About Us

Vision

We exist to make disciples - people who love God, do life together, and bring Life to others. What does that look like?

It looks like how this great city looks at night. Covered in sparkling street lights. From God's perspective we are those lights - inviting and compelling, blanketing this city. We are to stand out in quiet ways. To be places of open arms and open hearts, inviting people to find God's love, God's answers, and God's purpose. Wherever we live and work and play - homes, offices, gyms, cafes, student flats, school gates, from the hills to the valley, from Port to the peninsula - like the streetlights that blanket our city, we are to be disciples of Jesus who make a difference where we are.

Mission

Our mission is to do Life together and bring Life to others. We do that through 2 primary activities:

  1. Great services
  2. Lifegroups

In these activities we intentionally fulfill 5 purposes:

  • Worship
  • Discipleship
  • Fellowship
  • Ministry
  • Mission

Strategy

  1. Great services where we all get together - fun, inspiring, and encouraging. Times where God is present, and where lives get touched and changed.
  2. Lifegroups - small groups of people meeting in lounges and cafes, anywhere that works. People together learning what it means to love God, to do life together in the good and the bad, and to bring His life to others in relevant and real ways.

What Does 'Elim' Mean?

This unusual word has a very interesting background. It was the name of an oasis mentioned in the Bible, located on the escape route of the Israelites from Egypt to the land God had promised them.

You can imagine what this oasis meant to weary people after days of slogging through the soft, clinging desert sand with the sun beating down relentlessly on their backs.

Exodus 15:27 says that at Elim there were 70 palm trees clustered round twelve wells, and, after the dust and heat and thirst of the desert, the shade of the stately palms and the cool sparkle of those refreshing springs must have seemed like heaven on earth.

It was this idea of finding rest and refreshing that inspired the name 'Elim'.

For many people life is like a desert. They just exist in a monotonous round of working, eating, sleeping. For them - perhaps for you - even the pleasures of life are no more than a kind of mirage - ultimately meaningless and unsatisfying.

The emptiness of life without real purpose can be transformed into the richness of a life that is meaningful because it is lived out of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

You can know this reality in your life! Drop in and see us at Elim - we'll be glad to tell you all about it and share it with you.

More Information

For our Visitors Guide, Elim History, Statement of Beliefs, or to learn about Elim New Zealand we invite you to take a look at our National website: www.elim.org.nz.

For details of other churches in Dunedin, click here.