After a rousing Maori welcome to TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre in Manukau, New Zealand, Archbishop Rowan Williams’ responded by celebrating thanking his hosts and celebrating the place of the Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia in the Communion’s past and present.
He asked the assembled gathering to pray “for a Pentecostal experience [for the ACC], that divided tongues of fire will touch us all in the days ahead, that we shall learn to listen to one another’s languages and experiences and insights with all the enthusiasm and eagerness with which we would listen to God’s own word.”
He went on to promise that ACC-15 would in turn pray that the “experiments” of the country of Aotearoa New Zealand and the Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia “will be marks and signs of work of the Holy Spirit in the world today and be signs of hope for a world in which by God’s purpose and by God’s promise one of these days all the islands will rise and sing.”