Next month we kick off our first “Emmaus” leadership training weekend. It’s a bit different from our usual gathering at Lake Rotoiti – a triple-threat on-the-road experience held in Nelson, Greymouth and Blenheim. Our guest speaker, Clint Ussher, has agreed to meet us at all three.
Rev Dr Clint Ussher is an ordained minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and leads The Well Church in Christchurch. He holds a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry from Asbury Theological Seminary. Clint has served in ministry for over 20 years and is passionate about seeing people encounter Jesus personally and be released into their unique calling.
Clint is currently on an extended overseas trip, but I managed to make contact with him while he was in London and meet with him over Zoom while he was in New York.
Clint: I'm Australian, married to an American. I actually moved over to the US to get married and lived there for 10 years, had two children, before moving to New Zealand. Our daughters are 16 and 19.
We moved to Christchurch in 2012 to plant The Well Church. We always had the dream that we would be a church that would help plant other churches, but it took us 10 years to actually start to see some of that vision realised.
So in 2025, we sent a team of around 45 people from our church to plant on the other side of Christchurch in Casebrook. We sent them out into a pre-launch phase in May, running Alpha and social transformation projects serving in the community – breakfast club in the local school, different things like that. They launched into weekly worship gatherings in October. A couple of people came to faith and were baptised before they even launched, which is pretty cool. Since October, they've pretty much doubled in size. We're now getting ready to send another team to plant out in Rolleston.
Clint: Wesleyan churches that can be quite different from each other. We observe communion every Sunday and we have liturgical elements in our worship gathering, so there would be things in the worship gathering that would feel similar to an Anglican service, and there would be other things that would feel a little different. I typically preach long sermons! That may not be typically Wesleyan, but we certainly emphasise the importance of preaching and teaching God's Word.
My church is really big on deeper life transformation into Christ’s likeness, so we focus on formation. It's not just about Sunday worship. During the week, most people are meeting in some kind of formational community. We run a number of different courses on top of that that help support and guide people in deeper life transformation.
But I continue, “Our agenda is this – we want to see you maturing in Christ and living out of the overflow of your own life lived in and with Jesus.” That's our agenda. So we do all we can to support and encourage that. We want to see everyone engaged in following Jesus wholeheartedly and serving his kingdom in some way.
Clint: There might be a lot of leaders out there who will resonate with this.
Over the years, we’ve had the decline of the church, the huge deconstruction phase that’s been playing out, and then Covid. I watched so many colleagues and friends and family who were in ministry go on their own deconstruction journey and walked away, not just from serving in ministry, but actually from faith altogether. It’s heartbreaking to watch that play out over and over again. And it also raises the question, am I crazy? Why am I still doing this with my life?
And it's not like the people who were de-churched – grew up in a Christian home, did some naughty things in uni and then revisited faith when they started a family. We're seeing totally unchurched people who are waking up on a Sunday morning and feel compelled to be in church. They roll on in and they're like, “I have no idea why I'm here, but I just feel like I need to be in church today.”
And I just think it's the kindness of God for people like us who've stayed in through all the crap. It's the kindness of God that we get to be part of this now and potentially steward a little revival or awakening. I’ve been hearing stories in the UK and here in New York and like it's remarkable what God's up to. And it's happening in New Zealand as well. That's what warms my heart.
It's early, but I think the tide's turning, and that's really encouraging for me. So I want to lean into that inspiration.
Clint: I've been to Nelson plenty – always love Nelson. I've spent very little time on the West Coast, so I’m looking forward to going there. The first time I visited we just drove over, spent one night in abysmal weather, and drove back. Since we've gone back a couple of times – Punakaiki was lovely. Blenheim, I’ve only driven through a few times. It’s going to be fun going there. New places for me! I’m looking forward to it.
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We have invited these writers to share their experiences, ideas and opinions in the hope that these will provoke thought, challenge you to go deeper and inspire you to put your faith into action. These articles should not be taken as the official view of the Nelson Diocese on any particular matter.
Next month we kick off our first “Emmaus” leadership training weekend. It’s a bit different from our usual gathering at Lake Rotoiti – a triple-threat on-the-road experience held in Nelson, Greymouth and Blenheim. Our guest speaker, Clint Ussher, has agreed to meet us at all three.
Rev Dr Clint Ussher is an ordained minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and leads The Well Church in Christchurch. He holds a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry from Asbury Theological Seminary. Clint has served in ministry for over 20 years and is passionate about seeing people encounter Jesus personally and be released into their unique calling.
Clint is currently on an extended overseas trip, but I managed to make contact with him while he was in London and meet with him over Zoom while he was in New York.
Clint: I'm Australian, married to an American. I actually moved over to the US to get married and lived there for 10 years, had two children, before moving to New Zealand. Our daughters are 16 and 19.
We moved to Christchurch in 2012 to plant The Well Church. We always had the dream that we would be a church that would help plant other churches, but it took us 10 years to actually start to see some of that vision realised.
So in 2025, we sent a team of around 45 people from our church to plant on the other side of Christchurch in Casebrook. We sent them out into a pre-launch phase in May, running Alpha and social transformation projects serving in the community – breakfast club in the local school, different things like that. They launched into weekly worship gatherings in October. A couple of people came to faith and were baptised before they even launched, which is pretty cool. Since October, they've pretty much doubled in size. We're now getting ready to send another team to plant out in Rolleston.
Clint: Wesleyan churches that can be quite different from each other. We observe communion every Sunday and we have liturgical elements in our worship gathering, so there would be things in the worship gathering that would feel similar to an Anglican service, and there would be other things that would feel a little different. I typically preach long sermons! That may not be typically Wesleyan, but we certainly emphasise the importance of preaching and teaching God's Word.
My church is really big on deeper life transformation into Christ’s likeness, so we focus on formation. It's not just about Sunday worship. During the week, most people are meeting in some kind of formational community. We run a number of different courses on top of that that help support and guide people in deeper life transformation.
But I continue, “Our agenda is this – we want to see you maturing in Christ and living out of the overflow of your own life lived in and with Jesus.” That's our agenda. So we do all we can to support and encourage that. We want to see everyone engaged in following Jesus wholeheartedly and serving his kingdom in some way.
Clint: There might be a lot of leaders out there who will resonate with this.
Over the years, we’ve had the decline of the church, the huge deconstruction phase that’s been playing out, and then Covid. I watched so many colleagues and friends and family who were in ministry go on their own deconstruction journey and walked away, not just from serving in ministry, but actually from faith altogether. It’s heartbreaking to watch that play out over and over again. And it also raises the question, am I crazy? Why am I still doing this with my life?
And it's not like the people who were de-churched – grew up in a Christian home, did some naughty things in uni and then revisited faith when they started a family. We're seeing totally unchurched people who are waking up on a Sunday morning and feel compelled to be in church. They roll on in and they're like, “I have no idea why I'm here, but I just feel like I need to be in church today.”
And I just think it's the kindness of God for people like us who've stayed in through all the crap. It's the kindness of God that we get to be part of this now and potentially steward a little revival or awakening. I’ve been hearing stories in the UK and here in New York and like it's remarkable what God's up to. And it's happening in New Zealand as well. That's what warms my heart.
It's early, but I think the tide's turning, and that's really encouraging for me. So I want to lean into that inspiration.
Clint: I've been to Nelson plenty – always love Nelson. I've spent very little time on the West Coast, so I’m looking forward to going there. The first time I visited we just drove over, spent one night in abysmal weather, and drove back. Since we've gone back a couple of times – Punakaiki was lovely. Blenheim, I’ve only driven through a few times. It’s going to be fun going there. New places for me! I’m looking forward to it.
Check out other articles in the
series below.
More articles in the
series are to come.
