A hikoi in the Hokianga on New Year's Eve is one of many church events to celebrate 2000 years of Christendom.
Up and down the country, churches and cathedrals are offering a reflective chance for people to pray, light candles and have Holy Communion to mark the new millennium.
TheAssembly of God in Takapuna will even be ushering worshippers outside at midnight to watch the fireworks over Auckland.
St Patrick's Catholic Cathedral in central Auckland is holding a candlelight vigil at 11.30, followed by midnight Mass.
In Hamilton, St Peter's Anglican Cathedral is offering people the opportunity from 11 pm to light a candle or sign a Millennium Book for the city. It will hold a thanksgiving service on New Year's Day at noon.
The Hokianga hikoi, or march, will mark a year of highs and lows for a community whose remote corner of the Far North was devastated by floods in January.
Spirits were lifted after New Zealanders opened their hearts and wallets to help the recovery.
The largely Catholic community was also delighted to hear in October that the remains of Bishop Pompallier, the pioneering Catholic missionary of the north, had been found and exhumed from a Paris cemetery and would be returned for a reburial in the Hokianga.
Bishop Pompallier said the country's first Mass at Kohukohu in the Hokianga on January 13, 1838.
The Episcopal Vicar for Maori, Pa Henare Tate, said the hikoi would leave Panguru at 6 pm on New Year's Eve and wind its way to churches at Te Karaka, Waihou, Rangi Point, Mitimiti and back to Panguru for a Mass at 11 pm.
Pa Tate said the hikoi would recall the memories of people who had contributed to the community and express a wish for the present generation to take on the qualities of its ancestors.
