News

Direct Resolution reached with the Labour Inspectorate - ARISE Church Board
2026-09-24

Kia ora church family,

We’re writing to share an important update regarding the Labour Inspectorate investigation. Since 2023, the Labour Inspectorate has been conducting an investigation into our former internship programme. It ultimately believed the way we implemented parts of our internship programme with four former interns meant an employment relationship existed between Arise and these four former interns.

We have agreed we fell short in this regard, and agreed to a consent determination with The Labour Inspectorate. As part of this, we are paying an agreed amount of arrears, as well as offering the below apology:

We deeply regret that you placed trust in a church community and experienced hurt and disappointment as a result. This likely affected your relationship and trust in church and even in God. This is tragic and for this we are deeply sad and truly sorry. Our door remains open if you would like to offer any further feedback for us to take on board or if it would be helpful to achieve some closure and healing.

What this means is this matter is now resolved, pending potential penalties to be decided by the Employment Relations Authority.

As we have talked about repeatedly, we’ve been focussed on building a healthy church grounded in humility, theological training, spiritual maturity, discipleship, pastoral care and community outreach.

As part of this we have made substantial changes to our governance and leadership structures, accountability systems, ministry training and church culture in recent years.

This includes

Ensuring greater accountability and support for senior leadership, including: Creating a joint senior leadership model that sees the Senior Pastor(s) working alongside a General Manager. Creating and making known the criteria by which Board members, Senior Leaders, Spiritual Advisory members and other key leaders within Arise are assessed. Creating a Spiritual Advisory Panel, accessible to the congregation, to provide oversight and consisting of staff, lay leaders and a number of recognised Christian leaders. Creating local eldership groups to support and advise Campus Pastors. Ceasing the former internship model. Focussing on theological education and training for students in Arise Ministry Academy, and providing closer monitoring and care. Developing robust HR policies and processes across all staff, volunteers and students.

In short, while our beliefs and mission have not changed, the way we operate has changed significantly. This is because church should be a place where everyone is treated with the highest levels of dignity and care, and we have attempted to meet, listen, apologise and offer pastoral care and counselling to those with negative experiences at Arise where appropriate - and we continue to extend this olive branch.

If anyone would like to reach out or if you have any questions, please get in touch using the feedback and complaints form on our website.

With blessings, ARISE Church Board