On Palm Sunday I was at the Tauiwi Strategy and Stationing (TSS) meeting. Palm Sunday is the day we remember Jesus’s ‘triumphant’ entrance into Jerusalem, with the people gathered around him waving palm branches in the air.

Even as we wave, we know Jesus is moving inexorably to his death. Even as we despair, we wait in hope. The hope that comes with Jesus’s resurrection.

This then, is Holy Week for us. This journey from death to life with everything in between.

In the busyness of the TSS meeting, it was the devotional moments led by our Superintendents that focused our hearts and minds on this special week. Amidst all the kōrero and planning on issues as diverse as itinerancy, leadership and discernment processes for ministry - it was our prayer life that called us together to affirm that God is with us – in the the questions we ask, in our shared reflections, and in the hope that continues to spring afresh in our hearts.

In the words of St Augustine of Hippo “We are Easter people and ‘Alleluia’ is our song.”