ARISE Church is a multi campus church with six locations in New Zealand. Originally named City Church Wellington, it was founded in 2002 with seven people in a small dance and drama studio in Wellington. ARISE Church has since expanded to include campuses in six locations across New Zealand including Wellington, Hamilton, Whangarei, Kapiti, Christchurch, and Dunedin.
According to Paul Morris, Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University, ARISE is part of a "religious revival" in New Zealand's youth culture. Radio New Zealand's youth channel, The Wireless, compared ARISE to Australia's Hillsong Church, and other papers have described ARISE as having, "a big youth following" The Church responded to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake with immediate shipments of shelf-stable food to the devastated city.
ARISE Wellington now holds services every weekend in the largest indoor venues in the city, worshiping in the Michael Fowler Centre, TSB Bank Arena, and the St. James Theatre.
In 2015, the Church entered the permitting process for construction of a major new campus in the Wellington suburb of Petone which will include both worship and office space.
John and Gillian Cameron are the lead pastors of ARISE Church.
Theological
ARISE professes to adhere to a form of Christian theology that mostly resembles fundamental evangelical protestantism with elements of pentecostalism. This variety of theology has its roots in Calvinism (Reformed Protestantism). They make the following affirmations as the fundamental tenets of their faith: