Auckland Prayer Festival 2023

Prayer is a key pillar for us at Auckland Church Network.

In 2023, for the first time ever, we gathered some key prayer leaders from across the city to talk about how we could widen this city-wide prayer focus from a breakfast to an entire month. Out of that meeting, the concept of the Auckland Prayer Festival was born. Our sense was to start this year by simply appreciating and championing the prayer gatherings and initiatives that already exist.

To create a hub for this festival, a fresh new website was launched which featured a calendar of selected prayer gatherings for the month of November.

We had everything from Mandarin prayer meetings to Contemplative prayer, from Mass times listed at a few Catholic churches … just to name a few.

We also produced a Festival Guide (which you can still download here), which includes a select list of events and two short accessible guides to a) different prayer styles throughout the Church and b) different prayer types in Scripture.

Finally, we also gathered a planning team (chaired by our friend Riana Kassim) to coordinate a final closing gathering for the festival. What a great night that was!

Our friends Josh Jones and Jeremy Woods from the beautiful St George's Anglican in Epsom hosted a rich service that weaved different cultures, denominations and styles together. If you missed it, you can watch the event here, which was live-streamed on the day.

We plan to do it again next year, so watch out for details.