Te Mārama Mō Te Ara
Our Vision, Mission, and Educational Imperatives
OUR VISION
Te Whakakitenga
“Te Karaiti Te Wānanga; Te Tairāwhiti Te Whare Wānanga.”
“Wānanga emerging in action; action evoking wānanga.”
TRC believes in indigenous and incarnational ways of teaching and learning. This reflects our understanding of Christ’s own incarnation as a powerful teaching and revelation:
“I whakakikokikoa te Kupu, ā noho ana i a mātau…kī tonu i te aroha noa, i te pono.” – Hoani 1:14
An indigenous and incarnational model of teaching at TRC is expressed through the ancient pedagogy of the Whare Wānanga that existed in Te Tairāwhiti.
Wānanga is a holistic and fully immersive form of teaching and education. It is based on the ideal that a person learns best when they learn in community, fully immersed in context and environment, with their senses fully energised and engaged.
Wānanga as a concept is both time and space. It provides for learning that creates depth through long-term engagement, in teaching-spaces that are fully immersive and energising.
The cultural depth from which Jesus lived and loved challenges us to incarnate our faith deeply into the cultural context within which we were born, and back into which God has sent us – where Christ is our Wānanga, and Te Tairāwhiti is our Whare Wānanga.
OUR MISSION
Te Whakatakanga
“Hai kaimahi anō tātau i te kupu; hai kaikauhau anō i te mahi.”
“To empower the community of God in Te Tairāwhiti to practice what we preach and preach what we practice.”
TRC is a community committed to living out its mission through deliberative and collaborative inquiry by developing, critically examining, communicating, or otherwise engaging the rich resources of Mihinare thought and imagination.
We work for the development of servant-leaders and ministers in a Mihinare environment in preparation for a lifetime of learning, leadership, and service.
We offer our students high-quality teaching and high levels of support to foster effective learning and provide the learning-base needed to minister effectively and at a high-quality standard within Te Tairāwhiti.
We aim to reduce obstacles that prevent access to education and ministry formation and to enable participation from rangatahi and wāhine in particular.
We want TRC to be a religious, educational, cultural, and social resource for the local community in te Tairāwhiti and a source of excellent indigenous theological Mihinare and Māori scholarship and practice for Tairāwhiti and the world.
We are committed to a rich international dimension in College life and to further our mission we work with a wide range of partners and seek to build fruitful and enduring relationships.
OUR VALUES
Ngā Uaratanga
TRC is guided by the following values:
Manaakitanga
Caring for people through hospitality, kindness, generosity, respect, welcome and support in step with God’s own welcome into God’s abundant life.
Whanaungatanga
Supporting one another and working together for the collective good, through love of neighbour and neighbourhood, that embraces whakapapa and focusses on relationship – with people, place, the divine, and the whole created order.
Auahatanga
Mirroring God’s nature by being creative in a created world. God, the source of creativity, invites us to share imaginatively in his creative activity through the embrace of freedom and innovation.
Mihinaretanga
Drawing on our Mihinare whakapapa Te Hāhi Mihinare / The Anglican Church to continue to build the Kingdom of God in the present.
Kaitiekitanga
Preserving, sheltering, protecting, and living in harmony with the environment – honouring what we have received and preserving it for future generations.
Mātauranga Māori
Approaching all understanding through God-given Māori ways of knowing – a way of perceiving and understanding the world, and the values and systems of thought that underpin those perceptions rooted in Te Tairāwhiti and Te Ao Māori.
OUR EDUCATIONAL IMPERATIVES
Ngā Whakahau Akoranga
Learning at TRC is based on three imperatives:
MISSIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE
To seek peace, justice, and liberation for the poor and the marginalised in Te Tairāwhiti.
“I tonoa mai ahau e te Matua, ka pērā anō tāku tono i a koutou” – Hoani 20:21b
THEOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE
To teach and demonstrate God’s aroha and radical manaakitanga in a way that alleviates poverty and injustice in immediate and practical ways and empowers others to do the same.
“Ko te tangata hoki kāhore e aroha ki tōna taina i kitea nei e ia, me pēhea ka aroha ai ia ki te Atua kāhore nei i kitea e ia? Kai a tātau anō hoki tēnei ture, he mea nāna, ‘Ko te tangata e aroha ana ki te Atua, kia aroha hoki ki tōna taina’” – 1 Hoani 4:20-21
PEDAGOGICAL IMPERATIVE
To teach the principles of the Christian faith using an indigenous incarnational model expressed through wānanga and praxis.
“I whakakikokikoa te Kupu, ā noho ana i a mātau … kī tonu i te aroha noa, i te pono” – Hoani 1:14
FEATURED PROGRAMMES
Check out some of TRC’s initiatives and programmes to see how we are living out our vision and mission.
Waiata Tira...
Rob and Cilla Ruha
Kaiwhakahaere
Tipu Ora...
Adrian Sutherland
Kaiwhakaako Tipu Ora
Kawea Te Rongopai
Rev. Cn Isaac Beach
Kaiwhakaako Kawea Te Rongopai
CONTACT US
Whakapā Mai
Tūranganui ā Kiwa / Gisborne, NZ
+64 (9) 867 8856
enquiries@teraucollege.ac.nz