A huge year for Common Grace Aotearoa.
As we wind up our second year, we are blown away and so grateful for all God has done through this community in 2024.
Common Grace Aotearoa was established last year to equip and organise Christians to transform unjust structures in society for the common good. We seek to build a gracious Christian voice speaking up for climate, economic and Te Tiriti justice so that all creation and people may flourish. We are now a community of nearly 3000 followers of Jesus from all denominations across Aotearoa doing just that!
Here are some highlights of what you have been a part of in 2024.
We educated 280 church groups about Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
We felt God prompt us to begin our treaty work with education, so we worked with our campaign teams and Tangata Whenua advisors to create Belonging in this Land: Treaty Basics from a Christian Perspective. This two-part video workshop is intended for church audiences to run over two 90-minute sessions. Appetite for the resource has been overwhelming! Since launching in May, more than 260 church groups have run the course, some with more than 50 participants. This means that thousands of New Zealanders now have a new or refreshed understanding of the importance of Te Tiriti.
We supported hundreds to walk in prayerful solidarity with the people of Gaza.
We worked with Aotearoa Christians for Peace in Palestine to organise prayerful pilgrimages of solidarity with the people of Gaza. During Lent, hundreds of Christians, alongside members of the Palestinian community walked up to 41km (the length of Gaza) in Auckland, Wellington, Whanganui and Christchurch, garnering attention on Breakfast TV. During the pilgrimages, together we raised nearly $8000 for humanitarian aid in Gaza and the West Bank.
We won stronger consumer care rules and fairer fees for lowest income New Zealanders.
Our Economic Justice team continued to call on the Electricity Authority to protect the thousands of households that struggle to afford power. This year, while the Authority has been drafting new rules for power companies, our team has repeatedly called for strong wording and meaningful enforcement. We look forward to these new consumer rights coming into force from 1 January 2025, benefiting everyone who uses electricity.
Our team also conducted research into electricity disconnection fees, finding these to be unclear, unkind and unreasonable and a ‘penalty for being poor’. In July, our campaign made the front page of the Herald and we delivered a petition of over 8000 signatures calling on the Electricity Authority to ban these fees. 12 days later, Contact Energy, New Zealand’s second-largest electricity retailer, announced they would immediately stop charging these fees. We estimate that change will benefit up to 5 households per day.
We persuaded political parties to move towards an end to pollution subsidies.
Our climate team continued to lead the Don’t Subsidise Pollution campaign, calling on the government to stop giving free carbon credits to New Zealand’s largest industrial polluters. We delivered a petition signed by over 6000 people to Labour’s climate spokesperson Hon Megan Woods, then mobilised over 900 people to have their say on the government’s Emissions Reduction Plan. That meant more than half of submissions the government received on that plan were calling for an end to free carbon credits!
In December we had a win, with the Green Party announcing it has adopted our campaign goals into its climate policy to take to the next election. We look forward to other parties also adopting a policy of urgently phasing out free carbon credits.
We brought 600 church leaders together to oppose the Treaty Principles Bill.
In September when the government introduced the Treaty Principles Bill to Cabinet, we published an open letter signed by 440 church leaders including the most senior leaders of Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Salvation Army and Vineyard denominations. The letter stated that church leaders opposed the intent of the Bill and appealed to all MPs not to let it get to Select Committee. The letter made front page news, and was covered by all major news outlets. Over 600 church leaders have now signed.
We then created resources to support churches to gather submissions on the bill. More than 160 church groups have signed up to use these resources. (Submissions are open until midnight on 7 January. Make your submission here or gather submissions with these resources.)
We mobilised hundreds of Christians to support the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti.
Hundreds from the Common Grace community joined the tens of thousands at hīkoi events around the motu, supporting the kaupapa by turning up, praying, offering manaakitanga and giving generously! We helped raise over $20,000 for the hīkoi organisers, as well as organising more than 20 churches and christian organisations to offer accommodation to hīkoi participants in Wellington.
We mentored 27 advocates in four campaign teams, and trained 70+ people at our second national gathering.
A core part of our work is training Christian advocates who learn by doing in our campaign teams. This year we launched two teams to focus on Te Tiriti, one in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and one in Pōneke Wellington. Alongside our climate and economic justice teams, this meant we had 27 advocates around Aotearoa who have been meeting regularly, making our campaigns happen and developing the skills of transforming unjust structures.
In November our wider movementwe gathered for learning and inspiration at our second National Gathering at Ngatiawa River Monastery, being refreshed and challenged by great teaching on why and how we can pursue justice as followers of Jesus.
Help us keep up the momentum in 2025.
All our work is powered by our generous community through your passion, prayer, action and resources. This year we have had 3 part-time staff, one pro bono tech manager and our awesome volunteers, so we make a little go a long way!
Could you join our giving team?
Generous donors are essential to the work we do - every donation makes a difference to directly sustain our impactful work. Please consider joining our giving team who donate monthly or making a one-off donation to help us keep up the momentum in 2025. All donations are tax deductible.