The February 2011 earthquake caused severe damage to the central city. Over the last year, the Earthquake Recovery Authority has worked vigorously to demolish the damaged buildings. Eighty percent of the buildings in the central city have now been demolished. In a few months, all high-rise buildings will be gone.
The city fathers have embarked on an ambitious plan to rebuild the central city. Blinded by big insurance payouts and election promises from the central government, the city council is creating a grandiose plan for a bigger brighter city. However, just as this project gets underway, the cold winds of economic change will sweep across New Zealand and the money will dry up. The city leaders will discover that all the money that is left will be used up repairing the sewage, water and roading system.
The city council will push on regardless, but will eventually fall into the hole it has created, with liabilities that far exceed the values of its assets. The government in Wellington will not have the resources to come to its aid.
The rebuild of Christchurch will grind to a halt, leaving an empty hole in the centre of the city. A centreless city fits with God’s plan for Christchurch. He will build his kingdom from the outside in. He has been establishing small groups of kingdom seekers throughout the city. They are an invisible army that will take back the city for him.
The centre of the city is the place where political power and the powers of evil meet together to leverage their control. With the central city destroyed, their base of power will be gone, opening the way for God to build his kingdom from the edges.
Collapsed Cathedral
The men and women who established Christchurch saw the lights going out across Europe during the revolutions of 1848, so they developed a vision for a city where the Kingdom of God could be preserved. This vision was good, but their implementation failed, because their understanding of the kingdom was distorted by a Christendom outlook. God’s plan had an empty cross at the centre with the Holy Spirit flowing through the city to bring his life. The square at the centre of the city is not a square, but a cross. The river flows through the centre of the city in the shape of an S representing the Spirit.
The church leaders imposed their vision by building a cathedral on the cross at the centre of the city.
This symbolised the church dominating the institutions around it. This was the Christendom vision that shaped society in the early days of Christchurch.
This situation did not last. As society secularised, the key institutions moved out of the square and out of the shadow of the cathedral.
The cathedral took a serious hit from the earthquake and the tower tumbled to the ground. The church is now demolishing the cathedral and the cross at the centre of the city will soon be empty again. This is what God intended. This opens the way for a different type of kingdom. The old vision where the church controlled the institutions of society has died. The collapse of the cathedral in the centre symbolises that death and opens the way for a different type of Kingdom.
This Kingdom will come in Christchurch through a network of small groups of people listening to the voice of the Spirit, sharing with their brothers and sisters, suffering in the face of persecution and serving the people of the city. As the Holy Spirit is given freedom to do his work, the kingdom will flow out and be welcome throughout the city.
The centre of the city is the place where political power and the powers of evil meet together to leverage their control. With the central city destroyed, their base of power will be gone, opening the way for God to build his kingdom from the edges.
A centreless city fits with God’s plan for Christchurch. He will build his kingdom from the outside in. He has been establishing small groups of kingdom seekers throughout the city. They are an Invisible Spiritual Army that will take back the city for him.
