This year’s Pihopatanga national ministry kura was held at Auckland’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

More than 100 clergy – most of whom are minita-a-iwi –  took part in the four-day training event, which focussed on evangelism.

The kura delegates spent most of Friday morning in groups, each looking at one of the great Maori bringers-of-the-good-news – people such as Ruatara, Piripi Taumata-a-Kura, Rota Waitoa and Te Whiti o Rongomai, for instance.

Part of the aim here is to inspire – and part is to better equip minita-a-iwi to talk about that person’s life when their feast day comes around in the lectionary.

On Saturday afternoon, there was a session called: Korerotia te Rongopai (speaking the Good News), led Archdeacon Bert Karaka and his son-in-law Canon Arthur Hoikianga, who have a strongly evangelical ministry out of Nga Whare Waatea, one of South Auckland’s largest urban marae.

The four-day kura began on Thursday evening, and a highlight of Sunday’s final worship was the licensing by Bishop Kito Pikaahu, Pihopa o te Tai Tokerau, of two recently-retired Pakeha bishops – John Paterson, lately Bishop of Auckland and George Connor lately of Dunedin – to officiate in the north.

Both Bishops are fluent in te reo, both spent years in their early ministry in Maori Pastorates, and both now live in Greater Auckland.

On Sunday Paula Jakeman, the Executive Officer of Te Kotahitanga, was licensed as a lay liturgical assistant. She’s on the vestry at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.