NZCMS is founded on the pas­sion­ate call of CMS in 1799 to ‘evan­gel­ise the unreached world’. This call inspired the mis­sional move­ment by which Aotearoa New Zealand first received the Gospel of Christ. We partner with people who are called to global mission.

Our focus is on part­ner­ship and reci­pro­city. Our Mission Part­ners are sent to serve under a global partner, and we support them to foster good rela­tion­ships with the com­munit­ies in which they live. We equip our Mission Part­ners to build these rela­tion­ships through a posture of humble learn­ing, care, and respect for those around them

NZCMS walks along­side young adults, provid­ing them with a sup­port­ive and depend­able com­munity which reflects God’s values, and mod­el­ling par­ti­cip­a­tion in the build­ing of God’s kingdom. 

A large part of this work is done through various intern­ship oppor­tun­it­ies, and a one-of-a-kind gap year exper­i­ence. Through these, we aim to show young people how the Gospel of Christ offers trans­form­a­tional power. We approach dis­ciple­ship via a hol­istic frame­work, i.e. the oppor­tun­it­ies we offer are not just study-based and the­or­et­ical, but also include dis­cern­ing together with each young person what a mis­sional path might look like, and the lived exper­i­ence of par­ti­cip­a­tion in mission work.

Through­out our history, NZCMS has been a voice to the Church, inspir­ing and chal­len­ging it to act­ively engage in God’s trans­form­ing work in New Zealand and around the world. Our desire is to help “fan into flame” the mis­sional spark in each dis­ciple of Christ through the pres­ence of the Holy Spirit. To do this, we provide high quality resources and events within a thor­oughly rela­tional frame­work, seeking to equip every dis­ciple to know them­selves as a Jesus-sent person. We want the church to under­stand – and be excited by – the fact that mis­sions work is an integ­ral part of the Chris­tian life, not a spe­cial­ised activ­ity. As Jesus said in John 20:21, “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.”

The first mis­sion­ar­ies to New Zealand were sent from England by CMS. They were involved in teach­ing lit­er­acy, trans­lat­ing Scrip­ture into te reo Māori, preach­ing the Gospel, and in the cre­ation of the Treaty of Wait­angi. The church grew as Māori evan­gel­ists took the Gospel to their own people. Although the church in this country began as a Māori church, under the influ­ence of colo­ni­al­ism and in par­tic­u­lar the land wars, the Māori church were dis­pos­sessed of its role in bearing the Gospel for all the peoples of this land.

The story of the church in New Zealand was broken. As NZCMS today we seek to live out of both the joys and sorrows of this legacy: seeking to live out of the whakatauki “ka mua, ka muri” (walking back­wards into the future). One way NZCMS does this is by joining the wider Anglican Church in the work of repent­ance and res­tor­at­ive justice for past actions. We have been involved in an offi­cial apology in Taur­anga for the his­toric actions of the CMS, and res­tor­at­ive actions.

Diversity is part of God’s cre­ation, and God is at work in every culture. Culture can be a good thing! However, we (and the Gospel we pro­claim) can become captive to our culture. The chal­lenge for every fol­lower of Christ is to allow the Gospel to tran­scend our culture – to bring out the best of our culture and set us free from everything that entangles.

NZCMS works with churches in New Zealand to help them engage inter­cul­tur­ally. An inter­cul­tural com­munity is one where people from dif­fer­ent cul­tures develop a life-in-mutu­al­ity, one that is demon­strated through deep rela­tion­ships where mutual learn­ing, under­stand­ing and trans­form­a­tion can take place.