Projects
Past, current and future projects by Shining Lights TrustThe below projects exists to fill gaps in the Christian outreach of our nation, from a strategic point of view.
The Christian Church is not always good at telling its own story. Its presence remains, however, the primary origin of our cultural values and benefits related to freedoms, limited government powers, prosperity, charity and equality. We serve in this space to help the stories of history and faith be better known. This involves both direct public engagement – and also engagement with churches nation-wide.
INVESTORS NEEDED: There is a need for investors to enable this work. Please contact us for conversation or donate here.
Current projects that are being worked on include:
Hope Project: A public Christian voice of hope
Purposed to help the history behind our public cultural festivals of Christmas and Easter stay known – three media efforts were envisaged, two of which exist annually.
- Hope Project Christmas speaks to the history of the occasion – keeping something of the ‘Christ’ in ‘Christmas’. Over 30% still identify as Christian in our nation. Our values as a nation are categorically ‘Christian’. History matters!
- Hope Project Easter is our biggest annual effort. This has included a national booklet delivery ten times. That component is now bi-annual. The delivery is volunteer-based in about 90 cities and towns. TV and web media are included every year.
- HeLP Project is the third proposed media effort. This is paused until there is solid funding offered. The effort would be purposed to promote the help on offer from churches and associated trusts to see that story told, while promoting services available so more people can access them.
Public-facing websites include HopeProject.co.nz, 10DayChallenge.co.nz & WhyChristiansBelieve.nz plus various social media channels.
Helping churches build outreaching CULTURE (All Together Consulting)
This is the most important part of our work. This is about helping church leaders perceive how they might better enable their members to engage in everyday spiritual conversations. Perspectives are only changed if the conversations are had. Almost every connection we have with local church leaders is leveraged to speak into this matter in some way.
Find out more here.
Godtalk – helping Christian youth ministry
CONTEXT: We estimated church youth ministry in New Zealand to be attending about 25% of what it was 25 years ago. Concurrently, about 85% of those who come to faith do so before the age of 20. The primary demographic of church attrition is young adults – with as many as two-thirds leaving. The reasons are largely known.
A solution – Part I: Godtalk.nz is a video-training resource including 12 five-minute videos for new youth leaders, and 16 five-minute videos, with discussion guides, to then help those leaders give conversational outreach training to their youth. The average youth leader only lasts about 18 months to 2 years in the role. This resource is created to fill a gap in a fast-changing arena. About 480 youth leaders, or youth ministry reps, are currently connected to it.
A solution – Part II: There are some things that can only be changed as a wider body as people come to agree on a new direction together. Our nation’s denominational youth reps and also some national youth outreach organisation leaders are currently united in strategic discussion, purposed to catalyse change in some key identified areas. We are involved in the facilitation of this.
Find out more here.
10 Day Challenge – a unique discipleship support resource and app
This simple series of 10 devotions exists to help those interested in the faith to discover a little of what it is about – while listening to local Kiwi voices. It can be found at the website here, or accessed via the YouVersion Bible app where the majority of its use now happens. The wider resource includes Faith Q&A, testimonies, the core Christian message and a ‘find a church near you’ map.
‘Why Christians believe Christianity to be true’ (Video and booklet series)
As one of our largest projects to day, having identified a specific gap, the ‘Why Christians believe’ series is a 7-part video series, with discussion guides, and also booklets.
It is free online in entirety – while booklets can be optionally purchased (free as PDFs otherwise).
It is already being used by church groups, young adults groups and church youth groups nation-wide, as also internationally via our partnership with RightNow Media.
AllTogether Equip: Highly effective and broad-reaching equipping resources and strategies
If churches and church movements agree that empowering church members to tell our faith stories is the best direction for growing faith – support resources are needed. We have created a few hundred of them – in all cases in response to an identified gap in existing resourcing.
- The ‘Because we care’ conversational outreach equipping videos include three series (See here).
- ‘Equipping sermon series outlines’ (on the topic of ‘conversational outreach’) exist for pastors, with matching small group discussions, and sometimes also PowerPoint and other non-branded design elements for online promotion. (View here)
- The ‘Reaching people you don’t know’ series is less well known, suiting ‘outreach groups’, fronted by Stu Millar (a New Zealander) of Train To Proclaim in Australia. was the presenter (here).
- The Cornerstone Discipleship Series extends the ’10 Day Challenge’ – with only 3 of 18 planned series created, and yet appreciated. (View here).
These are, however, the tip of the iceberg. Seasonal resources, and also topical leadership resources for a dozen or more areas of church life, also exist. A search at AllTogether.co.nz will quickly being to reveal more of these.
GO Movement (Previously ‘Global Outreach Day’)
We are connected with a large international initiative, serving as a communication line for some international things related to outreach – usually behind the scenes. Stuart Millar (Train to Proclaim, Brisbane) facilities in the Australia-Pacific region.
Engage Conference (NZ)
‘Engage’ is our brand for conferences. Where most conferences are run with the hope of an annual momentum – our thinking led us to run ‘Engage’ conferences with specific intent, whether for pastors, denominations, community ministries, ‘evangelists’, youth leaders or the general church population. We have run these where and when we have seen an opportunity alongside a gap we could address. National conferences were run in 2016, 2017 and 2018. We have also run regional conferences in 8 to 10 locations at least 4 times on our national trips. For example. where leaders of Christian outreach organisations weren’t connected – we created formal partnerships with 30, to see them all getting to know each other. This was one objective of the three national conferences – which was then largely achieved. We then no-longer had a drive for the effort. Most recently, in 2021, we ran 9 regional Engage Conferences (NZ has 14 regions) – hosted by churches together in each case following strategic conversations that took place with pastors’ groups.
Knowing our history (both bicultural and values)
Those who tell the history write the future. Any people who are ignorant of their history are in danger of being led even to despise it. They are rootless and vulnerable to manipulation – without knowing it. This is the case for our society. We are significantly cut off from our own cultural history and ancestors.
We have engaged in two key areas of this. Firstly, the significance of Christianity to our bicultural history. Secondly, the significance of Christianity to our values history – gifting us, for example, some of the highest levels of freedom, prosperity, equality and charity in the world today, as also in all of human history. We are fools as nation for not knowing our history – and worse for despising it. Our hope is to change this.
Beneficially for the Christian faith, it just so happens that Christianity has brought enormous and unparalleled good in our history.
Our efforts are multifaceted – including wide ranging media, for the purposes of storytelling. This includes videos, travel, written articles, stories in booklets, stories in publications, interviews, children’s stories and books. Videos for social media use are our most recent initiative – concurrent with a 90,000 word book that tells stories related to our nation’s values history (due for print mid-2026).
For three links only:
Encouraging the role of pastors’ groups in NZ cities and towns
There are things that churches can achieve together that they will never achieve apart. We have worked with intent to raise this matter for discussion, alongside an understanding of the boundaries necessary for inter-church initiatives to thrive.
Our primary webpage for this is at Alltogether.co.nz/PastorsGroups
A quarterly update covering various related matters goes to about 90 pastors’ group convenors nationally.
We have travelled extensively, visiting pastors groups in over 60 locations eight separate times to serve and catalyse this conversation – alongside other related conversations as represented by other projects noted on this webpage.
In 2019 Dave wrote “In One Spirit” (Free PDF of book) to feed this conversation – gifted in person to about 1000 pastors who joined strategic pastors’ group discussions in that year. A final two chapters were added in 2022.
Various articles are written each year on the topic. A second book will likely be added around 2027 or soon after, encouraging new thinking in fresh areas, building upon existing conversations.
We are servants in this space – not leaders. The autonomy of Christians together in each location is a foundational principle – even while there can be teamwork where we have the nation in view.
Resources to international audiences
Various resource have found wider audiences. From 2021 onwards a partnership with RightNow Media and the YouVersion Bible app saw a number of resources finding new audience. Other resources are played through Christian radio and TV here in New Zealand. There is no financial return for any of this, while it helps to bring positive message of the type we want to encourage to wider audiences.
Our focus remains innovation in and for New Zealand. Any wider viewing overseas is nothing more than a bonus.