Whether cross-party or inter-parliament collectives, MP groups are all about human connections which help MPs, and importantly us, find out what makes them tick.
At 7:15 each Wednesday morning when Parliament is sitting, a small group of MPs shuffles into a meeting room in the Beehive.
Daylight starts to shine through the big windows. The MPs are convening for their regular Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast, which their group's co-chair, National MP Simeon Brown, says is a quiet place where they can step back from politics and spend time together.
"As a Christian, it's a great opportunity to spend time with other people of like-minded faith, spend time praying for each other, encouraging each other, we talk about each other's families, and provide support where we can," he explains.
Brown's fellow co-chair is the Hamilton East MP, Labour's Jamie Strange, who describes theirs as a cross-party group, "led by a couple of gentlemen from outside parliament who come in from outside Parliament and put on food for us, and a group of MPs come together to read the scriptures and pray. It's been going for over twenty years".
"I see it as a sea of tranquility in amongst the hustle and bustle of the parliamentary life," says Strange, a Pentecostal Christian.
The group is open to anyone, he explains, and "it's absolutely non-political. We're there to build relationships and support each other as human beings as much as we can. And for me, at times I talk about some of the struggles I'm facing, and I really welcome the support I receive".
He says a main benefit of being part of the group is the opportunity to slow down.
"For the 45 minutes there's a chance for me to reflect on my role as MP and I guess reaffirm the values I bring to it and just remember why I'm there. Often when we get busy we can be doing things just for the sake of doing things. But it's really important (to slow down) and different people have different mechanisms. For me it's spirituality, where I can slow down and reflect and assess what I'm doing, how I'm acting, how I'm feeling and how I'm responding, against the values that I hold in my life. That's one of the benefits, and another benefit is the opportunity to support each other. At various times in our lives we all go through challenging times - that's life - and it's important to have a support network around us," Strange says.
Jamie Strange, a Labour list MP based in Hamilton East…