A Prayer for our local elections and Māori ward referendums.
As postal voting begins in local council elections and referendums on whether to keep or remove Māori wards, we invite you to join us in prayer for God’s Spirit to be guiding us and our communities in this process.
You may like to read out this prayer during a Sunday service, or put it in your church bulletin between now and the end of voting on October 11th.
This prayer is available in English and Te reo Māori. The English is provided by Archbishop Sir David Moxon, and the Te reo translation by Rev Hamish Dobbie.
O God of all that lives and breathes,
We give thanks for these lands,
our island home
and the first peoples of this land that have nurtured it over generations.
Wherever our ancestors came from,
You have made us all of one blood, one breath, one life.
We carry your image with us;
we all walk the same earth you gave us.
We give thanks for the Treaty at Waitangi here and the promise it gave;
the foundation it provided and the vision it shared.
We pray for the hope that this covenant holds and the potential it offers.
Guide us all in the faith and hope and love we need to enrich our democracy and our way of life.
Guide us, uphold us and move us to act for justice, for freedom and for peace;
to strive for your new creation as Easter people.
May we find and be found in the ways of your wisdom
as we discern how to support our local councils, how to consider our referendum choices,
and how to approach our right to vote with prayer and goodwill.
We make this prayer in the name of Jesus The Way, The Truth, and The Life.
Amen
E te Atua e whakahā ana i te mauri ora ki
ngā mea katoa.
E mihi atu nei ki tēnei kāinga o mātou,
me te iwi taketake kua tiaki i tēnei whenua
mai rā anō.
Ahakoa haere mai ō mātou tūpuna ki hea,
I tuku mai koe i tō ihoatua ki tēnā, ki tēnā.
Nā reira he tototahi, he hātahi, he oratahi
mātou katoa e takahitahi ana i te mata o te
whenua.
E mihi atu nei ki te Tiriti o Waitangi
I tū ai hei oati, hei tūranga, hei kitenga hoki
mō anamata.
Ka īnoi mātou ki tēnei kawenata, ki tōna
tūmanako me tōna pitomata.
Aratakina mātou katoa i runga i te tika, te
pono, me te aroha, kia haumako ai i te māra
o te manapori.
Whakamanamanatia mātou i te aruaru o te
mana motuhake me te rangimārie,
hei iwi o te aranga.
Kia whai mātou i tō mātauranga
i roto i tō mātou wānanga kia kite me pēhea
e tautoko ai i ngā kaunihera ā-rohe, me ā
mātou whiringa pōti i runga i te īnoi me te
whakaaro pai.
I runga i te ingoa o Īhu,
Te huarahi, te pono, me te ora,
Āmine.