Anglican Taonga Winter 2014

WINTER 2014 // No.46

Taonga ANGLICAN

PA S I F I K A

Beauty for Ashes Going to the heart of St Christopher’s Home PEOPLE

Call the ambulance Waiapu puts Andrew Hedge in the driver’s seat

T I K A N G A R E L AT I O N S

Talking the walk Maori to meet Pakeha face to face

SYNOD NEWS : : MISSION : : ELECTION 2014 : : MESSY CHURCH

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

IN MEMORIAM

Lynda Patterson

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any in this church were shocked by the sudden death of Dean Lynda Patterson in Christchurch in July. She was

only 40.

Bishop Victoria Matthews says Lynda spoke of “the God she loved in all she did and said.“ Lynda was well known across the church in these islands as a talented preacher, teacher and theologian, who combined thorough scholarship with a quick sense of humour and a flair for storytelling.

Lynda Jayne Patterson studied and lectured in theology at Oxford University for a total of 12 years. She first visited Christchurch in 2002 while on sabbatical from Oxford.

Lynda moved to New Zealand in 2005, and spent a year in Auckland becoming "acclimatised to New Zealand culture," learning Maori and studying for ministry.

She was appointed Director of Theology House in 2006, as well as assistant to Dean Peter Beck, who remembers her fondly: “What a rollercoaster 6+ years I shared at the cathedral with this extraordinary, complex, talented and lovable woman! She

made an indelible impact on my life.”

Lynda became the cathedral’s Theologianin-Residence in 2008, and took over the role of Dean last October – the first woman to hold that post in Christchurch.

The Rev Dr Peter Carrell, Director of Theological Education in Christchurch, says: "We may not see her like in our lifetime again – she combined Irish wit and intellectual brilliance with a rare gift of communicating profound truth in everyday language...”

Waikato’s Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley says it’s Lynda’s conversations she’ll miss the most.

“She had such an ability to combine lightness and humour with immense depth.

All in one sentence,” says Helen-Ann. “I’m reminded of G.K.Chesterton who said: Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.

“That was Lynda.”

Lynda earnt the respect of clergy through her leadership at General Synod in May. She was appointed to General Synod Standing Committee, but was never able to serve.

General Secretary Michael Hughes says the church is mourning not only what she

Dean Lynda Patterson at ACC-15 in 2012.

meant to us, but also what she undoubtedly would have offered over decades to come.

Karena de Pont, from the Anglican Women's Studies Centre, adds: "We were privileged to have Lynda lead us in Bible studies and Eucharist at our Treasuring Women in Ministry hui in 2012 at St John's College.

“Many were impressed not only with the quality of what she offered in Bible study but also with her fluency in te reo and respectfulness of our three-tikanga kaupapa."

Bishop Te Kitohi Pikaahu (Tai Tokerau) believes many in Te Pihopatanga will miss Lynda and all she had to offer.

He represented Te Kotahitanga and St John’s College governing body Te Kaunihera at her funeral.

Bishop Kito says the whole church will feel the loss of Lynda’s academic strengths and pastoral sensitivity, which helped guide this church’s work in education and doctrine.

The Rev Don Tamihere agrees: “Lynda is irreplaceable. We can hardly afford to lose young leaders of her quality.”

T E H Ī N O TA W H Ā N U I

Bishop Kelvin Wright didn’t have lofty expectations for Synod 2014, but he was in for a genuine surprise.

Back to the source

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eneral Synod was one of the most moving and inspiring events of my 40 + years walk with Christ.

It wasn’t the Motion 30 decision – how that works out we’ll wait and see – but how it was made.

Synod was conducted with the respect and deep listening that should be hallmarks of our church, but often aren’t. Over the week that helped a true sense of community to develop.

One contributing factor was the venue: Waitangi – where the partnership at this nation’s heart was first hammered out.

Our visits to the Treaty Grounds, marae and the Rangihoua mission site spoke of cooperation and living with difference.

The synod was fortified by daily prayer and Eucharist, while karakia and himene led by our Tai Tokerau hosts punctuated the Page 22 Page

meeting times.

Many held us in prayer, including some who’d come to witness our decisions. Kaz Yung (Wellington) held an all-night prayer vigil before the Motion 30 vote, and its roster was filled 3-4 times over.

Andrew Burgess and Jim White started synod’s sexuality debate by outlining opposing views. For many, they modelled a new kind of conversation.

Both men used a framework transparently informed by scripture and theology. Both showed a gracious willingness to listen and respect one another.

The space they allowed for each other’s voice showed us a way we could live together, even with seemingly irreconcilable views on matters of faith and practice.

Jesus gave only sparing instructions on human sexuality, but his last counsel and prayer showed his passionate and

unequivocal desire for unity. Not a unity based on uniformity, but a deeper unity which persists despite profound human differences.

Each of today’s 41,000 denominations represents a tear in the body of Christ. Each makes an obscene gesture toward Jesus’ wishes, expressed in the shadow of the cross.

This year the spirit of the living God manifested itself in our synod – calling us to unity, and rejoicing with us, that we managed in some measure to attain it.

I hope this same Spirit will guide us onwards – if we can forget our own ideas of what God wants of us, for long enough to follow.

The Rt Rev Dr Kelvin Wright is Bishop of Dunedin. kelvin@calledsouth.org.nz

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

Anglican Taonga WINTER 2014

Contents 10

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REGULAR 22 Youth: Spanky Moore offers a young adult sketch of the parties 34 Children: Julie Hintz and Debbie Smith keep Messy Church on track 38 Environment: Phillip Donnell defends the water of life 42 Film: John Bluck watches a starkly beautiful tale of wrangling with vocation 43 The Far Side: Imogen de la Bere

tires of flavourless religion Anglican Taonga is published by the Commission on Communications and distributed to all ministry units and agencies of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia – Te Haahi Mihinare ki Aotearoa ki Niu Tireni ki nga Moutere o Te Moana Nui a Kiwa.

Editor Julanne Clarke-Morris 786 Cumberland Street Otepoti - Dunedin 9016 Ph 03 477-1556 julanneclarkemorris@gmail.com Contributing Editor/ Web Editor Brian Thomas Ph 03 351 4404 bjthomas@orcon.net.nz Design Marcus Thomas Design info@marcusthomas.co.nz Distribution Taonga Distribution, General Synod Office, PO Box 87 188, Meadowbank, Auckland 1742 Advertising Brian Watkins Ph 06 875-8488 021 072-9892 brian@grow.co.nz Media Officer Lloyd Ashton Ph 09 521-4439 021 348-470 mediaofficer@anglicanchurch.org.nz.

Cover: Pilgrims on the road: Members of Te Hīnota Whānui descend to Oihi beach from Rangihoua.

Features

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Ready for duty: Bishop-Elect Andrew Hedge

Tikanga Maori prepare for their face to face with Pakeha in 2016

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Waiapu’s Officer in Charge

Let’s tackle this head-on

A place for all of us?

Bucking the decline

What we think of General Synod’s Way Forward on same-sex blessings

Peter Lineham scans the latest on church growth from the CofE

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Maori mission in Brisbane reaches out to the homeless

A glimpse into the heart of St Christopher’s Home

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Aussie battlers

Tonga making waves St Paul’s Nuku’alofa carves out a new home for moana theology

Beauty for ashes

Africa’s mission to the West Cathy Ross chronicles the changing face of global evangelism

For the latest on the Anglican world, check out our website:

http://anglicantaonga.org.nz Page 3

ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

PEOPLE

Emergency: call the Bishop!

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It’s the image of Christ with the bowl and towel.

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he man chosen as the next Bishop of Waiapu has a passion for salvation that’s not confined to his day job.

Andrew Hedge, the Vicar of Cambridge, who has been elected as the Diocese of Waiapu’s 16th bishop, spends every Monday in an ambulance.

And he also puts in a 12hr night shift in the ambulances later in the week.

He’s qualified as an emergency medical technician, and on the same June weekend he was announced as the next Bishop of Waiapu, he was also formally invested as a Member of the Order of St John.

Bishop-elect Hedge, who has been Vicar

of Cambridge for six years, first linked up with St John as their Cambridge chaplain in early 2010.

Two of his children, Ethan (12) and Caitlin (10), joined the St John youth programme around the same time.

Soon, Andrew was hooked.

“I thought: ‘this is an environment I could really feel at home in’ – and it’s become a bit of a passion.

“For me, St John closely mirrors how I look at faith.

“It’s the image of Christ with the bowl and the towel… the image of the Good Samaritan.”

His service with St John, he says,

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Double duty with St Andrew’s Cambridge and St John Ambulance.

Photo: The Waikato Times.

“provides an opportunity of expressing faith in a very incarnational way. Our job there is to be with people in the midst of their very bad days.”

As a priest, he’s called to bear witness to God’s work in the world. And sometimes that witness happens “where it may not necessarily be proclaimed as the work of God”.

“I’ve seen ambulance officers offer care to people who are dying – or to their relatives – with a sensitivity, humanity and compassion and love that is just quite outstanding. Quite overwhelming.”

It’s not all life-and-death stuff, though.

Between crises, some good-natured ribbing goes on.

Take the nickname that the ambulance crews have given Andrew: ‘Dibs.’ As in Vicar of Dibley.

And Dibs intends to keep up his work for St John in Waiapu.

Educational responsibilities Andrew Hedge, 41, was born and raised in Papatoetoe, South Auckland, and nurtured in faith at St George’s.

He studied for ordination at St John’s College, completed his theology degree in 1998, and was ordained priest in 1999.

He spent two years as an assistant priest at All Saints’ Howick, before serving as chaplain to King’s School in Auckland for seven years. He was appointed Vicar of Cambridge in 2008.

Since ordination, Andrew has also shouldered extra responsibilities, in education (as President of the national association of RE teachers and school chaplains, for example) and in diocesan and provincial church governance.

He’s a member of the Diocese of Waikato and Taranaki’s standing committee, and has served on General Synod/te Hinota Whanui.

During Waiapu’s public election process – which culminated in an electoral college at St Luke’s Havelock North in June – Andrew talked about offering “calm leadership, with a light touch”.

“As a leader, I don’t feel I have to hold on to things so tightly and rigidly that nobody else has an opportunity for input.

Bishop-elect Andrew Hedge "I'm in this for the long haul."

“As to my style of leadership… it could best be described as pastoral.

What I learned from my pastoral theology studies, and in my ministry, are skills that have helped me to look at the way people operate together.

“I’ve learned to step back a little bit, to see how people work… and to walk with people to help and encourage them to work together better.”

In theological terms, he describes himself as a “moderate liberal”.

“That means I enjoy the tradition and structure of the church. Our liturgical heritage, common prayer, and journeying together with difference – they’re important to me.

“It’s the strength of our union in Christ, and the maturity of our faith that allows us to journey with difference.”

He’s not saying much about the same-sex issues Waiapu has campaigned on – except that he was “encouraged” by the way the General Synod dealt with Motion 30.

And he thinks a collective approach is the best way to work for reform.

“We have tremendous potential as a church to offer a voice into the community for transforming issues of injustice. Or inequality. Or unfairness.”

But that work is best done “by a

Our job is to be there with people in the midst of their very bad days.

variety of people from within the church.

It’s not the voice of one person that’s going to really transform things. It’s the collective work of a group of people.”

Waiapu needed to elect a new leader after the previous bishop, the Rt Rev David Rice, resigned last year to return to the USA and care for his American family.

There’s no doubt, though, that the Hedge family will be dropping anchor in Waiapu.

“We’re really looking forward to this being a significant part of our life as a family,” Andrew says.

“I’m in this for the long haul. I want to provide some stability in leadership for ministry within the diocese.”

Andrew Hedge is married to Raewyn, and they have a 15-year-old daughter, Jessica, as well as Ethan and Caitlin.

He will be ordained and installed as Bishop of Waiapu at St John’s Cathedral in Napier on October 18.

– By Lloyd Ashton Page 5

ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

HUMAN SEXUALITY AND THE CHURCH

Julanne Clarke-Morris canvasses reaction across the church to a General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui motion on same-gender blessings

A place for

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n May, General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui adopted a new way forward on blessings and ordination of people in same-sex relationships.

The Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand has wrestled with these questions for decades, while Polynesia has followed the path of “talanoa” (storytelling and listening).

In 2012 General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui appointed the Ma Whea?

Commission to summarize our thinking on these issues – from biblical, theological, canonical and pastoral viewpoints.

Their review drew on many sources, including four provincial hui on biblical questions and 199 submissions.

Professor Paul Trebilco, a Ma Whea? member, reported that across those diverse and sometimes opposing perspectives, common factors emerged.

Both sides of the argument, for example, could demonstrate a deep grounding in scripture and theology.

And another dearly held value was clear: “You should be uplifted,” said Paul, “that in this age of plentiful churches and spiritual choices, it is clearly very important to all of you that you are Anglican.”

all of us?

What are we going to do?

“A Way Forward – He Anga Whakamua – Na sala ki liu” is the action plan proposed in Motion 30, adopted by Te Hinota Whanui on May 15.

That plan reaffirms the church’s existing doctrine on marriage.

It then sets up a working group to propose a process and structure for those (who believe it is consonant with scripture, theology and tikanga, and civil law) to perform blessings of same-sex relationships – and maintain their integrity in the church.

The working group also proposes: a process and structure enabling those who believe same-sex blessings are not consonant with scripture, theology and tikanga, or civil law to not have to perform any liturgy of blessing of same-sex relationships, and maintain integrity in the church and compliance with civil law.

The group will also commission research into the implications of samesex blessings on the church’s theology of marriage and ordination.

General Synod Standing Committee is charged with ensuring that the working group reflects tikanga, expertise in relevant disciplines and doctrinal diversity.

Too much for some

Motion 30 is both encouraging and distressing.

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The Rev Dr Andrew Burgess (Nelson) says that for upholders of current doctrine and constitution, Motion 30 is both encouraging and distressing.

The affirmations of marriage, of human creation as male and female, and of God’s love for all are welcome, he says.

On the other hand, the option to ‘recognise’ same-gender couples in civil marriage has sparked deep questions. “If we are clear we are not offering blessings

of same-gender relationships, then on what basis would some of us ‘recognise’?” he asks.

“More than that, of course, many of us cannot accept the prospect of this church authorising a rite to bless same-gender relationships.”

Andrew says that for some, even looking to allow these blessings makes this church a very difficult place to exist – and remaining can have high costs.

That has certainly proved the case for two parish clergy who have handed in their licences since the May synod. Both the Rev Charlie Hughes and Rev Michael Hewat have cited “A Way Forward…” as reason for their resignations.

Many others, Andrew says, are deeply sympathetic, while feeling called to stay in this Church now, to seek reform, and “to affirm what has been received in scripture, and tradition.”

A good step – sort of The Rev Helen Jacobi (St Matthew in the City, Auckland) says Motion 30 was a good step, but for “the people affected – those faithful gay and lesbian Anglicans wanting to be married or… ordained – it is a tiny step.”

Helen feels the injustice of enjoying privileges others are denied.

“I waited for the news… on my 31st wedding anniversary, in the 22nd year of my ordination. For all this time, I have been affirmed and blessed by the church.

My lesbian and gay sisters and brothers have to wait …

“They have received an apology from the church, followed by ‘wait some more’.”

Dr Moeawa Callaghan says reactions have been subdued in Tikanga Maori.

However, “a greater number of people have echoed, with increasing frustration, the opinions expressed in ‘The Tikanga

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

Maori Approach’ of the Ma Whea? report.

Those voices are calling for an outcome that “recognises and endorses loving, committed, takataapui (LGBT) relationships, ordination and blessing… based on tikanga and gospel values.”

Neill Ballantyne (Dunedin) is surprised by how positively young LGBT people at Otago University responded to the “fairly simplistic” media reports.

But they were hesitant when Neill explained more fully.

“I said it isn’t a step forward yet, but an idea of a step forward,” he said.

“But still they were pleased the Anglican Church is trying to get its head round the issues – to be more inclusive, to make space for them. That’s very encouraging for LGBT people.

“And they did appreciate the apology.

That was duly noted.

“Even though those students are not in the church, they were interested because the Christian Church is seen as one of the major organized oppressors of gay people.”

Unity in the Spirit The Ven Wendy Scott (Wellington) says one of the hardest things to communicate about Motion 30 was the moving of the Spirit in synod.

“You couldn’t deny people’s passion in their beliefs, but there was a willingness to uphold the goodness of God in the whole process,” she says.

“It wasn’t a mud-slinging event.

People were very gracious.”

Ruth Wildbore (Christchurch) agrees.

And she’s concerned the Waitangi meeting’s desire for unity hasn’t always shone through, “So now we have one group saying we didn’t go far enough. And another group saying that while legally nothing has changed, the direction of the church has significantly changed.

“I don’t think either have understood the sense of hope – that there is a place for all of us – we are no longer in a situation where ‘the church is going to change, like it, or lump it’.”

Back to origins The Rev Don Tamihere (Tairawhiti) believes the Bay of Islands’ historic echoes had a huge impact on the Spirit’s work at synod.

“Being together at Oihi and Rangihoua, at the site of our beginnings in mission, grounded us in our shared, singular origin.

“Waitangi influenced how we looked at ourselves. As we were welcomed on to the marae, from the Treaty Grounds, we were reminded of the Treaty of Waitangi – the highest metaphor this country has for the union of two peoples.

“Motion 30 wouldn’t have been possible in another context.”

The way Don sees it, battle lines appear whenever we lose sight of our shared ground. He thinks we’d do better to imagine our church as a wharenui.

“We should see ourselves as the carved pillars of the house. No two pillars are exactly the same. Each has its own style, its own story.

“Some are close, some far part and some are in direct opposition to one another – on opposite sides of the house.

“Too often, as dioceses, hui amorangi, rohe or parishes, we have acted as though we are the whole house. We have expected every pillar to be built in our own image.

“No. Only Christ can be the centre of the house. And the confounding thing is, he wants all of us in his house.”

Ho-hum?

The Rev Peter Minson’s hundred and fifty or so regular parishioners at St Andrew’s Taupo received the motion with “a communal shrug” – apart from one respected lay leader who resigned over what he called the “liberal, universalist trend” of the Anglican Church.

Peter says he’s sadly missed.

An odd quirk of Sunday scheduling uncovered a different response, too.

Peter relayed this example of “Anglicans talking to Anglicans” somewhat apologetically on that Sunday to a church quarter full of non-regulars – young people there for a baptism.

But he needn’t have worried.

“They either couldn’t get what we Anglicans were on about: ‘What’s the issue? What’s the problem? Get with the programme!’

“Or they perceived that Anglicans were dealing sensitively with an issue which had caused grief elsewhere.”

Looking ahead Ruth Wildbore shares Andrew Burgess’ hesitation as to where “A Way Forward…” might lead, and she doesn’t believe a solution can necessarily be found.

But she thinks the future will be bleak – for all parties – if we fail.

“I hope and pray that brains cleverer and more creative than mine will find a way – that we will have sufficient grace and creativity to come up with a model for the future.”

Julanne Clarke-Morris is editor of Anglican Taonga magazine.

Not every reaction to “A Way Forward…” has fallen on one side or the other.

They did appreciate the apology.

That was duly noted.

General Synod gathers on the hilltop at Rangihoua.

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

MISSION

Australia:

Archbishop Brown holds the peace frond, as he leads the manuhiri onto the grounds of Te Rau Oriwa.

the unlucky country?

For hundreds of Maori, Queensland is no longer the El Dorado it used to be. And that's where Te Rau Oriwa could make a difference.

There are so many hurdles to jump… that most kiwis will never clear them.

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A

s many as 500 Kiwis are sleeping rough in parks in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast – and 70 percent of these homeless are Maori.

So says Vicky Rose, who manages the Nerang Neighbourhood Centre on the Gold Coast, a community social service centre where desperate Kiwis come seeking help.

The latest Australian census shows almost 50,000 ‘Mozzies’1 living in the Sunshine State.

They come to Queensland looking for work, and most find it.

But some don’t – and they don’t have a Plan B, either. They are often unwilling to return to New Zealand too, says Vicky, for a variety of reasons. Pride, maybe. Or because they need to stay away from family violence.

So they end up homeless. Couch-surfing at best, or sleeping in parks at worst. In which case, the only help they can get, says Vicky, is a tent and a sleeping bag provided by underfunded community agencies like hers.

Centrelink, the Aussie Government welfare agency, has nothing to offer them either. Only permanent residents or Australian citizens are eligible for its benefits.

There are so many hurdles to jump before reaching that status, says Vicky, that most Kiwis heading to Australia now will never clear them.

So there’s definitely a need for Te Rau Oriwa (The Olive Branch).

That’s the name of the new whare karakia in Cornubia on Brisbane’s south side. It was opened on June 8, as the Pihopatanga mission hub for reaching Maori in SouthEast Queensland.

Te Pihopatanga has had a mission in Queensland for round 15 years, spreading the Word among Brisbane and Gold Coast Maori, and helping where it can. But till recently, it relied on a church shared with the Diocese of Brisbane.

Now it’s taken the plunge to secure the $A500,000 Cornubia property, which includes

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

They’re fanning out into parks – where they know they’ll find homeless Maori.

Above (clockwise): Bishop Kito Pikaahu and Archbishop Brown Turei are welcomed on to the makeshift marae; Koha Shed members turn out to awhi shed-mate April Taylor; Kahui Wahine delegates Dorcas Nathan (Upoko) and Maraea Tanoa (Tai Rawhiti); April Taylor, one of the four commissioned as Kai Karakia.

a church building, multi-purpose vicarage (with op-shop attached), and lock-up storage on a one-hectare site that offers space for marquees and off-street parking for services and tangihanga.

Folk from Te Rau Oriwa are already fanning out with food parcels – into the parks where they know they’ll find homeless Maori.

They are helping in other ways, too.

For example, April Taylor (who was commissioned as a kai karakia at that opening service) is one of the folk behind The Koha Shed. This group of ex-pat NZ volunteers use Facebook to connect with Kiwis who are facing tough times in Oz.

The Great Migration...

The opening of Te Rau Oriwa was the apex of a weekend zeroed-in on mission and ministry with Maori Australians.

Almost half the 400 Maori who turned up to launch Te Rau Oriwa were

women who’d just wrapped up the first offshore conference of Kahui Wahine, the Pihopatanga women’s network.

They meet every two years, and this time the gathering was hosted by the Kahui Wahine o Piripane – the Brisbane Maori Anglican women’s group – at a Gold Coast resort over the Friday and Saturday.

The Gold Coast hui took as its theme “The Great Migration,” highlighting Maori as a migratory people and looking at the migration themes woven into the story of redemption: The Lord said to Abraham: ‘Leave your country, your relatives, your father’s home and go to a land that I am going to show you.

I will give you many descendants, and they will become a great nation. I will bless you and make your name famous, so that you will be a blessing.’ Genesis 12: 1-2.

One of the sobering realities confronting women at the hui was that Australia is no longer the Land of Milk and Honey. Not for

Kiwis, anyway.

Back in 1973 the Australian and New Zealand governments struck up a transtasman travel arrangement to allow free movement of citizens between the two countries. That still stands.

But in February 2001 the Australian Government changed its immigration rules.

Since then, New Zealanders no longer qualify for most protections and benefits that Australian citizens can draw on in times of crisis.

And that’s another reason why the Rev Erroline Anderson and her crew at Te Rau Oriwa , who are reaching out to Maori in SouthEast Queensland, are a timely development.

A Godsend, even.

– By Lloyd Ashton 1. Maori Australians.

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PA S I F I K A

Tonga's Anglicans are rejoicing at the refurbishment of St Paul's Nuku'alofa – which over the past eight months has been transformed into the flagship of community life.

St Paul’s Tonga

Y

ou’re looking at Tonga’s flagship Anglican Church.

If you’d been standing on this street corner a year ago, though, you might have thought the flagship was holed below the waterline.

St Paul’s Nuku’alofa – which was consecrated in 1931 – was taking on water.

There were gaping cracks in the walls, exposed rusting reinforcing steel where chunks of plaster had fallen from pillars, rotten window frames – and a leaking roof.

But that’s all in the past.

Thanks to a $340,000 makeover, St Paul’s has been refurbished from end to end, and widened to become an immaculate three-aisle church, complete

Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to all creation.

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casts off anew with a new bell-tower.

In effect, it’s now Tonga’s Anglican protoCathedral, complete with new sanctuary furniture.

Moana theology Crowning jewels are a new altar, cathedra, candle stands, baptismal font and credence tables carved from red mahogany into various marine forms – whales, dolphins, turtles and sea shells – by local artists.

One end of the altar is held up by a pair of plunging dolphins, while the other is supported by a mother and baby whale, apparently spiralling up to the sea’s surface.

The bishop’s cathedra also features carved whales at play (tourists flock to Tonga to see the real creatures pass by) with a high backrest in the form of a giant turtle which, in South Seas mythology, has spiritual significance.

This new altar furniture is the carvers’ interpretation of Archbishop Winston Halapua’s working brief – to not only proclaim Tongans’ pride as an oceanic people, but to be a metaphor for moana theology – his conviction that the love of God in the Trinity is manifest in the ocean and islands of the Pacific.

The Diocese of Polynesia spans 28 million square kilometres of the central Pacific – and that has led Archbishop Winston to repeatedly stress the interconnectedness and vulnerability of humanity and the rest

of creation, and our need to respect and embrace the natural world.

In his sermon for the dedication service, he highlighted Jesus’ command in Mark 16.15: “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to all creation.”

All their own work When it comes to church building projects, Tongans usually look to their wealthier cousins in mainland USA, Hawaii, or Australia and New Zealand to help fund these.

But for St Paul’s refurbishment, the congregation stumped up the money themselves.

They gave sacrificially, and staged a series of concerts that exceeded the fundraising target. So the reborn church is debt-free; and there’s money set aside for maintenance.

The refurbishment drive came first from a group of women led by the Rev Colleen Cowley, who is not only a priest assistant at St Paul’s but one of Tonga’s most successful business people.

Work started on the rebuild last September, and St Paul’s was rededicated on April 26 before a congregation of 350 people, which included the Tongan Queen Mother, Her Majesty Queen Halaevalu Mata’aho, and grandson Prince Tungi.

– By Lloyd Ashton

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

Clockwise from top right: New altar furniture just unloaded from the truck; Siale Alolahi, sailor on the gospel procession catamaran; the combined archdeaconry choir at St Paul's Nuku’alofa dedication; Archbishop Winston with Robert Guy Sullivan – the first baby baptised at the reborn St Paul's; Archbishop Winston and Sue Halapua inspect the new font; Sculptor Timote Maamaloa at work.

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T E H Ī N O TA W H Ā N U I

It could have been tricky. It could have been downright awkward.

If a General Synod being held at Waitangi during the bicentenary year of the church had descended into debates about Maori-driven motions to end the Three Tikanga Church… that wouldn’t have been a good look.

But instead, there was an outbreak of peace. Lloyd Ashton has been finding out why.

We put the hammer and taiaha aside Bishop Te Kitohi Pikaahu: Hold on, let’s get this right.

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one, by lunchtime.

That’s what happened to the two motions that might have spelled the end of the three tikanga church.

Motions 23 and 24 – which called for constitutional change to allow a two tikanga church, for Maori and Pakeha, and for Tikanga Maori to exercise tino rangatiratanga over taonga – were set down for the Wednesday of General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui.

They were not going about things in the rangatira way.

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But just before morning tea on the Tuesday, Bishop Kito Pikaahu gave notice that those two motions were being withdrawn.

They were to be replaced, he said, by a bill providing for a pre-General Synod meeting between the the IDC and Runanganui (Pakeha and Maori national bodies).

Tikanga Pakeha and Tikanga Polynesia’s shock at that turn of events was probably only matched by their relief.

In the event, the forecast bill became Motion 29 – which sailed through with speeches of warm acclamation, and without a word of protest.

So that was that, then?

Well, not quite.

What we saw on the floor of the General Synod was no more than the tip of the iceberg.

There’d actually been an impassioned debate about this kaupapa in the Tikanga Maori caucus from the Saturday right through till the Tuesday.

The contours of that debate had been set last November – at the Runanganui in Gisborne, which called a special hui, to be held between the Runanganui and the General Synod, to “audit” (that’s Bishop John Gray’s term) the three tikanga church.

To assess how it was delivering in terms of

its partnership and Treaty obligations, to look at fairness and resource sharing, and to look at tikanga relations.

Because in the view of folk such as Professor Whatarangi Winiata and Bishop Gray, it was coming up short on these things.

Well short.

The two tikanga and tino rangatiratanga motions had been developed at that special hui, and adopted to go forward to General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui.

But even there, Bishop Kito Pikaahu had made it plain he was opposed to the motions, and he’d continue to oppose them – right to the floor of General Synod, if necessary.

Not because he’s soft on the resource sharing issue, for example.

But because he felt these motions were not going about things in “the rangatira way”.

He was adamantly opposed to motions that he believed would cut across his obligations as host bishop – obligations to provide manaakitanga and goodwill to all the manuhiri.

It was his duty, he said in his opening service kauwhau, “to uphold the rangatiratanga of all those who had come to General Synod.”

He was also adamantly opposed to motions that would, he felt, advantage Tikanga Maori at the cost of disempowering Tikanga Polynesia,

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

The other way was too much of a Tame Iti approach.

Bishop John Gray: In 2014 Tikanga Maori chose “the quiet way,” but there’s serious work to be done.

in particular, and undermining Te Pouhere, the constitution, in general.

“All these efforts at sovereignty,” he says, “they should not come at the cost of pulling down the very institution that provides for all of us.

“We’re 22 years down the track now. We just can’t reverse that.

“We can’t just say: ‘We made a mistake in 1990.’ No, I don’t believe that.”

He’d felt so strongly about the issue, he’d even proposed that during Lent the Pihopatanga should repent of the message it was sending – particularly where Tikanga Polynesia is concerned.

The argument over motions 23 and 24 had ebbed and flowed in the Tikanga Maori caucus through Saturday and Sunday.

On the Monday evening, Bishop Kito called another caucus – where he proposed a small working group be set up to seek an acceptable way forward.

That’s when Katene Eruera was roped in.

The Dean of the Tikanga Maori students at St John’s College was not a member of the Maori caucus, but he is a lawyer.

The need at that stage, says Katene, was “to come up with something fairly diplomatic.”

The working group had to find a formula that “got Tikanga Maori where we wanted to go – without trampling on the mana of Tikanga Polynesia”.

It soon concluded that motions 23 and 24 couldn’t be reshaped to do that.

They had to be thrown out.

But replaced with what?

The difficulty, says Katene, lay in finding a formula that recognised “there are bicultural conversations to be had within this land”, while understanding that “the conversation

has to expand into the Pacific, because of the size of the Province.”

It was Bishop George Connor who came up with the circuit breaker.

He drew the group’s attention to a little known clause in the Constitution (Part D, Clause 2) and in the Canons (Title B, Canon XX, No 6) which encouraged bilateral conferences. Those conferences hadn’t been held so far – but the mechanism to provide for them already existed.

“We recognised,” says Katene, “that this was the way through.”

Down the track, other bilateral conferences could be held – between any two of the three Tikanga.

But the Tikanga Maori and Pakeha one will be the first cab off the rank.

Katene doesn’t believe this signals a reduction of fervour on the resource sharing issue: “No. Not at all. I don’t think the oomph has gone out of that issue at all.

Bishop John Gray doesn’t think so either.

He’d been an advocate for the two tikanga and tino rangatiratanga motions – but he was happy to go with Motion 29.

He seconded it, in fact.

“What 29 did, I think, was to cool it and to give an opportunity for us to sit down and talk with our partners, rather than putting it on the floor to try and force a decision.

“The other way,” he says, “was too much of a Tame Iti approach.”

He said the caucus had “struggled with whether there should be a confrontation at Waitangi – rather than a discussion and debate.

“So we chose the quiet way. Let’s work at this for two years, and see what we can come up with.”

But Bishop John is adamant those presynod General Conferences won’t just be cosy fireside chats.

“It’s not just a matter of turning up and saying: ‘Hi.’ And everything remains the same.

No, no, no. We need to push past where we have been.”

And nothing will be out of bounds, he says – including discussion on how Tikanga Polynesia fits within a church that respects the Treaty of Waitangi.

Bishop George Connor is sympathetic to Bishop John’s concerns about resourcesharing.

He points out resource-sharing had been raised at the two previous synods – in Gisborne in 2010, for example, Te Pihopatanga had wanted to find stipends for 15 priests – but those earlier efforts had led precisely nowhere.

Bishop George also points to the national scene – to a treaty settlement process where iwi have, on average, received settlements that equate to only about 2 or 3 percent of the value of the land which was taken from them in colonial times.

He thinks Maori in the church mostly don’t labour under the sense of deprivation that iwi do – but only because they never had that much to begin with anyway.

Bishops Kito and John agree that preparatory work towards this two tikanga General Conference needs to begin now.

Equally, Bishop Kito says he’ll be doing his best to ensure that these sessions are conducted in the right way.

“We go expecting rangatira to rangatira discussions,” he says. “We put everything out there, and we look at solutions.

“But we put the hammer and the taiaha aside – because you can’t achieve much with a hammer or a taiaha.”

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

TH C O ENO G LROE G G YA T I O N A L L I F E

Traces of gold

amid the grey

Peter Lineham delves into fresh research on why people come to church, and finds that growth hangs on hope and prayer.

There is no single recipe for growth.

Page 14

D

espite the chorus of voices crying decline, Church of England researchers have uncovered Anglican churches that are bucking the downward trend.

Results from the CofE’s Church Growth Research Programme prove any size or style of church can grow – but only when hope, prayer and work are focused on growth.

Commissioned by the CofE’s Spending Plans Task Group, the two-year long project collected hard data on what brings people into the church.

Attendance patterns and church profiles were fashioned from membership records and interviews, then analysed by a team of UK theological scholars led by well-respected secular statistician Professor David Voas.

The group mapped a decade of attendance figures in English and Welsh churches from 2000-10, as well as for recent church plants, cathedrals and Fresh Expressions (UK-based missional

communities).

While almost one third of Anglican faith communities fell in number, over half maintained their size and 18% grew.

But place that into the broader pattern and the future looks grim. Zoom out till the mid-1960s on the graph, and a merciless descending line halves total Anglican numbers in fewer than 60 years.

Yet the latest statistics give no sure sign the end is in sight.

For one, England’s established church hasn’t lost its sway as a social institution.

Anglicans still baptise 1 in every 8 British children, and when the English and Welsh die, one third of families choose an Anglican send-off for their loved ones.

Scan a normal week, though, and you’ll find only 2% of Britons show up to Anglican churches, clocking in at over one million.

Christmas is a different story, however.

The baby Jesus still draws 2.5 million British adorers each year.

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

The Millenium Bridge leads toward St Paul's Cathedral, London.

Numbers along the pews are similar to NZ. In 2012, the median English church saw 50 regulars, 40 adults and 10 children. The midpoint in weekly city church turnouts was 100, but in the country it was more like 30.

Some of the optimism in these returns comes from changes in how the data was gathered. Researchers tallied up every person who’d checked in at least once a month, raising final headcounts by up to 20%.

But far from glossing over reality, the reports don’t hold back from naming what stops mission in its tracks.

One fascinating list shows factors that have no effect either way. No theological tradition emerges as an exclusive driver of growth, and there are no links to gender, ethnicity or marital status of leaders.

Professor David Voas cautions that the success stories won’t be easy to duplicate.

There is no single recipe for growth; there are no simple solutions to decline. The road to growth depends on the context, and what works in one place may not work in another.

What seems crucial is that congregations are constantly engaged in reflection; churches cannot soar on autopilot. Growth is a product of good leadership (lay and ordained) working with a willing set of churchgoers in a favourable environment.

Warning signs?

The UK research gives solid proof that congregations weighed down by elderly faces sound the death-knell of a church. In the UK a staggering 1 out of 2 over-65s are Anglican, but that ratio collapses to 1 in 20 among the young.

The Church of England has failed to hold on to parishioners’ children - who commonly fade from church life in their teens and early adulthood.

Rich data from survey interviews reveals that adults who throw in their lot with a church, will do so by the mid-20s. While some return later, the lifelong choice occurs in early adulthood, when many young Anglicans have already sloped off.

On the flipside, these latest results cement the link between churches with children and youth ministries, and churches that grow.

Churches have also been victims of change in the daily round of people’s lives.

In regions where businesses and jobs have dried up, churches struggle to survive as people naturally vacate the localities theywere built to serve.

Before the 1990s, London’s churches had been in backslide. But today, with

booming city economies and a new diverse ethnic mix, churches in London, York and Birmingham are racing upwards.

Their success hasn’t been about money, though. Anglican churches serving poor communities have taken off.

Another spike in popularity has been for cathedrals.

Visitors, Sunday and midweek worship numbers are up, with city workers ducking densely-packed schedules to find peace and contemplation in midweek services – with the bonus of dodging the get-up on Sunday morning.

Fresh Expressions such as Messy Church, Café Church, seeker church and youth church tended to sky-rocket at first, but many reached a plateau fairly soon. So far, a quarter of Fresh Expressions have kept on growing.

For old-style churches, major downers were burdensome buildings and stagnant pools of lay leadership, along with missionwary clergy. One report unpicks which clergy priorities propel or retard growth.

Team ministries and parishes with merged churches proved more liable to decline. Multi-church ministries were found to breed overworked leaders with little energy left for mission.

Despite significant differences between us and the UK, Anglicans in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia will find tasty tidbits

Adults who throw in their lot with a church, will do so by their mid-20s.

among the fruit of these reports.

We don’t have the Britons’ high level of nominal Anglicanism, their cathedral or Christmas attendance, or their huge uptake of funerals and Christenings.

But we share enough of the same challenges to make this clear, professional analysis worthy of our attention.

The various reports (including the Anecdote to Evidence brief summary) can be found at: http://www.churchgrowthresearch.org.uk/ The related Statistics for Mission report is available on the Church of England’s Research and Statistics site http://www.churchofengland. org/about-us/facts-stats/research-statistics. aspx Dr Peter Lineham is Professor of History at Massey University’s Auckland Campus. He is a specialist religious historian. p.lineham@massey.ac.nz

What works Researchers conclude that whi le there is no single recipe, there are com mon ingredients strongly associated with growth in churches of any size, place or context. They are: ›› Good leadership ›› A clear mission and purpos e ›› Willingness to self-reflect, to change and adapt according to context ›› Involvement of lay members ›› Being intentional in prioritis ing growth ›› Being intentional in chosen style of worship ›› Being intentional in nurturi ng disciples

What doesn’t work ›› A church with no (or fewer than five children or under 16s is ver y likely to be in decline. ›› The strategy of grouping mu ltiple churches together under one leader has in general had a detrimental effect on church growth. ›› Multi-church amalgamatio ns and teams are less likely to grow. ›› Churches are more likely to grow when there is one leader for one community.

From: Anecdote to Evidence: Findings from the Church Gro wth Research Programme 2011-201 3

All of the above are linked to grow ing churches.

Page 15

ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

PA S I F I K A

An evening with the Lloyd Ashton went to Fiji in February to witness the final scenes of a tragedy being played out. In the setting for that story, he found a small-scale triumph of our Pacific church.

Page 16

Sister Kalolaine with some of the St Christopher's crew.

Eveready Man

N

ot long after taking the top job with the Anglican Missions Board, Robert Kereopa flew to Suva.

He worshipped in the Cathedral on Sunday morning, then he hopped into a cab and headed 15km east to St Christopher’s Home.

On the way, Robert mulled over the gospel reading: that jolting passage in Matthew 15 where the Canaanite woman begs Jesus to set her daughter free from a demon.

At first, Jesus doesn't even acknowledge her pleading.

Then he tells her – in language crafted to cause offence – that he has nothing for her.

He’s been sent only to the Jews, and it isn’t

right “to take the bread out of the children’s mouths and throw it to the dogs.”

The woman persists – as The Message tells us, in v27: “You’re right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the master’s table.”

So Jesus relents and heals her daughter.

Robert pulled into St Christopher’s driveway that Sunday – and the first thing he saw was the dining area: a wide porch with tables and benches next to the kitchen, which opens on to the grounds.

“As I was walking through the dining area,” Robert recalls, “would you believe a dog went and ate some crumbs from under a table?

“I looked and thought: ‘Well, what does that mean?’”

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

Children from all over Fiji St Christopher’s opened in 1968, and since then as many as 600 children have been cared for by the Sisters of the Community of the Sacred Name, who run the place.

For the last 10 years, around 30 children have been living there at any one time. The youngest are toddlers, the eldest 18-yearold girls, and they come from across Fiji’s many cultures.

They are sent by the social welfare authorities – and their needs are as great as ever.

Kids who’ve lived through extreme violence are not rare at St Christopher’s.

And all who end up there have suffered primal wounds: they’ve either been orphaned, abandoned, or let go by mums and dads who just can’t cope.

Yet somehow that gets turned around.

As Aussie teacher Chris Spencer describes it, “those kids could set the world on fire with their smiles. It’s absolutely teeming with life in there.”

Deepika Kumar's return home.

shes, beauty for a … the oil of joy

Generations of supporters St Christopher’s gets into people. And it calls its friends back, year after year.

Robert Kereopa had visited St Christopher’s just once before that incident with the dog.

But he’d been hearing about the home for years – ever since he’d met his wife Rachel, in fact.

Rachel first visited St Christopher’s when she was just 13 – with her mum, Dawn Hewson, who had been a friend of the home, from day one.

Rachel Kereopa isn’t the only secondgeneration Kiwi supporter, either.

The Rev Dr Pauline Stewart, from Southland, has been helping out at St Christopher’s for years. So, too, has Pauline’s sister, Olwyn Palmer, of Christchurch.

They caught the habit from their mum, the late Elsie Hughes, from St Barnabas in Christchurch. She came to lend a hand at St Christopher’s every year from the age of 60 to 82.

The call works up the generations, too.

The Revs Bryan and Rosemary Carey, for instance, are diehard supporters.

Bryan began leading school pilgrimages to St Christopher’s 10 years ago, when he became chaplain of Waikato Dio – and he and Rosemary caught the bug from two daughters who had been on earlier Dio trips.

Rosemary started going to St Christopher’s before Bryan. As a special needs teacher, she first went to help a Dio girl intent on visiting the home.

Rosemary found the experience every bit as transforming as her daughters had.

“So that left Bryan – and the three of us saying to him: ‘You must, you must do this’.”

St Christopher’s to the rescue I sampled St Christopher’s drawing power for myself on February 1 this year: the day of Deepika Rani Kumar’s funeral.

Deepika’s birth mother had died when Dee was only 5. Her next of kin – her grandmother and only aunt – had died, too. That’s when St Christopher’s came to her rescue.

Dee was 18, a natural leader in the home and much loved – especially by the younger ones whom she took under her wing.

She was enrolled at university in Suva but had been invited to spend her summer holidays in New Zealand.

And that’s when tragedy struck. Dee had drowned during the Parachute music festival in Hamilton, and her death made headlines all over New Zealand and Fiji.

Dee’s funeral was held in St Christopher’s parish church, which is just across the lawn from the home.

I watched the kids from the home struggle with their loss, and at the graveside the tears of the younger ones, especially, were unstoppable.

Come family prayers that evening, though, and I watched a beautiful transformation take place.

Those kids seemed to have an endless repertoire of gospel action songs. And they sang and danced with such gusto, such enthusiasm, such abandon – such infectious joy...

There was little Mahmood2, for example – with a smile that could melt a glacier – jumping up to lead the actions to I’m in the Lord’s Army. Like the Eveready Man, he kept going and going, for over 90 minutes.

This was “joy in the Lord” that I’d seldom seen before. A joy all the more remarkable because of the grief the children had known.

As Isaiah puts it, they’d been given “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (61:3).

Rosemary Carey has pondered that exchange for a decade.

“Where does the joy come from?” she wonders. “It can only be God’s grace… working above them, before them, after them, all around them.”

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

PA S I F I K A

Revelation for school visitors The teachers and priests who for years have led school groups to St Christopher’s from New Zealand and Australia know what’s in store for them.

But the children they bring? That’s another matter, as Chris Spencer explains.

Chris is one of three Aussie teachers who dropped everything to be at Dee’s funeral.

For six years he helped lead groups of Year 8 kids (aged 13 or 14, in their second year at high school) from The Armidale School (TAS) on annual service trips to St Christopher’s.

TAS is an Anglican school3, and for the most part the kids who travel come from what Chris calls “a fairly entitled segment of society.”

The aim of those service trips is twofold: to undertake projects around the home – in 2012, for example, the Armidale gang installed a solar power system there – and to befriend the St Christopher’s kids.

Two or three days into a 10-day trip, says Chris, it becomes clear that the Aussie children just can’t compute what they’re seeing.

They are used to the “Australian social economy” – where rational choices are

Kids who thought they were coming to give… rea lise that th ey actually c ame to rec eive.

paramount and where, sooner or later, every decision should bring a payoff.

And the sisters, says Chris, don’t fit that pattern.

“Our guys keep asking: Why are they doing this?

“Why do they wear those clothes? Why do they spend all of their time looking after the kids? Why do they sing every evening?

Why do they pray every morning?

“And why are these kids so happy?”

The Armidale kids, you see, have grown up in a society where terrible things in childhood often dog you for life. Where extravagant support systems are needed to get you through.

Only later in their visit do the Aussie children twig to the truth of St Christopher’s.

“They’re feeling that this is a very magical place,” Chris says, “and they have become very attached to their buddies,”.

Inevitably, at the Sunday evening farewell floods of tears are shed by both hosts and visitors.

The Aussie teachers then take their kids straight into a debriefing. And that’s the richest part of the trip, Chris reckons.

Because kids who thought they were coming to give… realise that they actually came to receive.

“They recognise a genuine life going on there which, for the most part, they lack.

“And the irony is, they don’t want to go home. Because they feel they’ll be returning to the poorer world.”

On account of that, many visitors vow to make changes that could bear fruit for the rest of their lives.

A deeper commitment Bryan Carey was chaplain of Waikato Dio for eight years and in that time led eight school trips to St Christopher’s.

The girls he and Rosemary led were older than the Armidale kids: sixth and seventh formers who’d soon be leaving school. They found it just as rewarding as the Aussies did, though.

Bryan has since become Vicar of St Luke’s Havelock North. But the Careys’ commitment to St Christopher’s hasn’t slackened Chat space: St Christopher's kids with Waikato Dio girls (L-R): Talia Powell, Emma Mills, Xunyi Zhang, Sunny Chen and Sophie Thomas.

Page 18

off. If anything, that’s deepened. They’ve been back there several times since Bryan left Dio, including once to ride herd on the production of a short DVD made to tell the story of the home to New Zealand churches4 Bryan and Rosemary are backing a dream the Sisters have to organise a New Zealand road tour for those gospel-singing St Christopher’s kids, and they’re also trying to organise more support for the sisters themselves.

For years, Bryan and Rosemary supported a boy growing up at St Christopher’s. He’s now in Ba – and the Careys have taken formal steps to adopt him.

Adoption proves costly Love those kids as they do, the sisters know they can’t provide the kind of nurturing that a loving mum and dad can.

So if the right opportunity for adoption comes along, they make it happen.

But it costs the sisters. Bigtime.

Consider the case of Sr Mele, who served at St Christopher’s for 27 years, and who looked after the youngest children in the nursery.

“The last time we were there,” says Rosemary, “she was preparing a little baby who she had loved for two years to go to a new family…

“Choosing the child’s clothes. Ironing the clothes, and putting them in a suitcase.

“The pain that was going on... But also the joy.

“As she said: ‘I cannot be a mum and a dad – we cannot give a normal family life to these children.’

“But I’m trying to tell her: ‘What you give is more!’”

‘Focus is on Jesus’ Chris Spencer has a simple explanation for why St Christopher’s works.

“The secular world has no answers,” he says. “All it can do is patch up damage.

And that, inevitably, draws attention to the damage.

“Yet with the sisters at St Christopher’s – they’re wise, but they’re not psychologists or counsellors. Their focus is not on the damage or trying to put it all back together, piece by piece.

“Their focus is on Jesus. Their focus is on life in Christ. And the result of that life is evident.

“This doesn’t mean that every kid is utterly transformed – but if you compare St Christopher’s to any secular home for kids

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

L-R: Big smiles from three of St Christopher’s littlies; Sister Mele’s goodbye from between the louvres.

from tragic circumstances, the contrast is utterly profound.”

At the same time, says Chris, the sisters are down to earth – and fun to be around.

“Australia’s primary love language is sledging – and the sisters can dish it out as well as take it.

“It feels like a perpetual barbecue, where you’re standing around, throwing the snags on the barbie – and getting absolutely broadsided.”

Chris reckons the kids at St Christopher’s know an inner freedom, too.

“Our kids are just far more encumbered,” he says. “They’re far more self-aware, they’re concerned about appearances, and they don’t let down their guard, particularly when it comes to singing.

“I think it was Charles Wesley who talked about singing ‘lustily and with good cheer’. The kids at St Christopher’s do that, and it’s pretty infectious.

“When I get there for the singing, I feel like I’ve been cloistered, and can now let these hindrances go. It’s so liberating.”

Sister Claire Masina Few know St Christopher’s as well as Amy Chambers does.

These days Amy is the principal of St John the Baptist Theology College in Suva.

She grew up in a remote area on Fiji’s second island of Vanua Levu, and she had to move to Labasa to get a high school education.

Amy boarded at St Mary’s Hostel – and that’s where she met Sr Claire Masina, who had been sent to look after the girls there.

Sr Claire played a big part in Amy

becoming a confirmed Anglican, and when Sr Claire became the first warden of St Christopher’s in 1968 they kept in touch.

In the 1970s, for example, Amy – by now married and working in Labasa – would fly to Suva and spend a week of her holidays helping the sisters prepare for their annual fair.

“When you go to St Christopher’s,” says Amy, “you notice that the children are well clothed and well fed. And you think: this home is probably run by an institute that has so much money.”

That’s not so, she says. Fiji’s social welfare system does contribute for each child5, but in large measure St Christopher’s has always been a faith venture.

One that’s supported by some unlikely friends, too.

“The Muslim families around here always share their celebrations,” Amy says.

“If there’s a marriage, they cook and take pots of food to St Christopher’s Home.

“Hindu families, Gujaratis – it’s their way of celebrating. And there’s always more than enough.”

Shelter and love “There are certain things that children need,” says the Rev Dr Pauline Stewart.

“Shelter, love, a sense of belonging, of selfworth…

“And that’s what I see the sisters trying very hard to provide for those children.”

Pauline is well qualified to judge.

She has been an educational psychologist for 20 years, and a secondary school teacher before that.

She’s also an assistant priest at All

Their focus is on life in Christ.

And… the contrast is utterly profound.

Saints’ Gladstone, in Invercargill, and she’s convinced that the rhythm and routine of St Christopher’s helps bring stability to the children’s lives.

The sisters strive to give them a good education, Pauline says. They also encourage resilience – and they are vigilant protectors. The sisters know that children raised in institutions are hard-wired to seek out affection, so they are careful about who they let volunteer at the home.

Back to the crumbs So, let’s loop back to that question Robert Kereopa asked himself when he saw the dog scavenging for crumbs: “What does that mean?”

For one thing, Robert thinks he was shown something about God’s own nature that day: a big heart for the orphan.

For another, “it meant that out of the excess we have, these are places we need to invest in – ourselves and our resources.”

1. Jesus gave in. ‘Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!’ Right then her daughter became well. (Matthew 15: 28, The Message).

2. Name changed.

3. TAS is one of three church schools in Armidale which join forces on those service trips.

4. That DVD, which was shot by a TV Cameraman, has now been posted to Youtube. Search for ‘St Christopher’s Orphanage Fiji’ 5. $FJ100 per child per month.

Page 19

ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

PA S I F I K A

In the beginning

S

o: how did St Christopher’s Home get started?

Well, you can’t go past Betty Slader’s contribution. She’s a legend in Fiji.

Betty hailed from the UK – she’d nursed through World War 2 – and she came out to Fiji in the late 1950s to work as a midwife at Suva’s Colonial War Memorial Hospital.

In 1961 Sister Betty Slader – that’s how she was always known – was recruited as the Diocese of Polynesia’s nurse evangelist.

The plan was for her to move out from her base at Holy Trinity Cathedral to care for Suva’s sick, destitute and hungry, and to spread the gospel whenever opportunities arose.

But city limits meant nothing to Betty.

She roamed deep into the interior. She went by truck or on horseback, or slogged barefoot through mud to reach those who needed her help.

She rowed a boat, swam across rivers, teetered across pipelines…

She even drove a bullock train out of the bush, dragging a sled bearing a paralysed man to hospital.

She had an ally, too, in George Hemmings. They were a one-two punch.

George was an ordained Australian doctor who, in 1954, had set up the Bayly Clinic, still one of the main agencies serving Fiji’s poor.

When Betty found people too ill for her to treat, she’d contact George who would get them admitted to hospital.

Betty Slader also delivered hundreds of babies – many to families who were desperately poor, or to unwed young mums who’d been rejected by their families.

In the years 1961-68, Betty Slader collected dozens of these waifs, and she brought them into her own home.

You could see Jesus in her face.

Page 20

L-R: That’s Sister Masina to the left, with a group of her charges; Above is nurse evangelist, Sister Betty Slader.

Some were later adopted out, while others were returned to their birth families – once Betty had hustled around the church and found pledges of support for them.

Betty became convinced of the need to set up a proper home for these children, and she seldom lost an opportunity to make the case for such a place.

The Fiji government knew it had a significant social problem with these abandoned children, too.

So it gave the Anglican Church a tract of land at Nakasi, about 15km from downtown Suva on the road to Nausori airport, for a home to be built.

Winston Halapua grew to understand the contours of that land, because as a theological student he was sent there with a cane-knife to hack out a building site.

There were no roads leading in there, he recalls, just a track through the bush.

George Hemmings was in on the act, too. He had friends in high places, including Sir Maynard and Lady Moira Hedstrom of the island trading company, Morris and Hedstrom, who gave 10,000 pounds towards a home.

So the Diocese of Polynesia now had a site, and the means to start building.

But who could run the home?

That’s when the then Bishop, John Vockler, had a brainwave. He asked the Community of the Sacred Name – the order of Anglican sisters whose provincial mother house is in Christchurch – to take on that challenge.

They checked it out, and in 1967 they declared they were up for it. God was

leading them to Polynesia, they believed, and Sr Claire Masina – a newly-professed Tongan sister – would take charge of the home.

The first children moved into the home in April 1968, and in 1970 a second wing was added.

Sr Claire Masina was a providential choice as first leader, says Archbishop Winston.

“You could see Jesus in her face.

“She embodied what a home for the homeless should be. She was always smiling. Smiling on the celebration days – and still smiling on days that were so fraught with problems.”

Fr Michael Bent, who is now retired in New Plymouth after many years’ ministry in Fiji, reckons having sisters run the place turned out to be wise for another reason: support.

“When you put nuns and children together,” he says, “purses fly open.”

Some years after the home had opened, Sr Claire reflected on the significance of the name chosen for it.

“Our care for the children,” she said, “always reminds us that St Christopher means Christ Bearer. In all the children, unwed mothers or people who come to us for their needs, we see Jesus. We do it all for Jesus.

“We wash and cook, sweep the floor, bath the children, cut the lawn and weed the garden. We count ourselves privileged to be given this task to do for him.”

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

A playful moment with Sr. Longo.

Sisters Longo and Kalolaine at the home.

‘Yes, sister. I’m waiting.’

W

hen Kalolaine Tuineau told her colleagues in the Bank of Tonga that she was considering becoming a nun, they thought she was “off her head.”

Kalo had worked at the bank from the time she left high school until she was 24.

But she’d always wanted to be a missionary – to “take people to Christ,”as she puts it.

She had grown up in an Anglican family.

She knew the late Archbishop Jabez Bryce and Sr Claire Masina, which is why she offered herself to Sr Claire’s order, the Community of the Sacred Name.

Poverty, chastity – and obedience: Kalolaine didn’t know where her life would take her.

“I was just interested in the little call of God on my life. So I asked: Lord, send me to a place where I will know you more.

“Two weeks before I resigned from the bank, Sr Claire called: ‘Kalo, you will come and work here in Fiji.’

“I said: ‘Yes sister. I’m waiting’.”

Novice Kalo arrived at St Christopher’s Home on April 9, 1993, and has been there more or less since.

Looking back, Sr Kalo thinks her faith was a small thing back then.

Her first few years at the home were a struggle. She was young, used to having her own money, and the demands of the children and disciplines of the home – the sisters were up, praying at 5am – could leave you bleary-eyed.

She didn’t waver, though. After five years, Archbishop Jabez teed up a St John’s College scholarship that allowed Kalo to

study at the University of the South Pacific.

Her commitment firmed after that.

“I vowed to God: If you give me this wisdom, I will continue to give you my best, and the honour and the glory will be yours.”

She finished her degree (Bachelor of Management, Administration and Applied Psychology) took her final vows in Christchurch, and returned to St Christopher’s in 2004.

And now she’s the Sister-in-Charge of the home.

The essence of life?

“Prayer,” says Sr Kalo. “That’s the essence of our life.

“And whatever we pray for, we then have to put into our service.

“It’s not about sitting there, praying and waiting.”

Mind you, the sisters don’t exactly skimp on the praying.

“Our getting-up time,” says Sr Kalo, “has now moved to 4am because we can’t do this work without God’s Holy Spirit.

“You really have to connect to Christ, and to the Holy Spirit – through meditation and listening prayer, through God’s Word, and also through fasting.

“Those three are needed together. If one of those is not strong, we are lost.”

Sr Kalo’s day begins in her room, on her knees before a little oratory. The sisters are in chapel by 6am, and the daily Mass (celebrated by the chaplain or the local vicar) is at 6:50am.

Then it’s breakfast, and Sr Kalo is in her office by 8:30am.

The three sisters now have help: two

women come to help the littlies with their homework, and there’s also a lady who helps Novice Mary in the kitchen.

Another woman helps Sr Longo in the nursery, while another helps in the older children’s dormitory.

There’s also a man who does repairs part-time, and another who looks after the gardens.

This frees up the sisters to pray more, says Sr Kalo.

“Of course we have a rest day every week. That’s the day you can sleep in.

“But it’s amazing, because the Bible says: He wakes up those whom He loves.”

Singing is good therapy “When you give something to a child,” says Sr Kalo, “they will never, ever return it to you. They are not in a position to do so.

“But when you carry a child, when you relate to them in your heart, you’re just talking to Jesus.

“Because Jesus said: whatever you did for the least of these… you are doing it unto me.”

Sr Kalo thinks she understands why the children love singing.

“It’s a therapy for them,” she says. “It’s healing. When they sing, something is soothing them.”

Sr Kalo recalls Mahmood – the little Eveready Man at family prayers – when he arrived at St Christopher’s.

“He didn’t want to talk. He was very serious. He’d had a shattered life. Nothing was funny to him.

“Can you imagine Mahmood like that now?

“When we see change like that,” says Sr Kalo, “it encourages us.

“May God’s name continue to be praised and glorified in this home.”

Page 21

ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

POLITICS

Putting Jesus in the

polling booth

T

he Society of Salt and Light, a young adult ministry in Christchurch, recently held a VOTE evening, offering a faithful guide to voting this election.

The under 25 ‘youth’ vote is a coveted and illusive thing. Who are they? What do they want? And what will get them out of bed on September 20?

On VOTE night, around 70 young people focused on issues a first-time Christian voter might consider.

To finish on a lighter note, we invited a ‘Lefty’ and a ‘Righty’ Christian to work together and create a Gospel-o-Meter.

Their quick-fire analysis rated parties’ three leading policies against a mutuallyagreed set of gospel criteria. Each policy scored ‘Jesus points’ in the vain hope of answering: Who would Jesus vote for in this election?

Yes, the logic is superficial and flawed.

Disparate policies cannot be fairly compared in a one-minute time frame against a catch-all theological framework.

But on the night, the young adults loved it.

And it opens up critical questions: What are your gospel criteria this election?

And what Jesus ratings would you give a party’s policies, regardless of which side they are from?

NATIONAL PARTY

Note: Righty has a law and economics degree and wore a suit to VOTE night. Lefty is a vegetarian political campaigner who cycled to the event, even though it was raining.

Competitive economy by: trade agreements, pathways to work, oil and gas exploration, completing asset sales.

Is this policy in line with God’s priorities? ›› Is it good news for the poor? ›› Does it put “the last” first? ›› Does it free the oppressed? ›› Does it restore and heal relationships? ›› Does it enable generosity and selflessness?

The ‘How-Would-Jesus-Vote’ Ranking System We ranked each policy with between 1 and 3 Happy Jesus icons and gave a Sad Jesus if a policy would make him cry.

Page 22

Lefty

Lefty

LABOUR PARTY Best start for children: $60/week for new babies, independent Children’s Commissioner, child poverty strategy Lefty

Righty

Build affordable homes, introduce standards on rentals, capital gains tax Lefty

Righty

Economic upgrade- higher top tax rate, higher minimum wage, investment in industry and R & D Lefty

The Criteria

Budget surplus by focusing spending.

Invest in infrastructure with proceeds of asset sales, not debt.

Righty

Lefty: Jesus would be into these policies.

They’re putting the last first. It’s the poor who suffer unhealthy homes. Capital gains and higher tax rates would move wealth from the rich to help those who need it most. Higher minimum wages free people trying to live on not enough.

Righty: Jesus would kinda like some of this, but $60 a week is expensive and disincentives work. I’m not sure Jesus would like a capital gains tax as it would raise the price of rentals and push poor people out of their homes. A higher top tax rate and minimum wage will reduce the jobs on offer to those who need them.

Righty

Righty

Make public services more efficient.

Lefty

Righty

Righty: Reducing debt is a fantastic policy and means fewer ups and downs in the economy to knock the poor out. They’re focused on raising GDP, which provides more services. I’m slightly concerned about the short-term solution of oil and gas exploration, but more bang for your buck with public services can only be good.

Lefty: A stable economy is important for everyone, but will mean scrapping crucial services. I’m concerned about GDP being so heavily prioritized; just because the pie gets bigger doesn’t mean the poor get a bigger slice. Oil and gas exploration will lead to climate change. And what gets scrapped to make public services more efficient?

Who makes those priorities?

GREEN PARTY 100,000 green jobs: insulate homes, invest in renewable energy and green technology.

Lefty

Righty

Every river clean enough to swim in – set standards, charge for irrigation, support clean-up initiatives.

Lefty

Righty

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

End child poverty- universal child payment, child poverty strategy, increase the minimum wage.

policy too, because it ends discrimination of children with out-of-work parents.

Lefty

INTERNET MANA PARTY

Righty

Lefty: These policies offer stewardship for future generations, look after the earth God made, and create jobs for people who need them. Great priority of reducing poverty, clearly articulated, and a great way to do it.

Jesus digs this.

Righty: Jobs: tick. Renewable energy: tick.

But insulation will raise the price of homes so the poor have nowhere to live. The focus on rivers is a skewed priority. Clean rivers only benefit the rich, charging for irrigation hurts dairy farmers – the backbone of our economy – so the poor lose out. Nice intention to end child poverty, but they’re spending money rather than saving it.

MAORI PARTY Focus on wha-nau: invest in marae as community hubs.

Lefty

Righty

Continue to measure all legislation against the Treaty and support those seeking Treaty settlements.

Lefty

Righty

End child poverty – $16 minimum wage, insulate homes, extend Tax Credit to all low income families.

Lefty

Righty

Righty: Focus on whanau is fantastic. Maori are over-represented in poverty statistics, so what benefits them benefits all. The marae policy I’m not sure will work. Reconciliation with Treaty settlements is good. Ending child poverty is good, but theirs is a weird way to do it. Minimum wage rise cuts jobs, and home insulation makes houses too costly. Extending the tax credit creates huge dependency issues.

Lefty: I mostly agree with Righty’s positives here. The extended tax credit is an essential

Reduce poverty- $15 minimum wage, free meals in schools, abolish GST. Lefty

Righty

Protect privacy and internet freedom, cheaper universal internet.

Lefty

Righty

Ban advertising of tobacco and alcohol.

Restrict advertising of unhealthy kai.

Lefty

Righty

Lefty: I think Jesus would be into scrapping GST as it’s a tax that disproportionally impacts the poor, but I’m not sure about food in schools. Jesus would want to cut the powerful snooping on the most vulnerable, and cheaper internet ends the digital divide.

Banning tobacco and booze advertising protects needy people from powerful companies.

Righty: This is not good. Minimum wage is below the Maori Party’s anyway. There’s no proof that food in schools works, and GST provides the government with essential money. I agree with Lefty on the internet.

Jesus would be into banning tobacco and alcohol advertising, but these also bring in big taxes for government coffers.

ACT PARTY Tougher sentencing- three strikes then jail for burglary.

Lefty

Righty

Lower the top tax bracket to 24cents.

Scrap the minimum wage.

Lefty

Righty

End dependency- limit welfare, crack down on benefit fraud.

Lefty

Righty: Tougher sentencing… forgiveness… hmm. But a good idea to lower the top tax bracket. The rich then have more to invest in business, so more jobs. And no minimum wage means they’ll be able to afford to employ more people. Cracking down on benefit fraud will help people stand on their own two feet.

Lefty: My first sad Jesus comes out here.

Obviously, Jesus is into reducing crime, as it corrupts the criminal and the victim. But tougher sentencing is not the way to go. Scrapping the minimum wage leaves workers open to exploitation, and lowering the top tax bracket puts more money in the hands of the rich. Will it trickle down? Really? ‘Cause we’re still waiting.

Getting people back into work is good, but Jesus would be concerned if this kicks people off benefits who really need them.

CONSERVATIVE PARTY Tougher sentences for violent criminals.

Life means life. Early action on minor crime, including restoration activities.

Lefty

Righty

One nation. Remove laws that differentiate based on race. Return foreshore and seabed to Crown. End Treaty claims. End Maori seats.

Lefty

Righty

Repeal Emissions Trading Scheme, cancel carbon tax.

Lefty

Righty

Lefty: Tougher sentences don’t deter crime.

Their one nation gets a sad Jesus because it doesn’t reflect our history or where our nation is at. Cutting ETS and carbon taxes ignore climate change, which I imagine is a Jesus face-palm.

I just don’t think this is looking after our global neighbours or the poor, who will bear the brunt of climate change.

Righty: Jesus would applaud the restoration, but tougher sentences on violent crime seems abhorrent in light of forgiveness. The ‘one nation’ policy is their attempt at reconciliation.

Cancelling the carbon tax is ridiculous in light of global warming.

Righty

Page 23

ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

TO S HE CO I ALLO G J UY S T I C E

Time to weigh up the

cost of inequality

Lisa Woolley, head of the NZ Council of Christian Social Services, is uneasy with the deepening divide between rich and poor.

She’s doesn’t want to live in a society where the cost of one family holiday may be greater than another family’s income for the entire year.

The way Lisa sees it, when incomes are torn so far apart, we can’t kid ourselves that all Kiwis are getting a fair go.

Page 24

S

ince 2010, New Zealand’s richest 10% have watched their incomes grow by an average of nearly $10,000. But for the poorest 10%, average incomes have limped onwards by barely $200.

That's the real story behind headlines suggesting child poverty is falling. In fact, this year’s Household Incomes in New Zealand report shows that the income gap – and levels of child poverty – remain stuck at twice the level they were in 1980.

That’s certainly consistent with the experience of Anglican social service organisations. Nicola Taylor, Director of Dunedin’s Anglican Family Care Centre, says her staff are seeing no sign of reduction in child poverty.

“Life for the families and children we work with is becoming more and more

complex,”she says. “There are constantly more obstacles ahead for them. Whether it’s the cost of food, phone or firewood, clothes or transport, many can’t see their way ahead.”

Working out how best to respond to this constant need led Auckland City Missioner Diane Robertson to establish the 100 Family Research Project.

Project officer Emily Garden explains that the research delves into the lives of people the Mission works with – to find out what’s holding them back.

“We also want to get a critical perspective on our own work, whether we’re a help or a hindrance, and what we could do better,” she says.

“And we want to do this not just by talking about people in poverty, but by initiating a new conversation, bringing their

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

In Dunedin’s Anglican Family Care social work hub are(L-R): Family Start social worker Nela Mata'afaFereti and Centre Director Nicola Taylor.

voices to the front.

“We’ve learned that when people have issues of housing and health, hunger and education working in concert against them, and they have to navigate the complex and often confusing social service landscape at the same time, being poor is really hard work.”

Social service agencies are now struggling with a growing chasm between haves and have-nots. In the mid-1980s the average rich person earned 4.5 times as much as the average poor person. Today they earn 7.5 times as much – a big shift.

And while the number of children in poverty may have fallen in the past year, from 285,000 to 260,000, these numbers are still far higher than a generation ago. In the mid-1980s the percentage of children in poverty was 11%; now it’s 24%.

The widening gap between rich and poor over the past 30 years has been driven by a huge surge in the 1980s and ‘90s, the biggest in the developed world.

Those who deny our poverty and inequality problems typically make two arguments. For most people, they say, poverty is only temporary. There’s no fixed income gap; people move up and down the scale.

But the Household Incomes report shows that poverty is, in fact, extremely persistent. Of the 800,000 New Zealanders who are poor right now, about 70% – something like 560,000 people – have been poor for a long time.

The second argument is that whatever poverty we do have is the fault of individuals who don’t work hard enough.

But the report shows that in two thirds of two-parent households both parents are in full-time work, up from 50% in the mid1980s. Even more tellingly, slightly more than half our children in poverty have at least one parent in work, often full-time.

The cumulative effects of the radical divide between rich and poor are not only frightening, they show no signs of abating.

That’s the heart of the matter. There’s no short-term fix.

Social service organisations and people of goodwill continue to make a huge difference alleviating inequality’s shocking symptoms.

But until we clearly name the crisis and tackle it head on, we’ll fail to grapple with the devastating impact of poverty created in the last few decades.

With an election on the horizon, it’s time to insist our would-be representatives offer policies that go beyond the surface and strike at the bottom line.

Being poor is really hard work.

Lisa Woolley is President of the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services. lisaw@visionwest.org.nz Notes – The Household Incomes in New Zealand report is available at www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-ourwork/publications-resources/monitoring/householdincomes – The Family 100 Project research summary “Speaking for Ourselves” can be found at www.aucklandcitymission.org.nz

Less in the crate – government spending caps on frontline social work means Anglican Family Care runs on 10% less each year and has done for six years.

㼀㼔㼑㻌㻶㼛㼔㼍㼚㼚㼑㻌㻸㼛㼔㼟㼑㻌㻿㼏㼔㼛㼘㼍㼞㼟㼔㼕㼜㻌 ANGLICAN DIOCESE

㻭㼜㼜㼘㼕㼏㼍㼠㼕㼛㼚㼟㻌 㼍㼞㼑㻌 㼎㼑㼕㼚㼓㻌 㼍㼏㼏㼑㼜㼠㼑㼐㻌 㼒㼛㼞㻌 㼚㼑㼣㻌 㼟㼏㼔㼛㼘㼍㼞㼟㼔㼕㼜㼟㻌 㼠㼛㻌 㼎㼑㻌 㼍㼣㼍㼞㼐㼑㼐㻌 㼒㼛㼞㻌 㼠㼑㼞㼠㼕㼍㼞㼥㻌 㼟㼠㼡㼐㼥㻌 㼕㼚㻌 㼠㼔㼑㻌 㻞㻜㻝㻠㻌 㼥 The 㼛㼚㼣㼍㼞㼐㻚㻌㻌Johanne Lohse Scholarship

㼀㼔㼕㼟㻌 㼟㼏㼔㼛㼘㼍㼞㼟㼔㼕㼜㻌 㼕㼟㻌accepted 㼛㼜㼑㼚㻌 㼠㼛㻌for 㼐㼍㼡㼓㼔㼠㼑㼞㼟㻌 㼛㼒㻌 㼏㼡㼞㼞㼑㼚㼠㻌 㼠㼕㼙㼑㻌 㼛㼞㼐㼍㼕㼚㼑㼐㻌 㼛㼒㻌 㼠㼔㼑㻌 㻭㼚㼓㼘㼕㼏㼍㼚㻌 㻯㼔㼡㼞㼏㼔 Applications are being new scholarships to be㼒㼡㼘㼘㻌 awarded for tertiary㻹㼕㼚㼕㼟㼠㼑㼞㼟㻌 study in㻭㼛㼠㼑㼍㼞㼛㼍㻘㻌㻺㼑㼣㻌㼆㼑㼍㼘㼍㼚㼐㻌㼍㼚㼐㻌㻼㼛㼘㼥㼚㼑㼟㼕㼍㻌㼒㼛㼞㻌㼍㼟㼟㼕㼟㼠㼍㼚㼏㼑㻌㼣㼕㼠㼔㻌㼒㼕㼞㼟㼠㻌㼐㼑㼓㼞㼑㼑㻌㼠㼑㼞㼠㼕㼍㼞㼥㻌㼟㼠㼡㼐㼥㻚㻌㼀㼔㼑㻌㼍㼜㼜㼘㼕㼏㼍㼚㼠㼟㻌㼙㼡㼟㼠 the 2015 year onward.

㼍㼓㼑㼐㻌㼎㼑㼠㼣㼑㼑㼚㻌㻝㻣㻌㼍㼚㼐㻌㻞㻢㻌㼍㼚㼐㻌㼎㼑㻌㼍㼎㼘㼑㻌㼠㼛㻌㼜㼞㼛㼢㼕㼐㼑㻌㼑㼢㼕㼐㼑㼚㼏㼑㻌㼛㼒㻌㼎㼕㼞㼠㼔㻌㼍㼚㼐㻌㼎㼍㼜㼠㼕㼟㼙㻌㼍㼚㼐㻌㼔㼍㼢㼑㻌㼎㼑㼑㼚㻌㼞㼑㼟㼕㼐㼑㼚㼠㻌㼕㼚㻌 This scholarship is open to daughters of current fulltime ordained Ministers of the Anglican Church of 㻺㼑㼣㻌㼆㼑㼍㼘㼍㼚㼐㻌㻭㼚㼓㼘㼕㼏㼍㼚㻌㻯㼔㼡㼞㼏㼔㻌㼎㼛㼡㼚㼐㼍㼞㼕㼑㼟㻌㼒㼛㼞㻌㼍㼠㻌㼘㼑㼍㼟㼠㻌㻟㻌㼥㼑㼍㼞㼟㻌㼜㼞㼕㼛㼞㻚㻌 Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia for assistance with first degree tertiary study. The applicants must be aged between㼍㼞㼑㻌㼡㼟㼡㼍㼘㼘㼥㻌 17 and 26 and be able to provide of㼍㼚㼐㻌 birth㼕㼟㻌㼏㼛㼚㼐㼕㼠㼕㼛㼚㼍㼘㻌 and baptism and have been 㼀㼔㼑㻌 㼟㼏㼔㼛㼘㼍㼞㼟㼔㼕㼜㼟㻌 㼍㼣㼍㼞㼐㼑㼐㻌 㼒㼛㼞㻌 㼡㼜㻌 㼠㼛㻌evidence 㻟㻌 㼥㼑㼍㼞㼟㻌 㼛㼚㻌㼟㼍㼠㼕㼟㼒㼍㼏㼠㼛㼞㼥㻌 㼜㼞㼛㼓㼞㼑㼟㼟㻌 㼕㼚㻌 resident in the New Zealand Anglican Church boundaries for at least 3 years prior. 㼍㼜㼜㼞㼛㼢㼑㼐㻌㼏㼛㼡㼞㼟㼑㻚㻌㻭㼜㼜㼘㼕㼏㼍㼠㼕㼛㼚㼟㻌㼛㼜㼑㼚㻌㼛㼚㻌㻝㻌㻭㼡㼓㼡㼟㼠㻌㼍㼚㼐㻌㼏㼘㼛㼟㼑㻌㼛㼚㻌㼠㼔㼑㻌㻟㻝㻌㻻㼏㼠㼛㼎㼑㼞㻌㻞㻜㻝㻟㻚㻌㼀㼔㼑㻌㼞㼑㼝㼡㼕㼞㼑㼐㻌㼍㼜㼜㼘㼕㼏㼍㼠

OF CHRISTCHURCH

㼒㼛㼞㼙㻌 㼏㼍㼚㻌 㼎㼑㻌are 㼛㼎㼠㼍㼕㼚㼑㼐㻌 㼎㼥㻌 㼐㼛㼣㼚㼘㼛㼍㼐㼕㼚㼓㻌 㼒㼞㼛㼙㻌 㼣㼣㼣㻚㻚㼍㼚㼓㼘㼕㼏㼍㼚㼘㼕㼒㼑㻚㼛㼞㼓㻚㼚㼦㻌 The scholarships usually awarded for up to 3 㼠㼔㼑㻌 years㼐㼛㼏㼡㼙㼑㼚㼠㼟㻌 and are conditional on satisfactory progress in 㼛㼞㻌 㼎㼥㻌 㼣㼞㼕㼠㼕㼚㼓㻌 㼠㼛 㼑㼙㼍㼕㼘㼕㼚㼓㻧㻌 the approved course. Applications open on 1 August and close on the 31 October 2014. The required application form can be obtained by downloading the documents from www.anglicanlife.org.nz or by 㻯㼔㼡㼞㼏㼔㻌㻼㼞㼛㼜㼑㼞㼠㼥㻌㼀㼞㼡㼟㼠㼑㼑㼟㻌㻭㼏㼏㼛㼡㼚㼠㼍㼚㼠㻌 writing to, or emailing the address below.

㻌 㻌 㻌 㻱㼙㼍㼕㼘㻦㻌㻌㼏㼜㼠㼍㼏㼏㼛㼡㼚㼠㼍㼚㼠㻬㼍㼚㼓㼘㼕㼏㼍㼚㼘㼕㼒㼑㻚㼛㼞㼓㻚㼚㼦㻌 㻼㻻㻌㻮㼛㼤㻌㻠㻠㻟㻤㻌 㻌 Church Property Trustees Finance㻯㼔㼞㼕㼟㼠㼏㼔㼡㼞㼏㼔㻘㻌㻤㻝㻠㻜 Manager | PO Box 4438, Christchurch 8140 | Email: cptfinancemanager@anglicanlife.org.nz

Page 25

ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

M I S S I O N A N D E VA N G E L I S M

General Synod has placed mission front and centre of this church's priorities for the decade 2015-25.

Stepping up to a

Decade of Mission

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Over time ...without realising it, we have marginalised mission.

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he countdown to a Decade of Mission has begun.

General Synod in May unanimously resolved to set up a Commission that will make mission “the central theme of the church” from Advent 2015 to Advent 2025.

Anglican Missions Board Director Robert Kereopa says that by making that commitment, the church is not only reconnecting to its roots – but getting its priorities right.

“Two hundred years ago,” he says, “the central focus of Te Hahi Mihingare was mission. Mission at the grass-roots of society.”

“Over time, though – and perhaps without realising it – we have marginalised mission. It’s been moved to the margins of our leadership discussions and to the periphery of our vision.

“A Decade of Mission gives us the opportunity to move mission back to the central focus of our vision at all levels of the church.”

A Decade of Mission (DOM) working group, set up before synod, anchored the Decade in ACC’s five marks of mission: proclaiming the gospel, nurturing believers, responding to human need, transforming unjust structures, and caring for creation.

It stressed the decade is about invitation, and that voluntary participation is key. Likewise, the DOM can encourage groups that don’t usually mingle to unite in mission.

“Fellowships in mission,” it suggested, “can be across tikanga, parish to rohe, diocese to hui amorangi, tikanga to

tikanga, or cross-culturally, nation to nation, or ecumenically.”

Each group wanting to take part – whether it be a parish, diocese or tikanga – will be encouraged to ask four questions: How can we fellowship in mission together? What mission targets should we set? What is God asking of us for our context in this generation?” And “How do we plan and organise to get there?

The DOM working group recommended the following mission targets: • Overhauling church priorities, structures, committees – and perhaps the General Synod agenda… to reflect the missionary zeal of the early church in our expression of the five-part mission statement in this generation.

• Setting up a provincial Commissioner for Mission Mobilisation.

• Building Mission Fellowships at all levels – cross-parish, cross-tikanga, cross-culturally, ecumenically and with churches overseas.

• Building capacity at all levels “for evangelism, discipleship, missiology training, social action and transformation, and eco-missions.”

• Inviting missionaries from overseas, “short-term or long term, to influence our region for mission engagement.”

• Growing the church in Aotearoa-NZ “to add 100,000 new disciples in 10 years.”

‘Fairly ambitious prayer’ DOM working group member Anne van Gend, who is Director of the Anglican Schools' Office, told General Synod that

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

Church turns up the heat

on climate change

Our church has recently gained an online reputation as a moral leader - by moving to shift our money out of fossil fuels. But even as the decision went through, a note of caution sounded.

Taonga Editor Julanne Clarke-Morris spoke with some of our people behind the change.

Mission Board Director the Rev Robert Kereopa shares the DOM vision at General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui in May.

young people “wouldn’t be satisfied with a church looking inward.

“By the end of this decade, my fairly ambitious prayer is that each of the thousands of young people in our Anglican schools in this province will have been able to witness and take part in projects that make faith real, vital and exciting – which show there is something of supreme importance that we are willing to put ourselves out for.

And inspire them to follow it.”

Steve Maina, head of the Church Missionary Society, says the decade is a chance to “turn the tide of decline” – and he’s excited that Aotearoa New Zealand might receive overseas missionaries “who want to join in with what God is doing here.”

Robert Kereopa predicts the greatest challenge will be to “inspire, equip and commission the people in our pews for mission” – to activate the grass-roots in the mission of Christ.

“A Decade of Mission,” he says, “gives everyone the opportunity and permission to try new things – to have a go at living out our dreams and visions for God’s Mission.”

The concept has buy-in beyond the bounds of the province, too.

In his recent travels, Robert Kereopa found enthusiasm for a Decade of Mission in both Melanesia and Papua New Guinea – and there’s interest, too, from Anglican churches in East Asia.

So the DOM could take on an Asia-Pacific dimension as well.

The Decade of Mission will be launched at the next Common Life Mission Conference in mid-2015.

– By Lloyd Ashton

C

limate change is squarely on this church’s agenda, now that General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui has agreed to divest from fossil fuels.

For Auckland synod member and financial journalist Rod Oram, who moved the divestment policy at synod in May, it makes strict common sense.

“It is not ethical or consistent for us to keep investing in oil, coal or gas extraction or production, when we know C02 emissions from burning these fuels push climate change.

“We have a responsibility to our marks of mission that apply directly here: social justice and care of creation.”

Vanua Levu and Taveuni’s Bishop Apimeleki Qiliho agrees. His passionate belief the church should get out of fossil fuels stems from a basic concern for survival.

“In the Pacific we have people watching their land taken by the sea.

This is not only a future problem.

We can see the crisis of climate change now.”

One of the province’s biggest fund managers, the New Zealand Anglican Church Pension Board (NZACPB), has decided to review its fossil fuel investment holdings.

A new clause in NZACPB’s ethical investment guidelines states that it will avoid “unnecessary exposure to companies whose primary focus is the extraction and production of fossil fuels…”

Pension Board General Manager Mark Wilcox says this won’t mean an overnight sell off. It will depend, he says, on being able to “hedge” the impact of divestment by finding alternatives that bring in equivalent revenue, without increasing risk.

“Our investment managers are working hard to see how far we can

divest for now, without it having an adverse effect on returns.

“However, our risk assessment is not something we will do once and then file in the bottom drawer.

“The market is slowly reacting to moral leadership on climate change, so divestment will be a moving feast.”

“The fossil fuels clause commits us to continually review our portfolio to find where we can divest.”

Graham Miller, Chair of the General Church Trust Board, says there’s no real argument that moving out of energy stocks will diminish return in the medium term.

Fossil fuels now join the “sin stocks” Anglican funds already abstain from – such as armaments manufacture, tobacco, pornography, breweries and commercial gambling (gaming).1 But as with all sin stocks, Graham adds, Anglicans shouldn’t expect to hand the full moral burden of fossil fuel to their financial caretakers.

“We can vote for this divestment at synod, but most of us still choose to drive cars and fly in planes, which means we’re not for total divestment.

We need to look at our personal choices and see how they will reinforce this decision.”

Meanwhile, the United Church of Christ (USA), the UK Quakers’ Meeting and the Church of Sweden have moved to divest, alongside a number of US dioceses and regional synods.

This July the World Council of Churches’ Central Committee opted to divest and encouraged its 300 member-churches to do the same.

1. NZ Anglican Church Pension Board funds also aim to steer clear of companies with a poor environmental record or consistently bad industrial relations, where the activities of senior management raise serious ethical concerns, or where management appears to be excessively concerned with its own remuneration.

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WINTER 2014

PA S TO R A L T H E O LO G Y

Photo: Perraine Bradley.

Death without the

fear of God

Even with faith, the living cannot know what lies beyond death.

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Patricia Harvey looks back at how we used to approach death and thanks God that theology has moved on

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

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ost of us are frightened of death, but we needn’t be.

From the moment we are conceived and formed in the image of God, all are

destined to die.

In a way, birth itself is a death, as we pass on from the first life in the womb.

The placenta separates from its source, the umbilical cord is cut, and the sound of our mother’s heartbeat is taken away.

Through this first death, we are birthed into new life.

If we face death without fear, we are freed to live more fully. Life’s end then becomes a fulfilment of all that has led us to that moment.

Living with theology Traditionally, we were taught that death was payment for sin. Our entry into heaven or hell hung on good or bad behaviour during life.

But many suffered cruelly under that idea. Life had the bitter foretaste of hellfire and torment, and death loomed large as the terrible gateway to an eternity of punishment.

But even with faith, the living cannot know what lies beyond death. We may undergo the last moments of life and witness others’ deaths, but no eyewitness can return from the other side.

Contemporary theologies of death are anchored in a different place: in the starting point of hope.

Even as we grieve for what we will lose, we can anticipate the end of life as a longed-for reunion with God. Death holds the possibility of ultimate communion, of deep surrender into God. Italian theologian Carlo Molari1 talks of three life events that act as forerunners of death: ›› ruptures in human relationships ›› decisions that reduce our future choices ›› daily actions that embrace life, even in the face of death Molari believes these lesser deaths prepare us for the final departure.

As we survive the end of relationships, he says, we become more open to new ones,

and capable of deeper communion.

In letting go those we’ve loved, we build rituals that enable us to part. And when we endure separation, we enter into a new freedom – living without the demand that another walk alongside.

‘Your will be done’ Our lives are full of choices that determine what person we’ll be when the end comes. Molari speaks of those decisions as life-giving deaths, “of the many possible persons each one of us has within us at birth, we can only develop one – the others must die.”

In the time of death the soul faces its final trial before release.

As death approaches, chronos time ends and kairos time begins.

As we wait for the spirit – there is no longer any choice but surrender.

But not into nothingness, nor the abyss.

The Bible story Christ’s death changed our conception of death forever. And we know he suffered a great deal in his dying for us – the Romans knew how to kill slowly and painfully.

Alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus relinquished his fight with death and surrendered in prayer: ‘Yet not what I want, but what you want… your will be done… your will be done,’ was his prayer.

Later, Mark and Matthew’s redactors showed how Jesus’ struggle with death returned in his last moments.

‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ he cried. And then he breathed his last.

In his dying, Jesus transformed death forever, giving birth to the hope that never dies.

Paul’s letter to the Romans (8:18-23) speaks of all Christian deaths as new births.

In death, he says, we are born into the world we have yearned and prayed for – the kingdom of God. Paul’s words are given to us in his letter to the Romans. These Scriptures (8:18-23) speak of death as a new birth. The next world into which we are born is the kingdom of God, our hope.

In that light, there is no shame, no disguise and no defence.

How we experience death To fear death is to turn in on ourselves.

Only when our deepest fears of death are brought to the light do they reveal who we really are.

In that light, there is no shame, no disguise and no defence. To accept our mortality offers healing – as we break open the truth of what it is to live honestly.

Do not fear death Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

A humble life holds to that earthy imprint.

When we face the loneliness of death, refusing to surrender can make a hell on earth. Is this desperation not to die simply the ego unprepared to accept its own end?

The Spanish philosopher Seneca observed ‘crudelius est quam mori semper timere mortem – it is more cruel to always fear death, than to die.’ ”Our comfort is to look toward death with hope. If we willingly let go, death becomes the fulfilment of our life and creation continues.

No matter its distance from us, let us not fear death but prepare for the end in love.

At the final hour, it is how we have lived our lives that gives birth to its ultimate fulfilment.

Patricia Harvey is an Anglican postgraduate student at the School of Theology, University of Auckland. phar888@aucklanduni.ac.nz Note 1. Molari, Carlo. "Senso della vita, senso della morte: Meaning of Life, Meaning of Death."

Translated by Dr John L. Dunn. In Per un Progetto di Vita, 90-111. Rome: Borla Editrice, 1985.

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

GOSPEL 2014

Our missionary beginnings are a goldmine of untold stories ready to be reopened, writes Bishop John Bluck.

From the 'Dunedin window' at St Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin.

Mad dogs and

I

missionaries

n this bicentennial year, why is it that Anglican hearts are so strangely unwarmed by the story of the missionaries we’re meant to be celebrating?

We mark the centenaries of wars with more enthusiasm.

What’s more, we know more about missionary misdemeanours and their supposed land grabbing and musket trading, than we do about their achievements.

And if we’re ambivalent about our

...the missionaries deserve a better press

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missionaries, then the secular society and mainstream media are downright scornful.

What drives this prejudice?

There are two things. One, a virulent antipuritanism deep in the Kiwi psyche, and evident in our literature, that writes religious people in general, and missionaries in particular, as Bible-bashing, zealous wowsers.

Two, a suspicion of missionary motives for allowing (as if they could do anything to stop it) the wholesale breakdown of Pakeha – Maori relationships with the land wars of the 1860s.

Out of some misplaced bicultural cringe, Pakeha Anglicans seem slow at celebrating the missionary story for fear of offending.

But underneath this abiding unpopularity of missionaries is a simple, old-fashioned bewilderment.

Why on earth did they do what they did, often from a background of education and privilege, at such cost to themselves and their families?

Were they crazy, in the sense mad dogs and Englishman are when they go out in the midday sun?

Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his land-greedy mates in the New Zealand

Association certainly thought they were, and complained to the British parliament about them constantly.

Several of them, along with their wives, did go mad and suffered all sorts of nervous breakdowns.

I’m fascinated why they came in spite of all that, to what was a physically rugged and daunting life, removed from the refinements of English society.

As William Williams wrote in his diary: “We preach, we talk, we keep school and translate.. we lay bricks, we plaster, we plant, we salt pork, and hunt cows in the bush. We take voyages in search of provisions for our schools.. if we want a chimney we must make bricks and lime and build it also.”

For Jane his wife, and others like her who grew up with servants and had no previous experience of domestic work, the list also included baking 140 lbs of bread a day, plus churning butter, brewing beer, sifting flour, washing wheat, cutting wood, carrying water and sewing, washing, mangling and ironing.

What you couldn’t make or grow or catch or shoot for yourself, you had to trade your supplies for with Maori, or go hungry

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

– and your children too.

And there were plenty of children. The first 14 missionaries up till the 1820’s had 114 between them. Their mortality rate was scary. If they survived the long sea journey, they were subject, alongside Maori children who were even more vulnerable, to measles, scarlet fever, influenza and typhoid. Almost every missionary family lost children this way.

Through all these trials, the missionaries deserve a better press and a reclaiming of their stories before it is too late.

Some of the stories are already slipping away. Take the Revd Charles Reay, for example, a young English priest that I first met under a holly tree in Rangitukia.

A local kuia showed us the gravesite, near where the mission house stood when Charles was banished there in 1847. He served for a little over a year before he died of illness, but long enough for him to become much loved.

So much so that the locals buried him in a secret grave, so he couldn’t be taken away from them.

Like so many missionaries, this young priest was a man of mystery. The church Charles served so briefly and so well, has forgotten him, even though he came out to New Zealand with Bishop Selwyn, recruited rather rapidly, for dodgy reasons.

He soon dropped off the Williams’ list of favourite visitors.

Selwyn assigned him to Nelson as the first vicar where he served with distinction with his wife Marianne, when she finally arrived. More troubles ensued which led to Selywn sending him, not to the Chathams as Bishops of Christchurch used to do with wayward clergy, but to Rangitukia on the East Coast. His story there is recorded eloquently on a tombstone – that like the holly tree, took on a life of its own.

To explore the world of spirit and vision where these missionaries lived, we need to make room for fiction alongside the history.

I literally stumbled over one such story during a pilgrimage to Lake Waikaremoana during the Waiapu Year of Pilgrimage, back in 2006.

At Onepoto on the lakeshore, hidden in a bush glade, we found the grave of a young trooper from Wairoa, 17 year old Michael Noonan, shot from his horse and killed in action against Te Kooti’s forces in 1867.

My filmmaker daughter Jessica turned it into a short film, which imagines young trooper Noonan’s short life, defined as it was by missionaries and the consequences of their work.

New Zealand at the time was a country at war, with teenagers like Michael caught up in the conflict. The film shows us the romance of military service, and the allure of arms that framed the missionary story, a romance that escalated through our history and found its bloody coming of age, so called, on the cliffs of Gallipoli 45 years later.

This film also connects with the missionary story through the relationship with the natural world. For urban European settlers, the landscape was overwhelming, all pervasive, sometimes terrifying, though perhaps not so scary to their children, who made no comparison with the bustling streets of London or the gentle villages of Hampshire.

New Zealand was a country ripe for exploitation when the missionaries arrived.

Yet within 25 years, a treaty written to protect the interests of Maori as much as settlers was in place, and a network of schools, churches and agricultural projects had spread the length of the country.

The missionaries were clear from the start that they were there for Maori rather than the settlers. When the settler numbers grew, along with greed for land at any cost,

...the landscape was overwhelming, all pervasive, sometimes terrifying

the missionary voice was loud and harsh in its judgement of any injustice. So much so that newspaper editorials called them traitors to their own British people. How could such a story have happened?

It ought to give us pause to wonder and marvel.

Bishop John Bluck lives in Pakiri, north of Auckland.

His hour-long film and word presentation on “Mad Dogs and Missionaries,” is available now. To request the presentation please contact him via the email below. blucksbooks@gmail.com

ANGLICAN STUDIES at St John’s Theological College

2015

DIPLOMAS IN ANGLICAN STUDIES NZQA accredited at Levels 5 and 6 for Ministry and Mission in

Biblical Studies Theology Faith in History and Context Ministry and Mission in Context

For more information visit: www.stjohnscollege.ac.nz Phone: 09 521 2725 Email: reception@stjohnscollege.ac.nz.

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

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MISSION

Westerners have

NZCMS’ Kenyan mission team line up with their Dunedin peers in early 2014.

a lot to learn

Dr Cathy Ross looks into what’s changed in mission, 200 years on.

This is a mind-shift and a wake-up call.

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hristianity’s explosive growth in the non-Western world has transformed the face of mission in the 21st century.

Christianity’s centre of gravity has now shifted, from the West to the Majority World.

That’s exciting news, because it makes us members of a truly global movement – and a youthful one – which is a different picture from what many of us are used to seeing.

Take Africa, for example. In 1900 its mainly Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians formed only 9% of the continent’s population of 107.86 million. Muslims were 32% of the population and outnumbered Christians 4:1.

By 1962, as Africa began to slip out of colonial control, there were already 60 million Christians. Now, in mid-2014, it’s close to 520 million – which puts Christians at 51% of Africa’s population.

Yale history professor Lamin Sanneh highlights how much of Africa’s conversion

to Christianity took place after the colonial powers had gone. This was due, he says, to the delayed impact of Bible translations and widespread evangelism by African missionaries.

Bible translations into African languages changed the landscape of mission. When local catechists gained scriptures in the vernacular, they took hold of the mission.

That disempowered both the missionaries and the colonial enterprise – and stripped indigenous elites’ control of religious power and written traditions.

Bible translations had another, unexpected effect. In many places, the new texts set off an indigenous cultural renewal.

The local idiom was given greater status when used to tell the stories of God and God’s people. This affirmed the local culture at the same time as incarnating the gospel into a comprehensible worldview.

All these factors encouraged Africans to take hold of Christianity and own it as a positive force. African missions then

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

led the gospel’s expansion, without the disadvantages of foreign compromise.

Women and young people also found new roles in the burgeoning churches.

So Christianity has begun to take on an African face – especially in the Anglican Communion, where the ‘average Anglican’ is black, female, Bible believing, and probably a teenager.

This is both a mind-shift and a wake-up call.

No longer can anyone reasonably hold to the ‘intrepid Westerner’ as the missionary model.

World Christianity is also a women’s phenomenon. Back in 2006, Professor Dana Robert of Boston University challenged missiologists to rethink Christianity as a global women’s movement, since the majority of its members are female.

Most of today’s Christians are not only women; they are also very poor, unlike many reading this magazine. All of which raises the question: what should be our role in this new world church?

The Role of Mission Partners With the church growing well in the Majority World, surely there’s no need for missions from the West to the rest? The answer is both yes and no.

We still need mission partners, but not just from the West. Mission can be from any community or nation to any other.

Aotearoa-NZ recently welcomed a team of Kenyan Christians who shared an infectious joy and trust in the Lord, as well as a strong commitment to gospel-led social justice.

Christians from the Majority World may challenge our beliefs. They accept the authority of scripture, and by Western standards hold a theology that’s conservative, orthodox and traditionalist.

Plus, they are more likely to strongly uphold our Christian responsibility to address poverty and injustice – having lived in close quarters to the poor. And since African Christians often grow up alongside other religions, they are better at articulating the uniqueness of Christ to people of different faiths.

African Christians are often less defensive, yet they are also alive to inconsistencies and unafraid to express them. For many Africans, a community-

Partners in mission: joking across the food table.

focused cultural lens also gives a clearer understanding of how the Bible should transform society.

For example, as Western Christians we are encouraged to practise our faith in private, while many Majority World Christians have an obligation to family, community and the public square. These are good challenges for our own walk in faith.

The Kenyan mission team’s work in NZ will benefit us, just as communities in Cambodia, Albania or Tanzania benefit from our work with them.

The Anglican Communion’s Five Marks of Mission are a valuable tool in today’s mission. They offer a wider view of mission, and by picking up different gospel priorities they help ensure our mission is holistic and appropriate to each place.

What is our role in this new world church?

In fact, we could do with their determination today.

They looked beyond the usual boundaries.

They refused to be domesticated by local or parochial limits, and they engaged in the messy realities of each mission field, both near and far.

That drive, and their independence from the Anglican Church – as well as a commitment to it – is still the CMS taonga or charism.

Early on, CMS undergirded its mission with five founding principles that could also strengthen our discipleship:

1. Follow God's leading

Learning from CMS

2. Put money in second place, not first

Founded in London in 1799, the Church Missionary Society began as a small group with a passion for spreading the good news beyond Britain.

At first, our CMS ancestors were not well received by the established church.

They were seen as overly enthusiastic, presumptuous activists, who haphazardly commissioned lay or ordained missionaries.

3. Begin in a small way 4. Under God, all will depend on the type of people sent out 5. Look for success only from the Spirit of God Dr Cathy Ross is a lecturer in mission and contextual theology at Ripon College, Cuddesdon and with CMS in Oxford, UK. She served in Congo as an NZCMS mission partner.

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CHILDREN

Julie Hintz and Debbie Smith are convinced there’s more going on in Messy Church than funtimes, glue and glitter.

In the pink with Messy Church

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She told her entire class about having met Jesus through Messy Church.

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he Messy Church paintbox burst open in this country at a Christchurch conference in 2010. Since then new “Messy” congregations have sprung up all over Aotearoa-New Zealand.

The UK-inspired Fresh Expression caught on rapidly here with novel ways of bringing Jesus’ Word to children and families who don’t get to church on Sunday mornings.

Messy Church combines Bible stories, craft activities, music and prayer in worship that suits the whole family.

A recent example comes from St Aidan’s in Auckland, where the Rev Debbie Smith helped launch Messy Church last August.

Four months later, St Aidan’s Christmas Eve Messy Church, featuring an impromptu nativity and Christinglemaking, drew 130 worshippers – many of whom don’t normally attend church – including 60 children.

Some children prayed spontaneously for the first time.

Families from St Aidan’s Mainly Music asked, ‘When’s the next Messy Church?’

At Woolston in Christchurch, Messy Church unpacked the parable of The Prodigal Son with a Pink Pig Party, where children devised their own words or pictures for confession. Worshippers made piggy banks in which they could ‘post’ a note of forgiveness - to release a hurt to God or someone they needed to forgive.

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

One excited dad emailed back his 8-year-old daughter’s response to the Pink Pig Party – her first time at Messy Church: “The following morning was ‘Show and Tell’ at school. She told her entire class about having met Jesus through Messy Church. One of her friends had hurt her.

This had left her unsettled, struggling to sleep and with tummy pains. Her class and school heard her story of forgiveness and the message that we are able to forgive others because of what Jesus has done in first forgiving us.”

Debbie Smith and StraNdZ Children’s Ministry Enabler Julie Hintz were part of the team that brought Messy Church to Aotearoa.

But once the idea was planted, they wanted Kiwi Christians to figure how this new ministry might grow in NZ soil. Now that Messy ministries are putting down deeper roots, new questions are surfacing around growing disciples, sustaining the team, and keeping worship truly intergenerational.

For answers, Debbie and Julie have invited UK Messy Church founder Lucy Moore downunder this August, where she’ll share tips from Messy Churches that have been going a little longer.

Lucy founded Messy Church back in 2004 and now writes books full of practical wisdom on how to build God’s kingdom the Messy way.

But she won’t be arriving with a simple “how to” list. She’s passionate about building robust theological thinking that ensures Messy Churches grow into Christ-centred, missional communities.

Those theological foundations are vital, Lucy says, quoting theologian George Lings. Otherwise, Messy Church “becomes little more than fun, glitter and entertainment, and opportunities for building the kingdom of God are trivialised and blunted.”

This explains why Julie Hintz and her team at St Matthew’s in St Albans, Christchurch, are focussing on discipleship in Messy Church.

“We’ve asked, ‘How do we know where people are in their faith journey?’

“And as we’ve built relationships within our Messy congregation, we’ve seen people go deeper in their understanding of how God works in their own commitment to Messy Church. We’ve

celebrated that as a sign of growing discipleship.”

One family from outside the wider St Albans congregation had always been very involved in Messy Church: helping with craft, cleaning up and more. Then, not long ago, the mother asked Julie for a new Messy Church theme.

“One of her children was battling fear, and she believed that through Messy Church, God would make a difference in her son’s life. I welcomed her suggestion, then she helped plan that lesson – and now she’s joined the leadership team.

“Another person always had very little in the way of material things. Each Messy Church we’d pack a bag of leftover food for him.

“Then one day he turned up with a mile-wide smile, holding two cartons of custard he’d brought to share for dessert.

His joy was palpable as everyone thanked him for the yummy food.”

While taking on Messy Church is a challenge, there are so many rewards, Julie says.

Dorchester’s Bishop Colin Fletcher is the first to agree. From his viewpoint, it’s not only families whose lives are changed

by Messy Church. Faith communities that reach out through Messy Church often find renewed energy and enthusiasm.

Messy Churches can grow into Christ-centred, missional communities.

“Local churches are finding their ministry reinvigorated through Messy Church,” Bishop Colin says. “This is resulting in renewed purpose as church members are enabled to use their gifts, particularly leadership, creativity and hospitality, in service to their local community.”

If you are already part of the Messy church adventure, or want to know more, Messy Church conferences are being held around the country this August.

Julie Hintz is StraNdZ Children and Families Ministry Enabler for the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, NZ and Polynesia. The Rev Debbie Smith is Messy Church Coordinator for Aotearoa New Zealand. julie@strandz.org.nz

Messy Church Conferences 2014 July 31 Christchurch

Leaders’ Forum, St Silas Redwood.

August 1–3

Christchurch

Hope Community Church, Hornby.

5–6

Nelson

St Barnabas, Stoke.

8 – 10

Wellington

Epuni Baptist Church, Lower Hutt/St Paul's, Kapiti.

11–12

Bay of Plenty

St John the Baptist, Te Puke.

14 –15

Auckland

Carey Baptist College.

Publicity and registration information is available on the StraNdZ website www.strandz.org.nz.

More details from Debbie Smith at: dlsinz211@gmail.com, or admin@strandz.org.nz.

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The Hope Project —

getting the message heard.

After 3 years in the making, the Hope Project’s October 2014 national media project is just a small few months away.

The project seeks to commemorate the bicentennial of the gospel in Aotearoa in the most meaningful way — by engaging a conversation about the hope that the gospel brings with every home in our nation through media (TV, free booklets in every letterbox, various web-media).

The booklet will communicate key stories related to the arrival of the gospel in New Zealand, but then also regarding the gospel at work in peoples lives today bringing hope, concluding with a summary of Christian belief and an optional prayer.

Web-media will communicate the same, but also much more.

Wellington-based marketing company GSL Promotus have been engaged as media

partners, working in partnership with Rob Grindlay of Generate to develop the creative aspects of the Hope Project media campaign. From a strategic perspective it has been recognised that the time for this kind of project is now. If this were tried 5 years ago, the same could not be achieved — especially in the web-media.

Churches from Kaitaia to Invercargill have partnered with the project already, with others continuing to engage as they come to understand what the project is about. It is something completely new, purpose-designed with a multi-religious and multimedia culture like ours in mind.

The project will connect and engage with many NZers, creating conversational opportunities on a very wide basis and includes plans to continue to do so beyond the first phase of the media this October.

Please be a part of it!

Go to www.alltogether.co.nz to sign up for prayer updates, to donate, and to find free resources that can help you and your church to prepare. This is something truly meaningful that we can do to commemorate our nations gospelbicentenary — sharing the message of hope that we have.

advertorial

TV ads on the main channels

In our gospel-bicentenary year, wouldn’t it be great to share that story and the gospel with every home in our nation?

It begins this

October, and it’s

called the Hope Project!

Are you aware?

Is your church linked in?

Are you prepared?

It will be one of our greatest conversational opportunities ever!

Check it out at www.alltogether.co.nz Shining Lights Trust, New Zealand. PO Box 6078, Brookfield, Tauranga. 3146

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A booklet in every letterbox Online click ads, social media and both gospel and discipleship websites You and your church engaging those you know in conversation about it.

Wide-reaching, no cringe factor, cost-effective, graceful, clear, strong partnership strategy, free resources.

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

OVERSEAS AID

In May this year Trish Murray from Christian World Service saw life in Gaza firsthand.

Photo: Bishop Ngarahu Katene

Despite what look like unending setbacks, the scene that met Trish only strengthened CWS’ resolve to support the good going on.

Gillian Southey shares signs of hope from Gaza.

A brighter future

for Gaza

W

hen Gaza is under attack, fenced-in residents’ only hope is that it will soon stop.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza have taken a high toll – and not only on life, because violence breeds fear and hopelessness, too. But some are determined to work for peace, even while dealing with their own trauma.

At Gaza’s Erez checkpoint, a caged walkway stretches into the distance.

Inescapably barred and wired on three sides, it stands as a metaphor for the land that lies at the other end.

The Gaza strip confines 1.7 million people to a tiny area, bordered for 51km north and east by Israel and by Egypt along its 11km southern edge. Israel rarely grants entry permits, so CWS International Programmes Coordinator Trish Murray was fortunate to get into Gaza this May. She found an economy shattered by years of blockade and political conflict.

Even supplies from Egypt have dried up since “illegal” tunnels for transport were closed.

Today 4 out of 5 households must survive on food aid, and with Gaza disallowed from exporting goods, two thirds of its people now live below the poverty line.

Even the local fishermen are hamstrung by Israel’s travel limit of 6 nautical miles from the coast. And in one of the hottest, driest spots on the planet, a

mere 1 in 4 households had running water – and only for a few hours each day.

Not everyone wants to stay, but leaving is often not an option. For example, according to the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees (DSPR), only 1313 Christians still live in Gaza – down from 2000 five years ago. Christians seem to find it easier to emigrate.

More than half the people who still live in Gaza are aged under 18, and Trish says you can feel their frustration. Schools struggle for funding and job opportunities are few.

This is why DSPR makes vocational training a top priority. For young men and women this stepping stone into skilled work can be a life-saving source of hope for the future.

Trish met one student, Marwa (19), who is halfway through a year-long DSPR dressmaking course. When she started – straight out of high school – Marwa couldn’t even use a needle. Now she shows pride in her colourful embroidery and the clothes she has made.

When she finishes her course, and heads out with a Ministry of Labour certified diploma in hand, Marwa will be ready to set up a small business.

Other DSPR students will gain secretarial certificates, or three-year qualifications in carpentry and furniture making. Disadvantaged teenage boys between 14 and 16 can enrol in a metalwork and welding course that offers a first step up the job ladder.

“Gaza was much worse than my last visit,” says Trish, “but the enthusiasm of DSPR staff was undiminished. The students are eager to learn, and DSPR is proud that 90 to 95% of their graduates get work.”

As well as training, DSPR runs three bustling health clinics for mothers and children. Last year these clinics treated over 20,000 patients.

Gaza’s families have also fallen back on DSPR’s one-off grants of US$100 to buy water, food, medical care or other goods.

With Gaza’s outlook still under threat, now is a good time to support organisations like DSPR, which offers practical skills and hope to young people.

To support DSPR please go to: http:// www.cws.org.nz/donate and select “Gaza Appeal” on the secure donation page.

Gillian Southey is Communications Coordinator for Christian World Service (CWS). gillian.southey@cws.org.nz

This stepping stone into skilled work can be a life-saving source of hope.

Page 37

ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

ENVIRONMENT

Are we squandering the

water of life?

Phillip Donnell finds our take-it-for-granted Kiwi attitude to water hard to swallow. No matter how much rain we get, he says, there’s no excuse for letting water go down the drain.

Every day our landscape is drenched with over 230 million litres of cattle urine…

Page 38

I

n John 7: 37-39 Jesus explains the lifegiving power of the Spirit as “living water.” His words show how the Spirit is crucial to heavenly wellbeing, just as water is crucial to earthly wellbeing.

In 2014, both are still essential and precious.

New Zealand is a soggy place. Each year, enough water falls in Aotearoa to fill Lake Taupo 10 times over – around 560 billion cubic metres.

But none of that water is newly-created.

In fact, nature stopped making water 3 billion years ago. Since then the earth has simply recycled it.

Now competition is heating up for this finite resource. The World Bank estimates that within a decade 4 billion people will live under severe water stress. That means half the world’s population will struggle to meet basic water needs.

Despite occasional droughts, it’s hard to imagine water becoming scarce in New Zealand. We have plenty. The issue here is: Who gets to use it and how?

According to Dave Hansford in New Zealand Geographic,1 our water resources are already fiercely contested, because

this country makes its living by changing water into milk, trees, wool and meat.

And friction over water use is likely to rise further if the government raises agricultural exports to its planned 40% of GDP by 2025.

Water is vital to production. And the figures are staggering. For example, one litre of milk takes 1000 litres of water to produce, a kilo of paper 330 litres, a glass of brandy 4000 litres, and one car 148,000 litres.

Production has another water cost, too.

NIWA and the Ministry for the Environment, class more than a third of our 3820 lakes as eutrophic or worse. That means life has been choked out of them by oxygen-depleting waterweed, swollen by run-off chemicals from factories and farms.

They say, too, that 880,000 Kiwis now drink water that’s not fully health compliant, and over half our popular river spots are too polluted to use safely.

As beef and dairy herds get bigger, the likelihood of healthy streams and rivers gets smaller. Every day our landscape is drenched with over 230 million litres of cattle urine, and that’s not counting

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

As dairy herds get bigger, the likelihood of healthy streams and rivers gets smaller.

the outpourings of over 30 million sheep.

Add widespread nitrogen-based fertiliser contamination and pest fish, and no wonder 68% of our native freshwater fish are now threatened.

Last year the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, warned that intensive farming and clean waterways cannot exist together; she calls it “a classic economy-versusenvironment dilemma”.

The good news is that the past three decades of damage could be arrested, or even turned around. But it will take a change of will and some serious Kiwi ingenuity.

There are signs of hope. A number of Fonterra farmers are already out front, investing in streamside planting, fencing and upgrading effluent systems.

The Ruataniwha project in Hawkes Bay will only go ahead if its sustainable irrigation systems reduce disturbance to wild flora and fauna.

In the Waikato, iwi and government are co-operating in a cleanup of the Waikato River, with a $210m fund assigned to remove E-coli, nitrogen, phosphorus, boron and pest fish.

On 3 July this year, the government set new water quality standards for lakes and rivers, with a 20-year timeframe to meet the minimum.

However, the most critical change will be in our daily behaviour. The average New Zealander needs 150-170 litres of water per day, but we use closer to 500 litres each.

In urban areas, that means energy loss too, as pumps push water long distances into household taps, largely to end up as wastewater.

What can we do?

›› Plant drought-resistant plants and use moisture-retaining mulches. ›› Divert roof rainwater into tanks to use on the garden. ›› Reuse rinse water from the bathroom or laundry to water the garden. ›› Keep toxic liquids out of stormwater drains – chlorine bleach and detergents poured down drains will poison natural streams. ›› Go tramping or kayaking. Outdoor activities show us nature firsthand, so we see how water means life.

Promote NZ’s fascinating aquatic life.

It will take a change of will, and some serious Kiwi ingenuity

›› Learn about our native birds, fish and invertebrate animals and their habitat. ›› Teach children that waterways are taonga, full of life. ›› Adopt a local stream or wetland ›› Encourage a group to restore life to streams and coastlines by planting native trees. ›› Mobilise locals to remove weeds and replant in a wetland. ›› Exert pressure on waterway polluters and oppose new ones ›› Make sure polluters clean up and pay for restoration. ›› Question the expansion of polluting,

high water-use industries such as dairy farming.

Phillip Donnell is the EnviroChurches Facilitator for A Rocha Aotearoa New Zealand and the Director of New Earth New Zealand. He offers seminars on Christian environmentalism for churches and other groups. phillip.donnell@arocha.org Note 1. “Water Wars: Who Will Win the Battle for Control of Our Most Vital Asset” by Dave Hansford, in New Zealand Geographic, Issue 125, Jan/Feb 2014.

You can help us save a life Mission Aviation Fellowship services 2500 airstrips supporting 1500 organisations with 136 aircraft in 30 countries worldwide

›› Conserve water at home ›› Fix dripping taps, install a dual-flush toilet and low-flow shower head, turn off the tap when you brush your teeth, wash your car on the lawn with a bucket; buy energy & water-efficient appliances (e.g. a front-loading washing machine).

Support our life-saving work today www.maf.org.nz 0800 87 85 88 Where flying is not a luxury but a lifeline

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8/04/14 8:10 PM

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

BOOKS

An evangelical slice of history A RISING TIDE: EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY IN NEW ZEALAND 1930–65

BY STUART LANGE UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO PRESS, DUNEDIN, 2013 WWW.NATIONWIDEBOOKS.CO.NZ $40.

BOB ROBINSON

A

nglican churches today are seldom well-attended, intergenerational affairs.

Usually, those that do flourish are evangelical of some kind. Why? In ‘A Rising Tide’ Stuart Lange provides some answers from his Otago University doctoral research, which scrutinised the ministry of evangelical1 Anglican and Presbyterian clergy in Aotearoa New Zealand from 1930-65.

Part one, A Turn of the Tide, 1930-1945 centres on two influential clerics: Dunedin Presbyterian Thomas Miller (and his sons), and Christchurch Anglican William Orange (and those he influenced, known as the 'Orange pips').

Orange’s ministry of biblical exposition inspired a generation of clergy and laity, many of whom were formed by the InterVarsity Fellowship (IVF), and who served mainly in the dioceses of Christchurch and Nelson.

Part two, A Rising Tide, 1945-1965 describes the next stage, as Roger Thompson became the first ‘Orange pip’ to be appointed vicar in Christchurch.

Then, as over 30 of Thompson’s Bible class graduates entered the ordained ministry, they reproduced his combination of Bible exposition, prayer gatherings, informal worship, generous hospitality, evangelism and missionary activism.

While evangelicals remained a distinct minority within both denominations, their confidence and influence grew, not least because of their brimming congregations.

As a Presbyterian himself, Stuart Lange was careful to collect ample material from the Anglican side of the story. Of the 43 lengthy oral histories he gathered, 25 come from Anglicans.

The book’s informative epilogue reaches beyond 1965 to highlight the challenges of cultural diversity, secularisation and mainstream church decline.

The Bible College of NZ (now Laidlaw College) takes over training of more ordinands, and an increasing number of evangelicals gain doctorates overseas.

Some evangelicals are to be found robed in purple in this period, with one of their number, David Penman, elected as Archbishop of Melbourne.

The evangelicalism pictured here is decidedly British. It has a moderate, wellinformed conservative theology that rejects American fundamentalism, liberal theology and the stifling of worship by book-bound liturgical styles. But its evangelical drive to be ‘a church of the people’ still attracted its share of ecclesial frowns.

Lange underplays evangelical weaknesses to an extent. Tendencies to individualism, isolation or rationalism are not touched on, and there is a near-total absence of women. The latter ommission is perhaps unsurprising in a clergy-centred book, which naturally reflects the lack of ordained women prior to 1965.

This engaging slice of New Zealand history will benefit a wide readership. It reminds NZ evangelicals of their heritage and deepens others’ understanding of this broadening stream within Anglicanism.

Sprinkled with witty asides, some 20 pages of photos add to the book’s appeal.

The Rev Dr Bob Robinson is a senior lecturer at Laidlaw College, Christchurch, and a former General Secretary of the NZ Church Missionary Society. bobr@netaccess.co.nz 1. Here, the term evangelical refers to Christ-centred, biblically-derived Protestantism that is pietistic and missional.

Pearl of great price...

But there’s no need to sell everything you own to buy it. Sign up as a Friend of Taonga and we’ll mail four issues of Anglican Taonga (Treasure) direct to your home – for just $20. We’ll even throw in a copy for a friend.

Taonga covers the big issues of Anglicanism, fairly and honestly. And our writers include some of the sharpest, best-informed minds in the church.

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Keep up with what Anglicans are doing and saying.

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Join the Taonga team now by filling out the coupon and sending to: Taonga Distribution General Synod Office, PO Box 87 188, Meadowbank, Auckland 1742.

EMAIL

Page 40

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And please make out your cheque to Anglican Taonga.

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

BOOKS

Fresh seams in our nation’s bedrock TE RONGOPAI 1814 ‘TAKOTO TE PAI!’ BICENTENARY REFLECTIONS OF CHRISTIAN BEGINNINGS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND EDS. ALLAN DAVIDSON, STUART LANGE, PETER LINEHAM & ADRIENNE PUCKEY TUIA/GENERAL SYNOD OFFICE WWW.ANGLICAN.ORG.NZ $33 INCL. P & P JOHN BLUCK

B

icentennials are all about re-evaluating history.

We’ve been slow off the mark in doing that when it comes to the influence of Christianity on shaping Aotearoa New Zealand.

Hopefully, we’ll pick up speed and get some national media attention by the time of the services at Oihi this Christmas.

But there are precious few places to go to learn the story of how we began as a church and a bicultural society.

Thankfully, this book is one such place, gathering intriguing material in an accessible way for non-experts.

Based on a conference in Waitangi back in 2012, the publication gathers 16 of the contributors (five women, eleven men) in a rare mix of Maori and Pakeha scholars.

The three opening essays set the tone beautifully for what follows.

Historians Peter Lineham, Allan Davidson and Bishop Te Kitohi Pikaahu set the context for detailed analyses of everything from the archaeology of the first mission station at Oihi, to the significance of embroidered samplers from the King family, giving voice to the often-invisible women in our missionary heritage.

There’s a piece on what Marsden might have been heard to say in that first Christmas Day sermon, a question that promises to be major provocation in this bicentennial year, and several demythologising studies of the influence of missionaries on everything from the Treaty of Waitangi to slavery and peace-making.

Moeawa Callaghan’s reflection on the ‘entanglement’ of Maori and missionary in Wairoa is especially revealing and

Listen up, Babylon: who’s really in control?

BABYLON’S CAP: REFLECTIONS ON THE BOOK OF REVELATION

BY MICHAEL GODFREY WIPF AND STOCK, 2013.

WWW.EPWORTHBOOKS.ORG.NZ $33 CHRISTOPHER HOLMES

R

evelation is arguably the most neglected book in the New Testament. Fortunately, Michael Godfrey provides a helpful reflection on its enduring value.

He points out the power of Revelation’s alternative narrative, which asks: “Who is in control of this world?”

John’s vision not only encourages us to reflect on who rules the earth, it would have us strive for a more inclusive version. (p.83)

Godfrey warns that Revelation must be read as an apocalyptic discourse: It is our task to read it in its original context as a bringer of hope to the suffering and near-broken people of God. (p.8) Godfrey makes clear that, according to Revelation, whatever could destroy God’s control over the world must be brought to an end.

He outlines the many ways in which we are prone to wear “Babylon’s cap.” (p.111) In that, he isn’t afraid to hold Revelation’s mirror up to the church, which itself “has often represented just those patterns of repression and oppression that reveal not the rule of God, but the rule of Satan.” (p.116) Rather than chastise, however, Godfrey directs his readers toward the forgiving and redemptive action of the lamb. When the

challenges earlier notions of assimilation and subservience. She echoes a theme that runs throughout the publication: namely that Maori and Pakeha cultures are a lot closer and more finely entwined than either side usually acknowledge (or welcome).

As a way of rethinking the bicultural beginnings of our country and our church, this book deserves attention, and lots of sequels.

Bishop John Bluck lives in Pakiri, north of Northland. blucksbooks@gmail.com

Christian community turns back in faith and repentance, he says, only then can it “perpetrate the values of God.” For Godfrey, Revelation is a celestial vision that compels us to live and die for its version of the truth. (p.139) He asserts the Christian task is to put the “eternity of God” into practice by choosing to “live justly,” for example, by “sharing the resources of the earth, eradicating the brutal divide between what we now call the ‘global north,’ the rich nations, and the ‘global south.” (p.98) In sum, Michael Godfrey’s text is an accessible introduction to the Book of Revelation that emphasises the centrality of God’s rule and challenges the Babylons of today.

The Rev Dr Christopher Holmes is a senior lecturer in theology at Otago University. christopher.holmes@otago.ac.nz

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ANGLICAN TAONGA

WINTER 2014

FILM

As the veil falls John Bluck heads to the movies to see “Ida,” a film whose subtle tones tell the compelling story of a young Polish novice - whose life is overturned by secrets from her hidden past.

D

on’t be put off by the wrapping. This film is like receiving a beautiful present enclosed in brown paper and string.

The old-fashioned square screen ratio helps to anchor the characters in the empty sky and bleak landscape of a Polish winter. And the black and white photography highlights the exquisite economy and austerity of this story.

No sign anywhere of anything that isn’t essential.

Living in a culture like ours that is obsessed with excess and indulgent detail, this film is like spiritual shock treatment, stripping everything back to the simplest elements.

The story marks Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (long established in Britain) returning to his homeland and to the year 1962, when Poles were still embroiled in the consequences of post war Stalinism and the aftermath of the Holocaust that

This film is like spiritual shock treatment, stripping everything back to the simplest elements.

Page 42

claimed three million Polish Jews.

Anna is an orphan and a Roman Catholic novice.

On the eve of taking her final vows the Mother Superior encourages her to visit her aunt Wanda – a hard drinking communist and former state prosecutor.

Wanda introduces Anna to the truth about her Jewish parents and how they died, and eventually to the temptations of jazz, liquor, cigarettes and sex.

Anna like her aunt is hungry for identity and meaning in her life. But can she find these elusive gifts any better in the secular world than she has in the convent?

The Mother Superior knows the young novice must answer that question for herself, so Anna goes looking, if not among the living, then certainly among the dead.

If you wonder why the families of the passengers on MH 370 are so desperate to know what happened, this film explains why more eloquently than a hundred television reports.

Having rediscovered her own history, as a Jew and now a Christian Pole in a Communist state haunted by its recent violent past, what does she do with this legacy?

Her musician boyfriend suggests marriage, a house, children, a dog.

And what then, asks Anna? “ The usual, life,” he replies.

Anna returns to the convent,

walking alone down a country road, against the flow of the traffic. No words are needed. The subtitled dialogue is sparse and rarely required.

This is a film where images and their alchemy of light, silences and the spaces they fill, choreography of subtle movement and the slightest of gesture, all speak with overwhelming power.

You’d be hard pressed to explain why a beautiful young woman would find fulfilment in prayer and manual labour inside an austere convent in the middle of nowhere.

But the language of this film, spoken with such economy, precision and care, convinces you that Anna has chosen well.

I long for a church that would trust its well-tried heritage of liturgy, symbols and music to speak of the things of God, without overloading them with explanation, ornamentation and clutter.

If we could produce services with the economy and beauty of this film, we’d be overcrowded.

The Rt Rev John Bluck lives in Pakari, north of Auckland. blucksbooks@gmail.com

ANGLICAN TAONGA WINTER 2014

F R O M T H E FA R S I D E

An insipid Mediterranean cuppa reminds Imogen de la Bere why she’s tired of lukewarm religion.

Serving up a taste of paradise

N

ot long ago, we were staying in a boarding house on the island of Ischia.

Ischia is one of those paradisiacal Mediterranean islands where vibrant flowers grow like weeds and indolent breezes waft sweet scents down from the mountaintops.

It is also on the sailing circuit of the idle rich. The harbour is full of huge plastic yachts, jostling each other for position, each bigger than the average London apartment, boasting a flat screen TV wider than the average London beggar’s pitch.

The boarding house is managed, if that is the word, by an artist called José, a man on whom failure hangs like an old shirt. A long gallery, smelling vaguely of cigarettes and alcohol, is full of his creations, mostly featuring shoes and taps stuck on canvas, gently gathering dust. And a collection of old typewriters, without which no boarding-house corridor is complete.

For breakfast, José produced a single soapy-sweet croissant and a pot of tea.

At least, he called it tea. It consisted of a

stainless steel jug with no lid, containing some warmish milky water and a tea bag, accompanied by a cup, half full of milk and hot water (pre-mixed for my convenience) in which floated a single black hair.

The tea bag was designed to produce a nice weak cup, suitable for sipping icecold with a slice of lemon. It was not equal to the task of infusing an English teapot, even without milk and hair pre-added.

We didn’t have breakfast there again.

But how was José to know? He had never had a cup of English tea, or found anyone to teach him how to make one. He had read somewhere that the English like milk in their tea, and they like a pot of it. He had extrapolated from there, and none of his guests had enlightened him.

It struck me that the difference between José’s tea and the real thing was like the difference between religion as most people have encountered it and an experience of God. A few hymns, an address to the Almighty, a worthy but boring talk about love and the need to do better. It’s not very fulfilling or meaningful,

but it ticks the religion box, just as José’s breakfast ticked the breakfast box.

For most of the last two centuries we’ve been putting up with religion like that, and, like the guests in that B&B, no-one has thought to complain.

Has the church in New Zealand moved on? I hope and pray it has. Write and let me know. The Church of England is still largely stuck in a loop. Its worship vaguely touches upon the spiritual, it sometimes remembers to tap into the Holy, but mostly it ticks the box. And then, looks around wondering where all the people have gone.

Our sad and inadequate host on Ischia survives in his business because the island he landed upon is divine. The traditional church has survived because is sits upon and taps into the Divine.

But, God knows, so much more is possible.

Imogen de la Bere is a writer and director, living in England. delaberi@gmail.com

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