Category: Exploring Sacred Spaces

This is the third year in a row that the Auckland Inter-Faith Council has organised “Exploring Sacred Spaces”, a series of public visits to various places of worship. Since 2018 we have linked the initiative to the Auckland Heritage Festival, and have benefitted from the widespread promotion and advertising. In 2019 we organised five separate visits, as shown in the poster above.

The motto of the 2019 Festival as decided by Auckland Council was: “Journeys – Explore the stories of how our people travelled to Tāmaki Makaurau to create a shared future together”. This theme suited us well, as people who immigrated to New Zealand and settled in Auckland brought with them not only brought their language and culture but also their religious beliefs, and have been building places of worship.

Please click here for the 2019 report.

In 2017 Auckland Interfaith Council (AIFC) initiated “Exploring Sacred Spaces” – a series of public visits to various faith venues over a two week period. The purpose of this initiative is to offer a friendly and non-threatening opportunity to visit faith communities now populating our city. During the visits the guests tour the facility and a representative of the hosts provides some basic information about their beliefs and worship practices. The visitors experience first -hand the atmosphere and hospitality of each sacred place and have a chance to ask questions.

What was new this year is that AIFC arranged to hold the series of Exploring Sacred Spaces visits in conjunction with Auckland Council’s annual Auckland Heritage Festival . This year the Festival’s theme was “The Heritage of our People”, which tied in perfectly with the Sacred Spaces concept. The booklets and online promotion of the Festival allowed a much wider audience to learn about our planned visits. The response exceeded all expectations, and we welcomed close to 600 people over the course of the five visits. The visits were mostly held on weekend afternoons, and were free of charge and open to the public.

Please click here for the 2018 report.