some embarrassing sympathy applause. Not Ryan. Soon, the crowd parted and created a circle 20 feet in diameter, and began cheering him on. Napoleon would have been proud.

1. The hair. Whether it's in the form of a braid growing out the side of his head, or his ridiculous amount of body fur, Ryan's hair is an ever-changing source of conversation in our family - and I'm sure many other families as well (those Dailys couldn't get enough!).

Well, Ryan, we pray that your big day was splendid, and that you and all of your quirks were sufficiently celebrated. Happy Birthday!

Survey Says - Part 3 (Tauranga & Waitakere)

2008-04-10T02:05:00.002-04:00

Tauranga and Waitakere City (west Auckland). Two very different areas. Very far apart. For the purposes of consolidation, however, we will give you a brief glimpse into our study of both of these possible church-plant locations.

TAURANGA

Tauranga is a city of approximately 110,000 people located three hours southeast of Auckland on New Zealand's east coast. It's lovely beach culture once attracted retirees, but is now drawing plenty of young families and career seekers making it among the top five fastest growing areas in the country. It's port is one of New Zealand's largest, which has created a plethora of jobs for people in the area. If New Zealand had a "Bible belt" such as midwestern USA, some would say Tauranga would be it, however, our research indicates that the unchurched in the area remain unchurched, while church attendees drift from one church to another. During our visit to Tauranga we met with some school officials to get their perspective on the community. The response was an overwhelming focus on the break down of the family. Nearly all the problems they encounter in schools seemed to point back to a problem in the home.

WAITAKERE CITY (West Auckland)

Our trip to the west side of Auckland revealed another area of great need. Auckland's west side is known for a lower socio-economic and more diverse ethnic culture. Cost of living is low, which is attractive to Aucklanders. Perhaps because of this and because of it's proximity to Auckland City, people are flocking to areas like Henderson (pictured to the left in the red circle). An extension in the western motorway due to be completed very soon will connect Henderson to the North Shore (where we are currently living), opening a whole new section north of Henderson for projected booming growth. We spent time survey the area, speaking with local church leaders, and doing street interviews in this area last Friday. We found this area to be just as needy for a new church as the other cities we've visited. This time we even ran across a potential venue for a church, who seemed to welcome our business, and was located at a key intersection in the middle of the new expanding area.

Long story short, survey says, "there are a lot of places in need of a new church plant in New Zealand." Our job is to find out which area has the greatest need for a team of church planters like ourselves. Stayed tuned for more updates! And keep praying for us!

Article in Horizons Magazine

2008-04-08T01:53:00.007-04:00

One of our supporters told us about an article in the March 08 issue of Horizons Magazine (a ministry of LATM based in Tulsa, OK) about the work of our sending organization, South Pacific Christian Fellowship. The article talks about Shore (the church we are currently interning with) and our church planting team (see page 10). It's a quick read that gives you a nice overview of the work of SPCF and the spiritual state of Australia and New Zealand.

Click here to download and view the article.

P.S. read this again, but this time imagine me giving a quick book report on Reading Rainbow.

Culture Shocks! Culture Rocks!

2008-03-27T03:02:00.006-04:00

Last summer at Mission Training International in Colorado Springs, we learned about the "ice burg theory" - 10% of cultural differences are apparent to the casual observer, meaning 90% of cultural difference - the REAL stuff - lurks beneath the surface and can sneak up on you when you least expect it!

Now that we've lived on the other side of the world for almost 4 months, some "key differences" in culture are starting to "sneak up" on us. It's not all bad, though. Below, we'll give you a few examples, but these are probably the ones at the tip of the ice burg.

CULTURE SHOCKS / CULTURE ROCKS TOP 10:

(in no particular order)

1. We drive on the left side of the road and the right side of the car. Whitney is still struggling with that one!

2. Trash collection: it's free, but you pay for the trash bags, which are sold by the city council at grocery stores. This cuts down on excessive waste, and increases interest in recycling, which is completely free!

3. Very few public toilets - especially in stores. Learned that one the hard way.

4. The cost of groceries = A LOT MORE! Read more about on our friends' blog.

5. On road trips it's common to stop on the side of the road for a swim or some surfing on a random beach in the summer because a lot of the highways run along the coast! (on the right you'll see me enjoying a spontaneous swim on a trip back to Auckland from New Plymouth)

6. The metric system. Uh, should've paid more attention in fifth grade.

7. Celcius. 22 degrees isn't cold here. That number calls for shorts and tanks and a day at the beach.

8. Internet banking rules in New Zealand. Need to pay a friend back for the pizza last night? Here you would just send him what is called a fastcheque over the web. A quick exchange of bank account numbers is all it takes. No one has regular checks. I love it!

9. Gas prices. I know it's getting bad in the USA, but we still have you beat down here. Right now it's $1.79 per liter in New Zealand dollars. Converted to gallons and USD, that $5.94/gallon!

10. Mobile phone plans: 60 minutes per month. $40 per month. 17 cents per text.

Survey Says - Part 2 (the Rodney district)

2008-03-14T18:19:00.016-04:00

This, the second entry of our "Survey Says" series will give you an idea of how we go about accomplishing one of our main duties as church planters in this early phase: Survey Work.

Yesterday we spent a day with the team doing survey work in the Rodney district of New Zealand, just to the north of Auckland. The Rodney district consists of three main areas (Orewa, Silverdale, and The Whangaparaoa Peninsula pronounced "fahng-uh-per-o-uh"). Pictured at the right is a boat sailing away from Gulf Harbor in the Whangaparaoa Peninsula.

Confirming our research findings, we learned during our morning in Orewa that this area is growing and is ripe for continued growth due to the extension of Motorway 1, north from Auckland.

At one time Orewa beach was a place where people went to retire, but it is quickly being overtaken by young and middle-aged families who commute into Auckland for work.

There are many plans to build this area up in the future, including another highway extension, which will reach into the Whangaparaoa Peninsula (left), bringing it much closer to Auckland for commuters.

Our street interviews turned out a higher percentage of church-goers than did Christchurch. We also found that there are many Christian churches, some of them seemingly healthy, covering the Rodney District with the exception of one area: Gulf Harbor.

Gulf Harbor is located near the tip of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula. The closest church is a 10 minute drive inland from the harbor.

GULF HARBOR

Pros:

1. It is a community of people in New Zealand containing no churches

2. We came across a building we could possibly hire to use as a church site right on the harbor

3. There is a beach nearby called "Big Manly Beach" (a cool name for a beach)

Cons:

1. We would be surrounded by water on three sides meaning we can only effectively reach the locals

2. It is a relatively small town compared to others on our list

3. There may be good churches within driving distance

Survey Says - Part I (Christchurch, NZ)

2008-03-06T18:57:00.014-05:00

Our team's recent trip to the south island was quite productive. We stayed busy visiting and assisting a small church in Gore and helping with a Christian Camp in Queenstown. I was so excited to get to lead worship several times on the trip, but perhaps the most important part of our journey happened in Christchurch as we did some survey work.

So, welcome to part one of Survey Says. We will be bringing you more issues as we visit various towns and areas in New Zealand to determine where we will plant our new church. For now, I will turn it over to one of our teammates, Amy Flammer, as she describes our time in Christchurch:

Our time in Christchurch confirmed what we had predicted, and taught us even more than we expected. We found that very few people went to church (less than 5% of the people we spoke with), very few people were interested in ever setting foot inside a church building, many people could not even give us the name of a church in the city (of 400,000 people.) We spoke with people who laughed at the idea of anyone wanting to start a new church, letting us know that no one is interested in what a church has to offer. Others we spoke with said that there is nothing wrong with church, they even had their name on membership lists, but they couldn't remember the last time they had gone. We met people with a wide variety of spiritual interests.

On Sunday, Hamish was preaching and talked for a moment about persecution in the church in other parts of the world. He said something that summarizes Christianity in New Zealand. Hamish said "The church in New Zealand isn't being persecuted for it's beliefs, something far worse is happening to the church; in New Zealand, no one cares." With the attitude that people have of not caring, we are continually reminded of the hard road ahead of us.

With Christchurch being the first of our survey trips, it would be premature for us to make a decision about this city yet. We will continue to pray about Christchurch as we conduct more survey work in other areas. We definitely saw a need for God's love in this city, though we imagine that we will find this in many of the areas that we visit. Please continue to pray with us as we continue to conduct survey work.

Shore's 10th Anniversary Celebration

2008-02-18T01:02:00.008-05:00

This Sunday we helped Shore Community Christian Church celebrate their tenth birthday party. Our team was in charge of pulling the event off, which was located at Kristin School - the original location of the church plant back in 1998.

Everyone agreed that the event was a smash hit, though we're all

relieved to have it over with. Since arriving in New Zealand our team has spent almost as much time and effort getting things in order for this event as we have on preparing and planning for our own church plant project.

The project I devoted most of my time to was video production. One video was an 18-minute documentary of Shore's history and people. The other was a 4-minute "montage" of sorts set to some snappy music. Have a look at it. It gives a good impression of the life of Shore:

Thanks for watching! Tomorrow we're off to the south island to survey Christchurch (New Zealand's second largest city), to lead services at a church in Mataura, and to help with a Christian Camp in Queenstown. We return to Auckland on March 4th. Check back then to see how it went!

A Week in the Life...of Us

2008-02-14T18:10:00.011-05:00

I often say in my blog entries that I've been so busy lately. It occurred to me that perhaps some of the readers of this blog of may not understand the demands of an international church planter. After all, if I could talk to me two years ago, the two-years-ago-me would know next to nothing about church planting, much less church planting in the faraway islands of New Zealand.

At this point, we have three main responsibilities as church planters:

1. To work toward planting a new church somewhere in New Zealand (Survey Work)

2. To assist with ministry at Shore Community Christian Church

3. To communicate with current supporters and raise more supporters for ministry

But to get to the real point, I'll share with you our basic schedule for an ordinary week. Here we go:

Monday

Our Sabbath Day / Day Off

-This day includes sleeping in, catching up on reading, playing, relaxing, enjoying, etc...

Tuesday

-Team meeting at the Hub (Shore's offices) to plan our work week.

-Working on projects for Shore Community Christian Church (video editing, redesigning their bulletins, organizing, chording out songs)

Wednesday

-Working on projects for Shore

-Following up on contacts for Survey work

-Evening: socializing with Kiwis in the area

Thursday

-Team meeting at Hamish and Molly's house:

-Vision casting for future church plant

-Shore 10th Anniversary event planning

-Evening: worship band practice (helping with set-up; sometimes playing in the band)

Friday

-Team work day at our house or in the community to work on Surveying New Zealand for a church plant location

-Evening: date night

Saturday

-Communication with Supporters (blog updates, newsletters)

Sunday

-Worship services at Shore

-Evening: team fun night

City Lights

2008-02-05T17:19:00.000-05:00

One of our objectives for our first year in New Zealand is to get to know and serve people in the area who don't know Jesus. City Lights is a city-wide event held every month or two by Christians who connect other Christians from the area by putting them to work serving the underprivileged in the community. City Lights has given a handful of Christians a practical way to become the hands and feet of Christ to those who don't know Him.

In December a few of us from Shore went downtown to help with a Christmas banquet for the homeless of Auckland. While we were there I got to know a few of the guys. They were definitely hungry for the food, but I was glad to see that at least one of them was hungry to hear the Word. I talked with a Maori (native new zealander) gentleman named Malcolm for a while about Jesus. He promised me that he would watch the movie The Passion of the Christ and let me know what he thought. I haven't heard back from him. Pray that God continues to work on him!

Again on Saturday we joined City Lights for a day of service

projects around the city. That day I met three new friends and helped them re-build a deteriorating deck at a foster home. The foster mom was so grateful for our help and we were so blessed to give it to her. When we serve the least of these, we are serving Christ (Matthew 25:40).

parachute/08

2008-01-27T22:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we joined a group from Shore Community Christian Church for one day of the weekend-long Christian Music Festival phenomenon in New Zealand known as Parachute 08. With over 25,000 kiwis in attendance, the Parachute festival has quickly become the largest Christian music gathering in the Southern Hemisphere.

Christians and non-Christians alike attend every year for it's family-friendly atmosphere, rugged outdoor surroundings for camping, and quality musicianship. The headliners this year were bands like Switchfoot, Israel and New Breed, Red, Jonezetta, Leigh Nash, and visiting from Australia, my favorite: Hillsong United.

It made for a long day, but it was great hanging out with our new friends for a day, doing our best to avoid sunburn, getting stinky and dirty, taking in some good music, and best of all, worshipping our Creator.

P.S. They announced Sunday night that the David Crowder Band and Family Force Five will be headlining for Parachute 09! Needless to say, I went ahead and got my discounted pass for next year. Hooray for Parachute!

A Random Meeting with Wayne Turner

2008-01-24T04:45:00.000-05:00

This is most likely not nearly as exciting for you, the reader, as it is for me, but bear with me a moment.

Tonight I attended a New Zealand Breakers basketball game (NZ's only professional team) with a few friends from Shore Community Christian Church. At half-time I saw someone I thought I recognized as I passed him in the hallway. Sure enough, it was Wayne Turner! He lives just minutes away from our apartment in Albany and plays for the Breakers, although he's injured at the moment.

Who is this Wayne Turner you ask? He is a former University of Kentucky point guard who was a key player in the 1998 National Championship, no big deal.

I could tell he was glad and maybe a bit surprised to meet someone from Kentucky, living in New Zealand. We talked for a while. He told me that Kentucky beat Tennessee yesterday! Anyway, the chaplain for the team attends church at Shore, so perhaps I'll have a chance to talk with him again.

It's not like Kentucky here, guys - basketball isn't even close to being the most popular sport in New Zealand, but the Breakers have a new fan now!

There's a New Girl in Town

2008-01-14T23:16:00.000-05:00

Whitney and I drove down to Takapuna for her 20-week scan today, confident that the Hutchison Y chromosome had continued it's multi-generational reign and would soon deliver us a baby boy. Wrong-o. We have a pretty little girl coming to us this June. Again, not quite what we were expecting, but we're thrilled to know that we're having a healthy little girl. Here's how the conversation went when we heard the news from the scan technician:

"It's a chicky," he said in his colloquial English.

"A what? It's a girl?!" whitney said, unable to disguise her shock.

"Yep, see her little girl bits there?" he asked.

Alas, girl bits or boy bits, today is a happy day!

Cheers!

Home Is Where The Stuff Is?

2008-01-10T18:26:00.000-05:00

Our team's ginormous shipping container has finally arrived! As usual, the red tape involved in getting it here was ridiculous, but it's all over now. We had plenty of help unloading the 40-foot beast yesterday.

As I finally sat down to relax on my comfy couch, I had a revelation. Perhaps the old cliche is wrong. They say home is where the heart is, but I'm starting to think that home is where the stuff is!

Auckland Celebrates the New Year

2007-12-31T19:58:00.000-05:00

For the past several new years eves as I watched tv, half asleep, just before midnight, I took note that New Zealand was shown as one of the first countries to ring in the new year. They would show about a ten second clip of downtown Auckland and the people there celebrating the new year 18 hours earlier than we did in the states. It seemed so distant and foreign to me.

This year, my perspective was quite different. Instead of

watching the ten second clip over the air waves, I was in the thick

of it. And instead of New Zealand seeming unusual and foreign, it was feeling more like my new home. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely aspects of this culture that do seem distant and foreign to me, but there are also a lot of similarities to my home culture. Last night, for example, we spent part of the evening with some new friends. Several were originally kiwi (from NZ), but at least four were from South Africa, two were Australian, one was from just North of London, England, another was born in the Congo, and one in Germany. Much like America, New Zealand is a melting pot of cultures, but perhaps a bit more concentrated due to its size.

Each one of us there last night came from a unique culture with our own perspectives about New Zealand. The common denominator with all of us, though, is our need for a Savior. And that is what I hope will soon bind us together.

Make 2008 a year you'll never forget. Watch and listen for ways to serve Christ. Trust Him and do what He says, even though it may seem risky. You won't regret it! Happy New Year!

Christmas Outside?!!

2007-12-29T22:36:00.000-05:00

It may sound odd to you if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, but this year Whitney and I thought it would be a good idea to exchange gifts with our friends on Christmas Eve outside at the beach. On top of that, the church where we are serving as interns for the next year or so decide that they would have their big Christmas Sunday outside as well! It's taking some getting used to, but I suppose I'm going to enjoy celebrating the holiday season during summer here in New Zealand.

Christmas on Sunday Morning

Here are a couple of pictures from Shore's big outdoor Sunday mor

ning service. Some of our team members were in charge of making this event happen.

Notice how early on in the service, the sky was beautiful, not a rain cloud in sight. In the next picture, you see the storm clouds moving in. It rained hard and fast just as the lead pastor got up to speak. The weather here changes rapidly! Other than that, though, the service was quite beautiful.

Christmas at the Beach

It's hard being away from family when you're celebrating Christmas, and since most of our church

planting team was in that proverbial boat, we decided to be family to each other and spend Christmas together. At noon on Christmas Eve we all met at the beach at Torbay (about a five

minute drive from our place - you're always close to a beach in NZ) for a picnic lunch. After exchanging gifts we played frisbee for about an hour. Then the rest of us went for a swim while the two pregnant girls, Whitney and Molly, walked around with their feet in the water. The water wasn't too cold. It was a perfect day.

We're so grateful that God has sent us to such a beautiful place. There were plenty of people out at the beach that day celebrating right along side us (none of them seemed to be nervous about the threat of impending death if the "dormant" volcano, Rangitoto, in the background happened to erupt). Anyway, for some of them Christmas is just an excuse to see family and go to the beach and get "pressies" as they say. But as I take in the scenery and watch the families gathering this Christmas, I'm anticipating great things from God in 2008. He's brought us so far to do so much for His renown. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours from New Zealand (we'll be the first to get to 2008, by the way)!

I Miss Grace

2007-12-19T14:33:00.001-05:00

I always wondered what I would miss the most when we left the US. Would it be the food? Would it be knowing how to be around other people without having to concentrate so much? Would it be having a semi-normal concept of left vs. right? Nope. I miss my sweet, 3-year-old, princess-in-training niece, Grace.

Grace is one of those kids that can be completely charming, completely frustrating, and completely surprising - all at the same time. Maybe that's all kids, but Grace is special to me. Perhaps it's because of the weeks she would spend with us in Indiana, running around the living room. Perhaps it's because of what she has meant to my family. Or perhaps it's because she's so stinkin' funny. Whatever the reason, or combination thereof, my heart is breaking at the thought of not being near her for a long, long time.

It's not to say that being in NZ isn't exciting at times. And one thing's for sure - we know that this is where God wants us to be. But today is one of the hard days. The sunglasses are on and the eyes are puffy. I just miss Grace.

I don't know how much Grace understands about why we are gone or where we live now. But I hope she knows how much she is loved and missed by two people and one little dog who are very far away.

Home, Sweet Home!

2007-12-19T02:49:00.000-05:00

After 7 months of bumming it with in-laws, friends, and neighbors, we finally have our very own place! We're beyond happy to have a dwelling to call home again, even though it is by far the smallest place we've ever had, not to mention the most expensive! We knew living in Auckland would be expensive, so we weren't completely shocked by the prices of ordinary, 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartments, but I just can't quite get over the fact that we're paying more here than for our home in Indiana, which was at least twice the size on a 1.6 acre lot. Alas, I'm happy to downsize.

Our Address:

Nate & Whitney Hutchison

7A Travis View Drive

Albany

North Shore City 0632

NEW ZEALAND

The trade off is that instead of trudging through the snow as most of you are in the midwest these days, we're bringing the umbrella along with us everywhere we go in rainy, but warm, Auckland this Christmas. The highs are usually around 75 degrees fahrenheit (we're trying to learn celsius - that would be about 24 degrees).

We'll be living here when our first baby is born, so this will always be a special little apartment, but we won't be here long. Our team is planning to move into a new, yet-to-be-determined, area of New Zealand at some point in the coming year so we can begin plans for a new church plant.

It's been a good week. We have an apartment, a refrigerator, and a washing machine but no dryer (Kiwis aren't big on drying clothes with a machine. They prefer clotheslines mostly. So that's what we'll do. It's tricky though, because you're pretty much guaranteed that it will rain at some point every day). Other than that, our place is empty until our crate arrives from the States. We don't know exactly when it will come - hopefully within the next month. Until then it's the air-mattress at night and camping chairs and a plastic tub for a dinner table.

Now we're off to find some camping chairs. Have you ever tried blogging standing up?! Thanks for reading!

A Big Announcement...(Huge)!

2007-12-08T23:34:00.001-05:00

Okay, so many of you have guessed it already. It’s time for us to announce something that we had not planned on needing to announce for a long time...or maybe ever. It turns out that we are - unexpectedly - expecting a baby. We found out in October that a new Hutchison is to be born sometime around the 3rd of June, 2008.

Needless to say, we were more than a little shocked. This wasn’t exactly our choice of timing. We had many ideas and plans for our first year in New Zealand, none of which involved a baby. But, as we have learned over and over again during the past two years, a life following God rarely turns out how one expects.

So, we now find ourselves in a new city, in a new country, learning about childbirth and childcare in New Zealand (which is surprisingly different than the US). Whitney is feeling great and hasn’t been sick at at all, and we are grateful for that. We plan on remaining in New Zealand for the birth, at which time Whitney’s mother will join us for a few weeks to lend a helping hand. Despite our shock, we are becoming increasingly

excited about this new life. After all, we said we’d follow God anywhere, which, it turns out, includes the maternity section.

Getting Started

2007-12-08T23:10:00.000-05:00

Our first week in New Zealand was a whirlwind. We started the week off by reuniting (and it felt so good) with the church plant team. The others had been in New Zealand for a couple of weeks before our arrival, so they're a bit more grounded than we are this point. We're still working on finding a place to live while they're getting into the groove of serving at Shore Community Christian Church. We'll all be acting as "interns," for lack of a better term, at Shore for the first 18-24 months of our time in New Zealand. During that time, in addition to serving in our various roles at Shore and learning from the kiwi ministers there, we will be looking for a community in the surrounding areas in which to plant a new church sometime in 2009.

In addition to getting our bearings at Shore, we've been working on the more practical side of settling in. Our little doggy, Rory, is serving time in quarantine for the first month of her time in New Zealand (that's the price puppies have to pay to move internationally with their owners - poor rory). We've been to visit her during the posted "visiting hours" at the holding facility. She's doing okay, just a bit lonely and confused for now I suppose.

In the meantime we've managed to set up bank accounts here, purchase a car, and get a couple of mobile phones. The deal we got on the car was "sweet as" as the kiwis say here in New

Zealand. Cars are about the only thing that are cheaper in NZ than in the US. It's a used 2000 Nissan Wingroad with 83,000 Kilometers on it (about 52,000 miles). It's got plenty of space for things like baby strollers and such. Did we mention Whitney is pregnant?

The next step is to find an apartment (or flat). We did make an offer on a two bedroom place yesterday, so we're hopeful the deal will be accepted. Renting is ridiculously expensive over here. More on that later. Thanks for reading!

It's Just the Beginning!

2007-11-27T21:21:00.000-05:00

We made it. We're finally in New Zealand. It's strange. I feel like we just accomplished something so huge. It took literally two years to get to this point. And yet the adventure is really just beginning.

Our flight left Cincinnati at 5PM Monday. We flew to LA and left there for Auckland at 10PM. We arrived in Auckland, New Zealand this morning, Wednesday morning, at 8AM. That's 17 hours in-flight. When we crossed the international date line east of New Zealand, Tuesday flew by in about 10 seconds (we skipped ahead 23 hours).

The weather is delightful here in Auckland. It's 4PM Wednesday afternoon and 19 degrees Celsius (that's 67 degrees Fahrenheit). We're staying in a house in Albany, a suburb of Auckland, until we can find our own place. Carrie Rambo, a missionary to international university students in Auckland with Impact Ministries, is allowing us to share the rent of her home with us while we look for our own place. The picture below with all the trees is the front yard. Gorgeous!

We're meeting up with the team in about an hour at "the hub" (the ministry offices of Shore Community Christian Church) to meet a few friends and then get some dinner. This week we're looking for a car and an apartment. Pray for good deals!

A Send-Off @ North Terrace

2007-11-15T16:27:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday night, North Terrace Church of Christ (our living-link supporting church), threw a send-off celebration for Whitney and me. I led them in a short time of celebration style worship. We took the opportunity to show a video of on-the-street interviews in Auckland from our survey trip to give them a better perspective of the people we're going to try to reach. After that Dr. Keeran (president of KCU) was there to ask us a few informal questions in front of the audience so they could learn a little more about us. They even took questions from the audience! It kind of felt like we were on Oprah, but it was nice. One of the most touching moments came when Danny Harp, associate minister at North Terrace, shared a few words about how much we mean to the congregation. He also shared many ways the people in attendance could get behind us - and especially Whitney as the home-town girl! The elders of the church then prayed for us and officially commissioned us as missionaries for North Terrace Church of Christ. Whitney and I are so blessed to be a part of this congregation who has already blessed us way beyond our expectations.

Keep praying! We're now only 10 days away from our departure on November 26th!

You Say it's Your Birthday...

2007-11-05T11:20:00.001-05:00

Happy Birthday to Whitney - the cutest 28-year-old ever!!!

Col. Mustard in the conservatory with the lead pipe!

2007-10-30T12:10:00.000-04:00

Whitney's family loves to play games. Particularly Ryan and Alison Morrow (our forwarding agents). On Saturday evening they invited family and friends over for a Clue party. We were all to dress up as a character, which we chose online with an rsvp. It was a lot of fun. I was Colonel Mustard and Whitney was the Cook.

The game lasted about three hours, but there was plenty of good food, so nobody cared. Whitney and I were so close to solving the crime, but we made one small mistake and lost the game as her twin sister Courtney (aka Miss Scarlet) stole the game out from under us. We'll get you next time, Gadget!

That Ship Has Sailed!

2007-10-26T10:42:00.000-04:00

On Monday we met up with our team in Indy with a U-haul full of boxes and furniture. Our good friends at Wood-Mizer Products offered to help with the team's shipment to New Zealand by packing and sending our ginormous 40-foot container. We are so grateful for their help. Whitney and I are flying to New Zealand exactly one month from today, but our container won't arrive until Christmas since it will be put on a boat across the Pacific!

We were able to meet up with a few friends during our short time in Indianapolis. Jason and Rachel Shore joined us for lunch with the team. Jason is a worship artist (literally - he does themed chalk art drawings during worship services and other events www.jasonshore.com). He gave Hamish (our team leader) a framed chalk art drawing that was especially meaningful to us as a team. Thanks Jason and Rachel! We'll miss you guys!

John and Katie Pierce joined us for dinner and a special "sending out" ceremony afterward. John is a board member of South Pacific Christian Fellowship and a good friend to all of us. He has been a big help and encouragement to our team in so many ways.

When we left Indy on Monday the whole team traveled to Wilmington, OH to visit for a couple of days with Molly Taylor's family (the Vances). We had a wonderful time getting to know them down on the farm. From there it was off to Columbus, OH to meet up with Whitney's family and enjoy some recreation time together. Remember: the team that plays together, stays together. We ate dinner with all of Whitney's siblings and their spouses and played a few games together. Molly and I destroyed the others in a giant Rook tournament. We were about to go to bed when Ben (whitney's brother), Ryan (whitney's brother-in-law), Joe Flammer, and myself decided to start a game of Lord of the Rings Risk. The game ended at about 4:00AM with Ben as the final victor. I'm tired. All that to say this: family time is extremely important to us as our departure day draws near!! Please continue to pray for us and our families.

Repacking Boxes (again)

2007-10-11T16:00:00.000-04:00

Once again we begin the big job of repacking, resorting, reorganizing, etc... Whitney and I are trying to consolidate our belongings into things we must take to New Zealand, things we want to take to New Zealand, and things we should probably just give away. We know we'll have a much smaller dwelling place over there, so this is an important job. Our dog, Rory, gets a little worried every time she sees the boxes or even suitcases. She's worried that she won't make the cut! But at this point she shouldn't worry. Whitney's big box of memory crap, on the other hand...