For the past 10 years Phil Coates, pastor of Gateway Baptist in Miramar, has been leading the Eastern Suburbs Pastors Network. Recently, after sensing the Lord’s prompting, Phil began connecting with, and encouraging pastors in nearby central Wellington. He was then invited by some of the Wellington city pastors to help facilitate unity and cooperation there also.

Well done Phil!

Colin.

Wellington Reserve 600

Wellington

For many years, Wellington city was known as a ‘graveyard for pastors’ (and perhaps the other 5-fold ministries could be added here too). Along with that, it has been full of pastors and small churches working hard in their own patch with little sense of trust and unity between them.

Wellington suburb on hill 600

But God’s Spirit is moving in and there are signs that this is changing!

A number of the Pentecostal/Evangelical pastors have recently begun meeting more regularly, seeking to build friendship and trust as the basis for unity and cooperation in outreach to the city, and they are exploring ways of engaging with the pastors from the mainline churches with a view to joining together with them.

For the past 10 years, a group of Eastern Suburbs pastors have been meeting regularly for fellowship & prayer. More recently this has birthed some collaborative efforts in prayer and mission to our community. Along with our monthly meetings, we meet several times a year for whole days of prayer, spending time together interceding for our community, our churches and each other.

Over the last few years, we have also called our congregations together for several combined church prayer meetings, with between 50 – 120 people present for dynamic times of worship and prayer for our community.

Beehive 600

After the 2020 lockdown, we led our churches in a ‘Mid-Winter Christmas’ outreach to our community to bring the light of Jesus into the darkness and confusion post-Covid.

Alpha course logo  < < < ALPHA NZ

This year, we have joined together to run an Alpha course and we are looking to develop this further as we join a city-wide promotion of Alpha later in July.

In 2021, a number of churches participated in the Hope Project delivering booklets to homes in their communities. The booklets were distributed to the WHOLE of Wellington, which was a significant increase on our efforts in 2020.

Please pray with us that Wellington will be a maternity ward for pastors and leaders of God’s Kingdom on earth.

Pastor Phil Coates 200  Phil Coates.

Pastor Gateway Baptist, Miramar.