A chance meeting with Archbishop Justin in 2015 led theology student and Deacon Alan Alan to shift from a long career in hospitality to stand alongside struggling rangatahi.

“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.”

Alan had always mentored young people in hospitality, but didn't realise it was preparing him for his future vocation.

“One of the most satisfying things was watching young people thrive. Even though I couldn’t really articulate it, I realised way back then that if you give them opportunity, resources and mentoring, they thrive."

Hearing about young people falling through the gaps with any support made Alan realise those rangatahi needed his help the most.

“We have to 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.”

As a result, Rev Alan Maxwell has spent the last decade helping rangatahi learn to reach their true potential and avoid the pitfalls of life.

That's included working with youth through the Diocese of Wellington Bishop's Trust, the Wairarapa Whānau Trust and most recently the Waihi Taiohi Trust.

Ordained deacon by Archbishop Justin Duckworth back in 2020, Alan is now studying theology and ministry at St John's College, where he's being backed by the Diocese of Waikato and Taranaki.

Of Tuhoe, Ngāti Whare, Ngai Te Rangi, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa descent, Alan recalls that coming to faith strengthened him in choosing a life of purpose shaped by hope and love. And that's something rangatahi saw in him too.

“Faith will get you through the hardest [things] 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.”

Alan believes his shift toward Anglicanism from his family's former church home at Equippers in Masterton shows God is the ‘master weaver’, who showed him his ministry in Featherston expanding outwards.

“We weren’t called to the church. We were called to the town. We knew we were called to that community."

Alan believes the way to minister best is to connect well within a community and identify where gaps and needs prompt a faithful response. For Alan that means building relationships and collaborating with others who are committed to their communities' wellbeing.

"My experiences have shown that we need to respond in love first, live out scripture in deeds and actions, and then the conversations usually follow around faith and Christ."

Currently Alan Maxwell wife Kat Maxwell and their three teenaged children are part of the Diocese of Waikato-Taranaki, where he believes closer collaboration between the three tikanga can help rangatahi succeed.

“There's a lot of treasure, I think, in an indigenous way of how God moved here, because he didn’t move in a Pākehā container.”

“I’d love to see them [the tikanga strands of the church] come back together ... like a thread... So you keep your own colours and your own identity, but you weave the new pattern."