Leadership Camp 2024 saw around 160 people from across the diocese come together for a wonderfully icy few days at St Arnaud.

Julie-anne Laird, an evangelism specialist, brought her wisdom and experience in the main sessions and was clearly a highlight for a lot of people.

Rev Matt Watts, Westport:

It’s been a brilliant camp – I’m still a little stiff from playing the soccer game – but it’s been so good to be with other folk from across the diocese, wanting to work together. 
I’ve really valued Julie-anne’s stuff on evangelism. She’s just so real about relationships, about how sharing our faith actually works in the real world. I’d love to get her to come to Westport, but we’ll see on that one!
One of the slides she had was about how to take conversations deeper, and taking it to “values” – so asking a question about someone’s life and probing a bit deeper to what are the values that underpin that, because often values then lead into a God conversation. I think I’ve missed that in the past – I’ve sometimes tried to go straight to the God conversation and that gets shut down, but other times I’ve just stayed on the surface and never really probed deeper. So I really value that idea.

Alice Evatt, Atawhai/Hira:

It’s been fun for the whole family. Making connections and meeting new people is really valuable. I was reminded just to focus on what’s most important and what will make the most difference in our relationship with non-believers. Being really clear and intentional about how we can deepen our relationships to actually draw them closer to God. So I feel better equipped to do that. And there was a reminder about how long it can take and not to be discouraged by that – that we’re in it for the long haul.

Rev Emily Holmes, Greymouth:

It’s always incredible to bring the whole family, the whole family gets really blessed. I particularly loved coming together as the diocese and just being so encouraged by sharing stories and hearing how we’re all working for the gospel with our ups and downs, our challenges and our persevering and our celebrations. Julie-anne has been an incredible speaker. She really brought encouragement and wisdom and opened up what is evangelism and what does it look like for today and in such a way that we can take it and say, okay, what does it look like for me for the people in front of me. So I’m really encouraged and feeling more confident.

Rev Joe Keighley, Wairau Valley:

It was good. I thought the content was presented really well for the context and the people that we’ve got attending, in a way that encouraged and motivated.

Alexandra Evatt (youth), Atawhai/Hira:

It’s been really fun. Playing Mafia was my favourite. We learned a bit about anxiety and how to deal with it on our walk up the lake. We got our biggest anxiety at the moment and we looked at it as a rock, and then we threw it off the jetty when we were done with our walk. We also did some goal setting and a bit of encouragement to other people. 

Jean Palmer, Richmond:

I think it’s a great atmosphere, because we felt we were all united in this idea of wanting to get behind evangelism, and it’s helped us to move from just wanting to do it, to giving us some ideas and tools to do it. There was some really good practical advice when Julie-anne was sharing about conversations that she’s actually had. A lot to take away from it – the challenge now is for us to go away and engage with our non-Christian friends!

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