“Go to the dark spaces, because that is where we’re called to go, no matter how uncomfortable, because that’s where Jesus would be.”
Deacon Alan Maxwell has spent a lifetime helping rangatahi reach their true potential and avoid the pitfalls of life. The St John’s College student is using his faith to help find new ways of continuing that mahi.
“It was coming into faith that made me realise the difference between living a life and having a life of purpose. It’s that whole faith, hope and love.
“Faith will get you through the hardest no matter what it looks like, the circumstance doesn’t matter, as long as you hold on to your faith, because God will do something.”
Maxwell transitioned into the Anglican Church from a Pentecostal church. While he and his family enjoyed his time there, he says it shows God is the ‘master weaver’, finding his calling in Featherston.
“We weren’t called to the church. We were called to the town. We knew we were called to that community. It’s really the parable of the seed; it’s not about the seed. So I transitioned and became just as much a community led development guy as I did a youth guy.
“The idea that the whole central kind of family unit [is all you need], and you don’t need anyone else is rubbish. Everybody needs that wider community.”
Of Tuhoe, Ngāti Whare, Ngai Te Rangi, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa descent, Maxwell acknowledges a chance meeting with Archbishop Justin Duckworth for his drive to work with rangatahi having forged a career in hospitality and developing young people into their own careers.
“One of the most satisfying things was always watching young people thrive. Even though I couldn’t really articulate it, I realised way back then was that if you give them opportunity, resources and mentoring, they thrive.
“When I first heard Archbishop Justin preaching in Masterton, he talked about picking up your cross, not your pillow. He said Ministry can be death by comfort. The difference is he walks it and talks it and he goes into those uncomfortable spaces.”
Currently Deacon Maxwell sits within Tikanga Pākehā, in the Waikato-Taranaki diocese, he believes closer collaboration between the three tikanga can help rangatahi succeed.
“I’d love to see them come back together more like a thread, though. So you keep your own colors and your own identity, but you weave the new pattern. I think there’s a time because you don’t know what you don’t know, and the only way you know is coming together.
“There is a lot of treasure, I think, in an indigenous way of how God moved here, because he didn’t move in a Pākehā container.”