





































Ecclesial Futures
2023 – Volume 4 – Issue 2

A R T I C L E

DOI: 10.54195/ef17944

Regenerative Development as a Pathway 
for Church Renewal

Rosemary Dewerse, Roxanne Haines, Stu McGregor

Abstract
This article details and discusses Regenerative Development, a concept developed 
by the Regenesis Group, as a means for enabling church health and renewal. Across 
2020–23 Cityside Baptist in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, worked with Regener-
ative Development Practitioners through three phases of application. The process 
and what emerged challenges usual perspectives on church growth and revitalization 
priorities around vision, outcomes and the community and context in view.

Keywords: Regenerative Development, Renewal, Cityside

In 2019 the leadership of Cityside Baptist Church in Auckland, New Zealand, found 
themselves wrestling with the question, “Why Cityside, here?” We had decisions to 
make that would impact our life together in the present and the future. Amongst 
our members were four people passionate about Regenerative Development and, 
seeing resonant potential with the nature of our community, the decision was made 
in 2020 to accept their recommendation to apply this methodology to address our 
question. What emerged challenges usual perspectives on church growth and revi-
talization priorities around vision, outcomes, and the community and context that 
is in view. This article begins by backgrounding our story leading up to this work, 
introduces Regenerative Development and details the process as applied to Cityside 
and emerging discoveries, before discussing the implications for understandings of 
church health and renewal.

1 The Cityside backstory
In 2019 the Council of Cityside Baptist found ourselves wondering what we were 
being called to be for another generation of our life together. This iteration of faith 
community at 8 Mount Eden Road in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, had been 

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alive and active since 1993 and formally instituted as a church of the Baptist Union 
in October 1995. It had emerged out of a period of social justice ministry on the 
site (the Auckland Baptist City Mission) in recognition that such ministry “needed to 
be based in a worshipping congregation” (Cityside Baptist, n.d.). Essentially at the 
time a fresh expression of church community in the inner city made up of young to 
middle-aged adults, Cityside, initially led by Mark Pierson, became known for being a 
safe space for those struggling with traditional theological assumptions and perfor-
mance-based paradigms of church, and for its innovation in artistic expression and 
participatory “ancient-future worship” (Pierson, n.d.). Study of the community’s 
approach was published in the mid-2000s (Taylor 2004; Guest and Taylor 2006). By 
2019, with the worshipping community having outlasted the work of the City Mission 
on the site, we were feeling the need to revitalize our sense of identity for discerning 
our future as a church and ongoing missional purpose. A group of members had 
undertaken research into the future potential of our buildings and offered design 
possibilities, and we were wondering how best to approach not only our children and 
youth spaces but a range of needs in our diverse community.

One of the wider local contextual realities for us was that construction was begin-
ning on both a redesigned public transport hub and high-density housing planned 
to accommodate 20,000 inhabitants, promising to significantly alter the physical and 
socio-cultural landscape (Auckland City Council, n.d.). Closer to home, due to an initi-
ative called 8Space, our building during the week is a vibrant hub hosting artists, 
musicians, poets and community events across twenty art studios and rehearsal 
and meeting spaces. Their evolution and aspirations need to be taken into account. 
Meanwhile there has been a growing commitment amongst Citysiders, inspired by 
Māori brothers and sisters, to try to truly live the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, 
the founding document of our nation. This is a long but important journey of decolo-
nizing our thinking, relationships and living in this land.1 Key challenges for us in the 
face of these contextual realities are that: few of our members live locally; there is 
not often cross over between Sunday and weekday inhabitants; and Te Tiriti requires 
paradigm shifts in language and power. As we look to the future, what is God’s invi-
tation to us? Who are we to be?

It was important to employ a process that would resonate with us. The innovator 
of 8Space, Damaris Kingdon, and two others of our congregation, Roxanne Haines 
and Justine Skilling, are Regenerative Development Practitioners; a fourth, Joy 

1 A roopu (group) of the Minister, three Māori members and the Chair of Council was established during 
2020.



Davidson, was deeply interested in this methodology. They felt regenerative prin-
ciples of wholistic, participatory, nested-systems, essence-of-place regenerative 
development aligned with our community and so early in 2020 they approached 
Council. After some months of discussion and planning, the Council agreed to begin 
this process in November 2020. Mark Haines, a Council member and from August 
2021 its co-Chair, volunteered to coordinate the logistics and gave many hours to 
this work. Coming strongly recommended, Rhyll Stafford, a member of the 8Space 
community and experienced Regenerative Development Practitioner, was employed 
as an invested outsider to facilitate the identified phases. The process itself, planned 
to be substantively progressed in 2021, was slowed by the COVID pandemic. The 
phases were completed at the beginning of 2023.

2 Regenerative Development
Regenerative Development first emerged as a concept in North America in 1995, 
coined by the Regenesis Group. It describes a means of enabling living beings to 
co-evolve a whole-of-systems approach to harnessing potential so that a project 
might contribute to the regeneration of the unique place in which it is located. As a 
methodology, Regenerative Development seeks the stories of that place as contained 
in environmental, historical and community records and data (quantitative and qual-
itative) to uncover recurring patterns shaping geology, biology and culture over time. 
By doing so, the essence of that place is revealed and thereby core guiding principles 
for future initiatives can be discerned. In taking such a place-sourced approach what 
becomes possible is not a short-term strategy, but a fifty- or even five-hundred-year 
trajectory for development.

Typically, development and renewal projects are the work of a (siloed) few, seeking 
to address problems that have arisen, with an eye on the immediate issues, working 
to time and money constraints, and rarely taking into account wider considerations 
and interdependencies, let alone listening to the unique stories of place. A city, for 
example, may be facing urban growth that puts pressure on essential services and 
housing requiring the reconfiguration of neighbourhoods and risking social and 
ecological disruption. Locally, a community suffering from the consequences of 
disaffected youth might look to further means for curtailing their behaviour, missing 
opportunities to harness their energy, while (church) leaders may decide to establish 
as a missional initiative a community garden to address rising costs of living but find 
themselves quickly facing issues of sustainability.

Regenerative Development does not focus on a problem in an attempt to fix, contain 
or manage it, but proactively engages in deep listening and “imaging” to identify 

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purposeful potential – the inherent, long-term directional possibilities emerging from 
context. “Imaging is different from imagination. It is a focused effort to see some-
thing accurately and from the inside, as it really is” (Regenesis Institute 2023a: 3). 
In order to do this, the whole story of a setting needs to be taken into account in 
order to discover its inherent potential sourced in its essence. Then it is a process of 
“seeing how that essence can be uniquely value-adding within its con-text” (Mang and 
Haggard 2016: 123). For Regenerative Development, this requires the collaborative 
involvement not only of would-be decision-makers, but all those who will be affected 
from the past, present and future. The Law of Three facilitates what could present as 
a complexity of disparate ideas. It understands that truly creative thinking is enabled 
by activating forces inspiring new ideas, restraining forces that identify those things 
that could constrain and thus need integrated consideration (often articulated by 
the receiver), and reconciling forces that bring the first two together and enable “a 
shift in level or insight” (Regenesis Institute 2023b: 2).  In such a process place and 
its unique qualities is crucial, for Regenerative Development believes we must allow 
nature and indigeneity to shape us if we are to thrive as nested eco-systems. A given 
project may be place-based – an imposition of an idea on a living community; the aim 
is to be place-sourced – inspired by what we encounter. Deep listening is therefore a 
matter of paying attention not only to current need but, in the case of a community’s 
development, the interweaving of realities sourced in historical human knowledges 
of and behaviour in that place, ecological and, deeper still, geological truth.

The focus on place recognizes that eco-systems are unique expressions of interde-
pendent communities – animated in ways particular to each location, “touchstones 
for shared meaning and caring” (Mang and Haggard 2023: xxxii). Who and what we 
are and can become is inevitably shaped by place. As Rebecca Solnit has observed, 
“Places matter. Their rules, their scale, their design include or exclude civil society, 
pedestrianism, equality, diversity…They map our lives” (Solnit 2007: 9). In a real way 
vocation emerges from this mapping, essentially of soul. For a true thriving there will 
be congruence of the past, present and future, across land, water, rocks, vegetation, 
human and other life forms. Indigenous peoples have been profoundly aware of this 
for millennia: those of us who have inherited Western enlightenment thinking need 
to recover this understanding.

Such thinking recognizes the complex reality that we exist within interrelated (or 
nested) systems that not only have an impact upon us, but which we also impact.  
Regenerative Development is built upon systems thinking, including the work of 
John Bennett in the 1960s (Bennett 1992). In his work, four sources underpin activity 
toward realizing potential: the ground and the goal (motivations revealing the why, 

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that take into account need and aspiration); and the directive force and instruments 
(means of engaging). In Regenerative Development they become:

Figure 1 Regenerative Tetrad with Bennett ’s terms added 
(Regenesis Institute 2023b: 6)

The starting point for seeking motivation is the question ‘What is the unique and 
inherent potential of this place?’ for that will help in identifying the regenerative 
capability of the work. Discernment of the vocation of that place (its essence that will 
inspire guiding principles for long-term decision-making), deployed in an approach 
committed to co-evolving mutualism of all natural and human parts, constitute the 
means. This is not a process therefore of the visioning so popular with many leaders 
with its sense of casting an idea forward, but of identifying purpose – a profoundly 
grounded exercise exemplifying the Māori proverb, “Ka mua, ka muri,” we walk into 
the future facing the past.

Two other approaches to change are also woven into Regenerative Development. 
Permaculture, “originated by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s … 
discerns patterns in natural and human systems in order to weave them together 
as dynamic wholes” and Developmental Change Processes commit communities to 
working together to co-evolve “the potential of place, rather than struggling over the 
limits presented by existing conditions” (Mang and Haggard 2016: xv). The overall 
result is that design (and planning) is linked to process rather than end product and 
is held with an open hand while being grounded.

It is important to note that whenever and wherever this work is done, systems thinking 
requires of us an awareness that whatever our “whole” might be – the geographical 
or conceptual project we are focused on – it is nested within, and offers nesting to, 

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other wholes. The concept is of interdependent holarchies as opposed to discrete 
hierarchies – nested and interweaving ecosystems. A building project, or a project 
centred on a building, for example, should not consider the building individually but 
be mindful of its role as both a host of wholes and belonging to larger wholes, or 
systems. Truly regenerative work, embarked upon in a way that gathers the voices, 
understandings and creativity of all invested parties, human and of nature, should 
thus enable thriving beyond the immediate sphere. In the thinking of organiza-
tional architects James Clark and Charles Krone, writing in the 1970s, humans have 
the potential to awaken “the capability embodied in all living systems for creating 
increasing levels of vitality, viability, and the capacity to evolve” if we would only think 
in these new (yet, for indigenous peoples, old) ways (Plaut and Amedée 2018: 5). As 
noted earlier, deep listening is required to discern what is essential and wherein lies 
potential; self-awareness to set aside ego in order to align and image with others the 
possibilities of the nested whole is a continuing (regenerative) necessity. Spirit in and 
through all is key; deep calling to deep.

3 The process and our discoveries
Most commonly Regenerative Development has been applied to urban design and 
development projects, as well as community development. We agreed to apply it 
to our life as a gathered and dispersed community of faith (gathering on Sundays 
to worship at 8 Mt Eden Road but living and working during the week across the 
city of Auckland) to address two fundamental questions: What is the Spirit saying to 
Cityside at this time?; and Who/What is Cityside being called to be in this place?

Pre-intro

Intro

Background and Research

Learning

Finding Patterns

Identifying Potential

Guiding Principles

Vison Development

Practical Work Plan

PH
AS

E 
O

N
E

PH
AS

E 
TH

RE
E

PH
AS

E 
TW

O

Figure 2 Three Phases (Haines 2020: Slide 2)



Three phases were shaped up to enable us to discern the essence of Cityside and 
this place, what we could look like, feel and do in a regenerative state, and what our 
guiding principles and commitments might be. Together they help us discover and 
enable in this iteration three of the four elements of the Regenerative tetrad noted 
earlier: place-sourced potential, co-evolving mutualism and vocation of place. The 
fourth – regenerative capability – being the goal.

Figure 3 Cityside’s Tetrad (Haines 2022)

Several months were devoted to the first phase and particularly to researching 
our “Stories of Place”.  Five storylines were explored by Cityside members: tangata 
whenua (indigenous) stories; geological, ecological and water stories; neighbour-
hood stories; church history; and Cityside stories.

3.1 Phase One: Stories of Place
3.1.1 Tangata whenua
Cityside is located under the shadow of Maungawhau, “The Mountain of the Whau 
tree” (also known as Mt Eden), a volcano of some significance for local iwi (Māori 
tribes) in Tāmaki Makaurau, or the Auckland region (Geonet, n.d.). An elder, Matua 
Paora Puru of Waiohua, a confederation of tribes, took members of Cityside up the 
mountain on a hikoi named Te Aro Oho – A Journey of Awakening. As part of that 
journey, we learned that until about ad 1700 thousands of Māori had lived there 

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in an enormous pā, a terraced citadel. You can still see the evidence of this carved 
into the maunga, along with indentations of house sites and food storage pits. The 
crater itself is known as “Te Kapua kai a Mataaho – ‘the food bowl of Mataaho’, the 
deity responsible for volcanic activity” (Tūpuna Maunga Authority , n.d). The whau, 
after which the maunga is named, is a native tree with large leaves whose wood is 
half again lighter than cork. The wood was used for rafts and outriggers on small 
waka (canoes) and as floats on fishing nets, the leaves as paper, and the sap and jelly 
beneath the bark for medicinal purposes (Te Mara Reo, n.d.). Meanwhile, in the valley 
between Maungawhau and the ridge on which Cityside is located is a puna or spring 
named Te Ipu Pakore, which was the main water source of the pā. The maunga for 
Māori therefore, we discovered, had been a home to many, a key source of shelter 
and sustenance, hospitality and healing, a refuge and place to both venture out from 
and return to. Interestingly today it also hosts a series of large rocks sourced from 
another key local volcano, Te Tātua a Riukiuta, the only surviving scoria cone of three 
in the wake of quarrying. This is to maintain the memory and the mana (spiritual 
power and authority) of these lost ancestors.

3.1.2 Geology, hydrology, ecology
Investigation into our geological history reveals that while we are located on tuff – 
rock made of volcanic ash ejected during an eruption – it does not come from Maun-
gawhau, our closest mountain, but from Pukekawa, the volcano now at the heart 
of Auckland’s central business district. The lava of Maungawhau meets the tuff of 
Pukekawa at the ridge on which Cityside sits. Hydrologically “the porous volcanic soil 
[across the area] causes rainfall to quickly soak away, and the large fractures and 
even caverns in the rock allow large amounts of water to be stored and move under-
ground” creating an aquifer below ground – the ongoing source for puna (springs) 
nearby – and a stream above ground flowing eastward to the sea (Dewerse, Dewerse 
and Skilling 2022: 2). Alongside this significant water resource, the volcanic soil itself 
is extremely fertile, rich in magnesium and potassium, creating an abundant ecolog-
ical oasis. A lush forest grew alongside a wetland, both full of native trees and plants 
good for food and medicine as well as native birds, lizards, fish and eels. Māori, 
arriving from Polynesia, added kumera, taro and uwhi (yams), cultivating significant 
gardens and using warm rocks from Maungawhau to enable these tropical plants 
to grow. Living with the land they came to see themselves as its descendants and 
kaitiaki (guardians and caretakers). Europeans and Chinese from the 1840s altered 
the landscape, building houses and roads along main arterials following ridgelines 
such as ours, as well as market gardens. “In a short space of time, the fertile soil, 
the stream, the spring, the forest and wetlands disappeared beneath concrete and 
asphalt” (Dewerse, Dewerse and Skilling 2022: 3).

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3.1.3 The neighbourhood
Reflection on the neighbourhood noted our neighbours as not only being the volca-
noes, our abundant water sources and fertile soils, but also the thirteen iwi (Māori 
tribes) who have lived, moved through and interacted in this area over time. There 
is an invitation and challenge to deep relationship in the mihi, or salutation, given 
to Cityside by Matua Paora Puru, our guide on Maungawhau: “Ka pa he taura waka 
e motu, he hono tangata e kore e motu.” Unlike a canoe rope, a human bond and 
connection can never be severed. (Kingdon, 2022: 6). Today, as in pre-European 
times, we are located on the edge of a tuff that is both a point of convergence and 
a thoroughfare “on the way to elsewhere” (Kingdon 2022: 7). Down the road is a 
train station that has been key to the Auckland rail network since the 1880s. Not far 
away is the Mt Eden Corrections Facility, a fortress-like prison built in 1882, today a 
reception centre for male remand prisoners in the Auckland region. While the area 
overall has gone from housing to industrialization and back, postcodes for our neigh-
bourhood have been changing in recent times as apartments have been appearing 
and the population has been densifying. If you examine our neighbourhood over 
time it evidences cycling patterns of showing promise or lapsing into dubiousness, of 
housing people or becoming industrial, of land being fertile and abundant or contam-
inated, of being vibrant and artsy or soullessly functional. Today it has been dubbed 
“Uptown”. Maungawhau has been redesignated sacred and is a place for walkers to 
pause and remember. A new housing development is under way with accommoda-
tion for business and light industry. Not-for-profit organisation For the Love of Bees 
has established an exemplary no-till regenerative organic market garden in what 
was an empty contaminated lot and 8Space gathers together a vibrant arts commu-
nity. There is renewed intent and possibility.

3.1.4 Church history
The land our church building sits upon was part of the Waitemata block “gifted” by 
a local Māori chief to the British around 1840.2 Baptist activity first began in a house 
a few streets away with the founding of a Sunday School in 1864 by Theophilus B. 
Heath to give children local to Mt Eden something divinely-shaped to do on their 
weekends (Kingdon 2022: 6). Rapidly-growing, a dedicated building catering for up to 
200 children was erected in 1865 at the junction of three main arterials. Then in 1885, 
Heath’s home church planted Mt Eden Baptist further down the main road on the 

2 “Gifted” is enclosed in speech marks because while the British understood it therefore as ownership, 
and able to be bought and sold for Māori “tuku whenua” is land gifted for a purpose to be used respon-
sibly and without alienation of the land, in the context of ongoing mutual relationship. In the perspec-
tive of Māori, this gifting has been abused (Healy 2009: 111–34).



current site. Adult membership multiplied ten-fold within two years, partly because 
of political commitment to the temperance movement. Over time, from being a 
church plant the community at Mt Eden became church planters. Twelve other Auck-
land Baptist churches existing today had Mt Eden Baptist members involved in their 
founding, a fact which meant our church waxed and waned in number as people 
engaged beyond.  From such significant evolutions, by the 1950s industrialization 
was overtaking housing in the area, reducing attendance. In 1960 the congrega-
tion decided to close and offer the building for the use of the Baptist City Mission. 
It became a key centre of resourcing and refuge, particularly for those who were 
homeless. An article in the Central Leader newspaper in 1971 called it “an oasis of 
relief in Auckland’s concrete jungle” (Prince 1971: 5). Thirty-five years later, in the 
wake of one hundred years of very Christological cycles of dying and rising, a new 
ministry emerged with the constitution of the faith community of Cityside in 1995.

3.1.5 Cityside
This storyline, being the most recent, coalesced through conversation and contribu-
tion. It was actually the first piece of research undertaken and included interviews 
with our two previous pastors, two former children’s programme leaders, and five 
long-standing members; five reflective Zoom sessions open to all current attendees 
which more than thirty-five people attended; and the opportunity for the commu-
nity to construct an online Map of Time and Heart exploring when Citysiders first 
came to the community and why, and why they have stayed. The data from more 
than fifty people on the Map pretty much sums up the original intent and realised 
potential to date. The majority came because they no longer felt at home in Church, 
wanted a faith community in which they could be fully themselves, and/or because 
of relational connections. They stay because honest wondering is truly welcome as 
per our tagline “Thinking aloud allowed,” for the authenticity and challenge to the 
status quo, the emphasis on participation, silence and creativity, the inclusivity and 
aliveness of spirit, the commitment in our lives and work to the good of our wider 
world, and the deep friendships that have been forged. For many, Cityside is an edgy 
oasis to come to and go out from.

3.2 Phase Two: Discerning deeper
We spent time learning and presenting the storylines to our community because it 
was important for us all to hear, understand and process these if together we were 
to uncover the essence of place so important for discerning our unique vocation, 
and thus responding to “Why Cityside, here?” Our children too engaged in experi-
ential reflection by walking in our neighbourhood and the Maungawhau rock forest 
and exploring the nooks and crannies of our building. As the storylines were cele-
brated – woven into our worship services – key observations were noted on tall 

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three-dimensional blackboards standing as pillars amongst us. We colour-coded and 
drew connecting lines as we formally and informally reflected together on what was 
emerging. We asked five questions: What is unique to this place?; What has influ-
enced and is influencing Cityside’s role?; What resonates for us personally?; What do 
we hear amongst us as we share responses?; and What does this mean for Cityside’s 
role and potential? Children and adults alike journalled and conversed. The “Regen 
Boards” we populated together provided the data against which all subsequent 
parts of our Regenerative Process were cross-referenced by our facilitator Rhyll and 
a small team of key Cityside Regenerative Practitioners and leaders supporting her.

In the wake of the storyline sessions one of that team, Karen Haines, wrote the 
following responsive prayer. It usefully summarised our storylines, expressed our 
desire, and began the distillation process.

Cityside is built on ancient tuff
at a meeting of the ways, travelled by pathfinders.
We seek wisdom in our journeying.

Cityside is near a spring,
nourishing life, an oasis to splash in.
We seek wisdom as we, too, thirst.

Cityside wants to honour Tiriti partnership
making space to listen, to understand, to kōrero together.
We seek wisdom in our learning.

Cityside has met the needs of community:
children learning, church planting, provision for lost adults, space for meeting.
We seek wisdom to be good neighbours.

Cityside has nurtured imagination,
drawn in artists, musicians, way-finders, free-thinkers.
We seek wisdom as we create and recreate.

Cityside is on a hill, visible from a distance
edgy, being out front.
We seek wisdom as we influence others.



The next step saw us, across three workshops with small groups of people, focused 
on defining, refining and finalizing an articulation of Cityside’s essence of place 
arising from the data gathered. As Rhyll noted in her report:

Much like our personal essence that endures and transforms through our lifespan, 
the essence of place is also unique and enduring. Collective action can be empow-
ered when the unique essence of a communities[sic] place is uncovered and expressed. 
Asking if we are being true to essence, keeps our collective direction alive and free of 
personal agendas. Providing much more than plans or activities that tell or ask people 
what they think, we have instead an invitation to learn and respond collectively to 
what is emerging. We can move forward with essence as both a reflection and a guide. 
(Stafford 2023: 17)

Cityside’s Essence:
A nourishing wellspring
where journeys converge,
a waypoint at the edge,
providing sanctuary
as we creatively explore and question,
respond to and engage in our world. (Stafford 2023: 16)

Once confirmed, past and present Cityside council members sought to distil core 
principles. We drew not only on our Regenerative work to date, but also a set of 
Community Priorities and a Statement of Intent drawn up by then leaders in 2014 
that proved encouragingly, consistently resonant.

We seek to be a transforming community following in the Way of Jesus the Christ, 
through practices of prayer, hospitality and engagement in our world – local and 
global.
We hope to nurture depth, beauty and vitality in ourselves and in the world around us.
We aim to sustain and resource Christian practice, and work towards the restoration 
of all life. (Stafford 2023: 32)

Our principles we consequently named as: Relational, Restorative, Creative. The 
expectation is that into the future all decisions in any part of our community life be 
cast and reviewed through their lens to ensure we honour our discerned essence.

3.3 Phase Three: Ka mua, ka muri
In Regenerative Development, as noted earlier, awareness of nested systems and 
interdependency is important because “in a truly healthy state, each system adds 

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value to the other” (Stafford 2023: 19). The activity in our building across every day of 
the week reminds us that Cityside is only one whole within its whole as other groups 
also find home here. Not only that, Jesus’ command to love our neighbours (Mk 
12.31), cast through the Regenerative frame, requires that we consider our human 
and natural neighbours beyond our building, local and global. While we know this, 
the Regenerative process nonetheless invites us in our next season to intentional 
accountability that is true to our essence conducted in ways that are always rela-
tional, restorative and creative. Having said this, it is important to note that for our 
indigenous members such reminders are unnecessary. Early in the Regenerative 
process they noted that its commitments and insights are intrinsic to their world-
view. This makes it even more urgent that we honour the call to deep relationship 
woven into Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

What therefore could Cityside look like in a regenerating state? Further workshops 
sought to respond to this question, imagining practically what this might mean. We 
identified three ways we would recognize we are regenerating, set the following 
goals for the next three years within those, and identified an accountability struc-
ture including timeframes and people responsible to see them carried out.

Cityside as a Church [will be] sustaining an authentic and responsive Christian centre 
– reading the ‘signs of our time’ as a dispersed community.
1. Weaving Cityside spiritual practices, encouraging those on the margins and

multiple voices.
2. Understanding and developing co-governance. Equipping Pākehā.3

3. Creating a cultural shift: Relational spirituality/Being intergenerational.
Cityside … [will be] providing a meaningful contribution to our neighbourhoods: local,
theological and ideological.
1. Developing Cityside as a community hub…(establishing a ‘Community Weaver’

role).
2. Initiatives in the Building (including Social Enterprises).
Cityside building and surrounds [will be] creating a place of solace and restoration,
in connection with our local environment, providing contemplation for Citysiders and
others.
1. Building renovation. [Note: during the Regenerative Process the City Council hired

our hall and kitchen to provide people in the area with “quiet space” when the rede-

3 Pākehā initially referred to those of British descent. It can also refer to all non-indigenous New 
Zealanders.



velopment of the local train station got too much for them, affirming our essence 
as sanctuary.]

2. Residential Intergenerational Community – An offsite option.

One Sunday, when practical ideas to realize the goals were presented, there was 
significant energy generated with a surprising number of people offering their crea-
tivity, skills and time. This was a first affirmation for us that when development is 
sourced in the essence of place, imagination can be sparked and vitality enabled. 
As Rhyll noted, however, moving into a regenerating state is a commitment taking 
years, not months. “Building the required capacity and capability for a regenerative 
direction can be a creative challenge, needing action as well as plenty of room to 
experiment, reflect, adapt and learn” (Stafford 2023: 31). This is the space Cityside 
now find ourselves in.

4 What can Regenerative Development offer to 
church renewal?

There may in fact be much in our story and this approach to renewal that seems 
unsurprising. Missional church leaders know the importance of surveying one’s 
neighbourhood to ensure initiatives undertaken are congruent with need. History 
is something congregations often like to recall and assess the present in the light 
of. But in our context, where the possibility of numerical growth by which health is 
so often judged is becoming elusive for many church congregations, Regenerative 
Development offers a wider perspective and frame.

The concept of renewal has been significantly influenced since 1961 by the work of 
Donald McGavran, who inspired the Church Growth Movement (CGM) (McGavran 
and Wagner 1990). McGavran promoted evangelism conducted via a genuine under-
standing of local culture though in the hands of others CGM developed into a focus on 
quantitative measurement and over-simplified formulas for church growth (Stetzer 
2012). In the 1990s one such formula given significant profile was Rick Warren’s 
Purpose Driven Church offering five strategies. This focused on “purpose” via internal 
people-building to create health bringing growth (Warren 1995).  More recently 
the concern has been to understand church life cycles because “Learning life cycle 
status often provides a sense of urgency for church leaders as they plan for new 
cycles of growth and development to avoid the life cycle of decline” (General Baptist 
Ministries 2016, n.p.). The key perceived problem, to be avoided if at all possible, is 
decline and death. “Redemptive potential” is the antidote – a quantitative analysis of 
income, membership and activities to realise a comfort zone that enables transition 
into a larger church size (General Bapist Ministries, n.p.) Embedded in all of this is 

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the assumption that the responsibility for renewal lies on the shoulders of “church 
leaders”, or the church leader, who must cast a vision for others to follow.

Related to these approaches but deviating a little, other initiatives have pressed 
again into sociological understanding for empowering renewal. “Place” is acknowl-
edged as important and “ecology” is even spoken of, but typically these terms refer 
to the church building as per the model for growth for leaders profiled in Holy Places: 
Matching Sacred Space with Mission and Message, or to human community evidenced 
in local demographics of changing cultural and socio-economic reality (DeMott, 
Shapiro and Bill 2007). Alice Mann in her chapter entitled “Place-Based Narratives” 
took a step further and investigated the historical story to reveal the “soul of place,” 
but stopped there (Mann 2010: 63). Bids for renewal, even when sourced in attempts 
at appreciative enquiry, fundamentally remain problem-centred and anthropocen-
tric.

Regenerative Development affirms uniqueness of place and, rather than being 
focused on the problem, seeks to discern vocation arising from place-sourced 
potential through wide collaboration. Regenerative Development recognises that 
an organizational entity is not an entity unto itself operating independently and on 
its own terms in the world around it. Beginning with the boundary of the greater 
whole, which could be, say, the city limits, we look at the systems nested within that 
boundary. We explore how ecology, geology as well as sociology and anthropology 
affect a place historically to the present and then, based on this information, into the 
future. The outcome of this is that the entity doesn’t “do to” the world around it, but 
“works with”. At first this sounds like classic missional thinking, but the major differ-
ence is that it is not anthropocentric in the first instance. After deep listening to the 
nested systems it finds itself in, the church discovers its vocation, which determines 
shape and service. We should not underestimate the seismic shift in thinking here. 
Rather than “mission to” the emphasis is on “participating in”. A church then is inte-
grated already, particularly if it has a building.

In this frame, evangelism and church “growth” is dramatically expanded from a 
fundamentally quantitative exercise into a qualitative journey, and into a service 
model rather than a saving model. It is no longer an “us and them” but simply an 
“us”. We become participants in the systems we are nested within rather than set 
up against them. Furthermore, the attitude the church has towards itself is more 
humble and accepting of ebbs and flows in the church life. For example, the chil-
dren’s ministry that once thrived is allowed not to now. It is not a crisis if an ebb 
takes place. Trying to avoid decline and death at all costs is arguably not consistent 
with the acknowledgement at the heart of the gospel and affirmed by Paul in the 

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Epistle to the Romans, that it is dying that makes rising possible. Part of the crisis 
in Western churches, we would suggest, is that we see existence needing to be a 
continual progression in growth. Worldviews that are cyclical in orientation accept 
waxing and waning as a part of life; “unforming” is as vital as forming and re-forming 
in the process of renewal (Lee 2022: 7). From another angle, as Steve Taylor noted, 
we need to be very cautious about assigning value to permanency (Taylor 2019). 
Cityside’s own Stories of Place affirm the beauty of reimagination and rebirth, as well 
as our need for repentance. As in permaculture, instead of growth being territorial 
and imposing, health incorporates death and decay to give way to more life.

If the focus on place that Regenerative Development requires seems to fly in the 
face of the old adage that a “church is not the building but the people”, the wisdom 
of indigenous peoples reminds us that landscapes are living beings and we are inte-
grally connected to them. As David Titterington has noted, landscapes are “actors … 
‘agentic’ … shape[ing] our beliefs, our bodies, and our minds” (Titterington 2017: n.p). 
Reminiscent of the Law of Three, “they also enable, inspire, and constrain much of 
our activities … Societies and stories take place” (Titterington 2017: n.p). The biblical 
record itself evidences the importance of place for shaping identity and grounding 
potential. “The place where we live tells us who we are – how we relate to other 
people, to the larger world around us, even to God” (Lane 2007: 22). For Cityside, a 
dispersed community where the majority of members do not live in the suburb of 
Mount Eden during the week, a lingering question was how can a process focused 
on the place of our building be relevant to our everyday lives? The understanding of 
nested and interdependent holarchies affirms, however, the resonance of discerned 
patterns in one place (for us restoring, relating and creating) for influencing life in 
others. In Spirit the essence of place goes with us.

5 Conclusion
When it comes to how we might effect church renewal, a warning from the leaders 
of Regenesis Institute is useful: “On the face of it, the promulgation of good ideas 
around the world seems sensible. Yet it has the insidious effect of transforming living 
communities into commodities. It flattens reality, ironing out the differentiation and 
diversity that makes all the places of the world rich, resilient, and interesting” (Regen-
esis Institute 2023c: 13). At Cityside, as a result of the Regenerative process we have 
undertaken to date, we have caught a glimpse of how hopeful and vital our life can 
be, within a transformed understanding of viability.

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About the authors
Rosemary Dewerse is currently Academic Dean at the Uniting College for Leadership 
and Theology in Adelaide, Australia, part of the University of Divinity. In 2020–21 
she was Chair of the Council of Cityside Baptist and supported the initiation and, 
beyond that, the application of Regenerative Development. Contact: rdewerse@
unitingcollege.edu.au

Roxanne Haines works as a Placemaker in strategic development in an urban design 
context for Eke Panuku, Auckland Council’s urban regeneration agency in Aotearoa 
New Zealand. A trained Regenerative Practitioner she was a key initiator of, leader in, 
and contributor to the Cityside Regenerative Process.

Stu McGregor has been the Minister of Cityside Baptist Church since 2015 and 
completed the Regenerative Practitioner Course in 2022–23 in the wake of the events 
described here. He has a postgraduate diploma in Theology from Tyndale Carey 
Graduate School.

Acknowledgements
Rhyll Stafford for access to her report which contains a summary of the extensive 
work undertaken and the emerging outcomes.

The Cityside Baptist Council for permission to write this article.

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