Arise Church

Originally named City Church Wellington, it was founded in 2002 with seven people in a small dance and drama studio in Wellington. John and Gillian Cameron were the lead pastors of Arise Church.[2][3] Arise Church has since expanded to include campuses in ten physical locations across New Zealand including Wellington, Hamilton, Whangarei, Kapiti, Palmerston North, Christchurch, Selwyn, Dunedin, Masterton, Porirua, with services based in the Wellington campus also being streamed online.[4]

After the resignations of Senior Pastors John and Gillian Cameron in 2022, the Arise Board appointed Ben and Amy Kendrew as Interim Lead Pastors. The Kendrews were previously Christchurch Campus pastors and had been with Arise for 20 years.[5]

On 1 August 2023, Arise Church announced Ben and Amy Kendrew as their new Senior Leaders. On 10 September 2023, Ben and Amy were officially commissioned in a Sunday service.[6]

In 2015, the Church entered the permitting process for construction for the Petone building, which includes both worship and office space.[7][8] The Arise Centre is a multi-purpose auditorium and function venue built by Arise Church with a 1,200-seat purpose-built auditorium, 500 square metre foyer and café, 400 square metres of auxiliary rooms and 1,200 square metres of office space on level 2.[9]

The Arise Centre officially opened in 2017. In 2018, Arise received a Wellington Architecture Award from the New Zealand Institute of Architects.

Construction on the Whangarei Arise Centre began in 2019. The building sits on SH1, housing a 450-seat auditorium.

The opening was initially delayed by Covid-19 in 2020 but was officially completed and opened in 2022.

In 2020, Arise purchased an old warehouse and converted it into a storehouse for its Arise Care operations. From here they house supplies for their various initiatives. The storehouse is also used to run events such as Big Hearts packing days, cooking ready-made frozen meals, and vulnerable women events.[10]

During the pandemic, the Storehouse became a location for smaller church gatherings. Attendance continued to grow at this venue post-pandemic, and Porirua became an official location of Arise.[11]

Arise Conference gathers the whole of Arise Church together once a year. Previous Arise Conference speakers include Craig Groeschel, Rich Wilkerson Jr., Chris Hodges (Church of the Highlands), and Samuel Rodriguez.[12]

In 2013 it was announced that from 2014, Arise Conference would take over the Get Smart Youth Conference from LIFE Church Auckland. From 2014 Arise Conference ran as 3 conferences simultaneously, with the Kids Conference and Get Smart Youth Conference running alongside the Arise Conference. In 2017, Arise Conference was held in 2 venues. In 2019, Arise Conference held a conference in a second city, Christchurch.

Passionate Women's Conference has close to 2,000 delegates and boasts world-renowned speakers like Lisa Bevere, DawnCheré Wilkerson, Maria Durso, and many more.

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the decision was made to cancel Arise Conference in 2020 and to revert to a single conference location in Wellington in 2021. Due to the continued unpredictable nature of COVID-19, the 2022 Arise Conference and Passionate conferences were cancelled. In 2023 it was also cancelled, this time due to ongoing news surrounding the church. The church put out a statement announcing the cancellation and the desire to focus on strengthening the church before continuing with conferences in the future.[13]

In mid April 2022, several ex-members alleged that Arise Church used unpaid volunteer labour excessively, that interns were made to pay in order to take part in internships, and students were encouraged to donate portions of their student loans to the church.[18][19] In response to these allegations, Pastors John and Brent Cameron temporarily resigned from their pastoral duties and Arise's governing board pending an internal review.[20][21]

In mid-May 2022, independent journalist David Farrier and Radio New Zealand reported that former members had alleged that Brent Cameron (John Cameron's brother) bullied interns and had stripped naked in front of one. This behaviour had allegedly occurred during Arise church’s annual tour of other New Zealand churches. It was alleged that this member received a confidential payout to ensure their non-disclosure of Cameron's behaviour.[22] Another former staff member claimed that Pastor John Cameron was more concerned with financial donations than the well-being of church members. In response to the allegations, 4 independent investigations were commissioned by the church.[23]

In late May 2022, Arise Church's board confirmed that Pastors John and Gillian, along with Brent, had formally resigned from the church's leadership in the wake of the exploitation and bullying allegations.

In mid-July 2022, Radio New Zealand reported that the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had imposed a temporary non-publication order on an external review of Arise Church conducted by independent consultancy firm Pathfinding. Both former members and Arise Church's leadership board expressed frustration with the delay in the report's release. Several former church members who spoke to Arise Church made allegations about bullying, unpaid labour, and homophobia. ERA indicated that it would review its temporary non-publication order later in the month.[24]

On 16 August 2022, David Farrier and Radio New Zealand obtained a leaked copy of Pathfinding's independent review of Arise Church. 545 current and former members of Arise submitted their experience of Arise to the internal review. Pathfinding's report included allegations about sexual misconduct, racism, homophobia, body shaming, sexism, pastors forcing their political views on members, distrust of medical treatments, bullying, ageism, exploitation of interns, people being forced to work despite injuries, and financial mismanagement. Pathfinding made 92 recommendations including making a genuine apology for the hurt caused to members, reporting illegal activities to the authorities, paying for former members to receive counselling, engaging a restorative justice facilitator, disavowing conversion therapy, promoting Māori church leadership, an independent review of the church finances, and replacing the entire leadership board.[25][26][27] Pathfinding review member Reverend Frank Ritchie attributed the church's problems to centralised power, honour culture, its business practices, performance culture, and so-called "toxic positivity."[28]

According to Stuff and TVNZ, some former members of Arise had attempted to prevent the report's 92 recommendations from being released publicly, leading to ERA's temporary non-publication order on the document in July 2022. The non-publication order meant that Arise was also unable to release the report. However, the order was subsequently rescinded following the report's leakage by David Farrier and Radio New Zealand, a teleconference held on 17 August between John and Gillian Cameron and ERA, and pressure from TVNZ. Arise released the report publicly, after this non-publication order was dropped.[29] In a public statement, Arise church claimed that the report was not an "investigative process" but rather a tool to gather information in order to inform changes to church policies and practices.[27][30]

On 21 August 2022, two board members Kylie Fletcher and Ben Kendrew apologised to those members who had experienced hurt and promised change.[31]

In September 2022, Arise put together a Review Advisory Committee to process the Pathfinding Report (and other reports commissioned by the church), to collate findings and make further recommendations. This committee was made up of congregation, staff, and board representatives.[32]

On 18 August 2022, the Department of Internal Affairs's Charities Services division commenced an investigation of Arise Church in response to the issues raised by the Pathfinding report.[33][31]

In January 2023, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) issued Arise Church's leadership board with an infringement notice for failing a request to supply information on specific employee records. This information is related to wages, time, holiday, and leave records for migrant employees. By 7 March, the Arise board was banned from recruiting migrant workers until 16 July as a result of MBIE's investigation.[34][35] This infringement notice was subsequently revoked 2 weeks later.

In mid-February 2023, the Otago University Students' Association (OUSA) excluded Arise Church from the university's Orientation Week Tent City following the allegations against the church in 2022.[36]

Before Covid-19, Arise's Wellington City campus was holding services every weekend in the largest indoor venues in the city. These venues included the Michael Fowler Centre, TSB Bank Arena, and the St. James Theatre with close to 7,000 people meeting across 4 services in the Wellington Region.[7]

In May 2019 it was announced that Arise would be launching its 9th campus, in Auckland, in 2021, where they began preview services as of February 2021.[37][38] In mid-October 2022, Arise Board and Leadership announced the resignation of Auckland campus pastors Ben and Anna Carroll and the closure of their Auckland campus. The Carrolls rebranded the church as "Passion - AKL" and launched in 2023.[39][40][41]

In November 2022, Arise merged the Wellington City and Hutt Valley campuses to form one Wellington campus.[42]

The Church responded to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake with immediate shipments of shelf-stable food to the devastated city.[44]

In 2017 Arise Church ventured into a new way of discipleship for current and new members of the church, which was revised in 2020. This entails a 3-week (previously 4-week) pathway program where attendees go through a process of understanding more about the faith, about their role in God's plan and advancing God's church.[45]

Arise Church has been accused of various attempts to engage in preaching in public schools,[46][47] which some argue contravenes legislation which states that teaching in New Zealand schools must be secular during school hours.[48] A former member of the Arise Church[49] raised concerns about some of the methods they use, particularly in targeting youth, as well as their ideology. [50]

In August 2021, Arise advocated for a proposed ban on conversion therapy in New Zealand but with amendments, alleging that it criminalised parents, counsellors and pastors seeking to help children and young people dealing with sexuality or gender issues.[51]

In September 2021, an article came out accusing Arise of misinterpreting the Bill and causing confusion.[52]