Baptist Magazine v135 n3

Baptist Churches of New Zealand

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Easter camps!

Knit two together

Jesus and my leadership

#YouAreNotAlone

MANY HANDS, ONE HEART †WOVENLIFE FOUNDATION

| J u n e / J u l y 2 0 1 9 | v. 1 3 5 n o . 3 |

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Acts 2:42-47 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

42

Recently added A LOSS OF INNOCENCE? Did New Zealand really lose its innocence on 15th March 2019, or was it already lost?

~ DAVE TIMS

MODELLING SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES The importance of modelling spiritual practices to children in our care.

~ GARETH DAVIES

THE HERO FROM NITHDALE STATION

EDITOR Linda Grigg | linda@baptistmag.org.nz

A book review.

~ TIM HODGE

GLOBAL MISSION EDITOR Greg Knowles GRAPHIC DESIGNER Rebecca McLeay

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E B I R C S B U S

Printing Image Print, Auckland

— Baptist Churches of New Zealand PO Box 12-149, Penrose, Auckland 1642, New Zealand 09 526 0338 — — Front cover photography Jayden Wall, Southern Eastercamp — Scripture Unless otherwise specified, Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright ©1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. — Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand or the magazine’s editorial team.

— The NZ Baptist Magazine is the magazine of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand and the New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society.

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“Unite”— combine, cooperate, collaborate

CONTENT 04 08 10

A word from the editor This issue our theme is ‘unite’ and is loosely based on Acts 2:44, which highlights how the early believers came together and shared things in common.

Consequently, unity is woven through many of our stories: • Two Auckland churches join hands in mission, ministry and social enterprise.

• An international movement that draws city church leaders together to promote unity and to strategise for transformation has held its first New Zealand event.

• Another cross-denominational movement—one that brings ‘second generation’ young people together— provides much-needed peer support.

• A prophetic painting calls for reconciliation and unity in Aotearoa New Zealand.

• And a worker from a church ministering to refugees, including victims of the Christchurch mosque shootings, reflects on the importance of people of goodwill working together to build relationships of trust.

In this issue we farewell two key leaders within our movement—Rachel Murray, General Director of the New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society, and Bruce Gibbs, transitions facilitator for the Baptist Churches of New Zealand. We also meet two of our newest regional mission leaders, Neil Perry and Chris Finlay. See pages 29 and 34 for news of these changes.

~ Blessings to you Linda Grigg

12 14 16 19 20 32 33

FEATURE

Knit two together

REFLECTIONS FROM CHARLES HEWLETT

Jesus and my leadership

CULTURE

A prophecy in paint

NEIGHBOURHOOD & JUSTICE

#YouAreNotAlone

LEADERSHIP

Many hands, one heart

YOUTH

Let the salmon swim!

CREATIVITY

What are creative people like?

OUR STORIES

DIRECTORY

GLOBAL MISSION

Arohanui Rachel WovenLife Foundation Stories Opportunities to serve

Baptist / F E A T U R E

knit Knit two two together together

Developing a pattern for partnership

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Myrle Bunn and Grant Harris write about the unique collaboration between two Auckland churches, for ministry and mission on New Zealand’s third most populated island.

Journeying to partnership

Getting help Despite this stunning success, a menacing ‘however’ began to emerge early on. The rapid formation of NH and the complete absence of governance left us with profound struggles. NH faced imminent catastrophic failure.

A desperate questioning prayer echoed: “Where do we go to get help?”

A tentative phone call put one of the trustees in touch with the Northern Baptist Association and by God’s grace we were introduced to Senior Pastor Grant Harris at Windsor Park Baptist Church (WPBC).

Located in our region and having the shiny credentials of community‑facing ministries experience, perhaps they could help?

There was an unmistakable glint in the banker’s eye when first reviewing pie graphs showing just how well NH was performing. However, it would be misleading to infer that it’s been a simple and uncomplicated process with everyone involved understanding perfectly the others’ point of view. The spectre of NH’s ‘no governance’ history presented a deeply complex situation, shot through with misunderstandings and profound power struggles. They were refining times!

In hindsight, Grant’s ‘hands-off’ approach, which he applied many times, was wise. It allowed the smoke to clear, high emotions to settle, and the necessary mutual trust to take root. We were then able to recover enough to grapple with the way forward. It also allowed time for WIBC’s congregation to be pruned and added to.

We’re so grateful that mutual grit and determination in

Rebecca McLeay

IT

is with joyful praise to the Lord that our story begins amongst a small bruised remnant of the unremarkable and unlikely.

In 2009 Waiheke Island Baptist Church (WIBC) was offered an Auckland Council initiative to form and manage an op shop that also diverted waste from landfill. Our mandate was to return profits to the Waiheke community. There was profound recognition that God was at work. With necessary speed and huge enthusiasm, four trustees and an advisory accountant cobbled together the structure that would enable the formation of New Hope Op Shop and Timber (NH).

Employing a few, with numerous volunteers supporting, community enthusiasm and support grew at pace.

Three times a year, NH injected many thousands of dollars of community grants into various worthy initiatives.

Streamlined access to funds for the needy in the form of hardship grants formed a lifeline for front-line workers such as social workers and district nurses.

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Baptist / F E A T U R E

We a re l e a r n i n g t h e divine imperative of identifying and securing Kingdom opportunities. keeping to the ultimate goal of building the Kingdom of God ‘together’ is leading to an outcome ‘far more than we could think or imagine’.

“She’s the one for us!”

Beyond the op shop governance now in place, a ministry link has been forged. While WIBC is the hands and feet in our community and maintains our identity, WPBC elders are our elders. WPBC resources are available to us. A very generous ‘open hand’ was offered to WIBC in crafting a memorandum of understanding that outlines preferred options and clarifies responsibilities.

God’s goodness didn’t stop there.

Nurturing an undertaking from Grant to provide a pastor for WIBC, we welcomed Roi Nu Maran as pastor in early 2018. Her sunny and engaging personality, deep faith tempered through hard times, her servant heart and of course her theological training at Carey Baptist College, galvanised the congregation to recognise and communicate loudly, “She’s the one for us and our community.”

Roi Nu immediately made a profound impact on us as the body of Christ, knitting us together, injecting enthusiasm, and exhorting us with

creative opportunities and ideas. Her inner compass planted her at the church in Ostend where there is now an open door to welcome the wider community with friendship, discussion, prayer and refreshments. Many lives are being touched.

In November 2018 a ‘daughter’ op shop, Timeless Treasures, was opened on the church property.

Jointly funded by WPBC and WIBC, it showcases quality donated, sometimes refurbished, eye-catching items to maximise returns. It has been well received.

We are learning the divine imperative of identifying and securing Kingdom opportunities in and for our community, the call to prayer and perseverance, the richness of the resources in the shared body of Christ... and to expect miracles!

Story: Myrle Bunn Myrle’s life has revolved around family, nursing and church. She and her family moved to Waiheke Island for the second time in 2003, where her husband Richard reoccupied the position of WIBC’s secretary. Her particular passion in the New Hope venture was developing a rapid, simplified, accessible source of grants for those in difficult situations.

She says “administering joy has to be the best job in the world!”

Timeless Treasures op shop

Waiheke Island... a missional opportunity

I’M

a glass half-full kind of person, which is just as well when you’re trying to do something a little different, something out‑of‑the-square.

When Waiheke Island Baptist Church (WIBC) approached us in 2015 with the request to come and chat about some of their challenges, I would never have imagined how interesting, and difficult, an offer of support would become. The glass half‑full needed to be slightly over half-full for us to be there still in 2019.

Windsor Park Baptist Church is reasonably large, and Waiheke Island Baptist is reasonably small.

In fact, the staff team in Windsor Park’s stable of ministries is about 170, which is at least four times the size of WIBC’s congregation.

So why did we get involved?

We sometimes ask that ourselves!

Let’s face it, we’d already tried this ‘campus’ idea once before with a neighbouring church, and it ended in tears and a sense of personal failure in my mind. That situation hurt and I had to ask myself whether I wanted to risk that again. Maybe I’m a sucker for punishment, or maybe that glass just stays slightly above half.

Looking to the future Waiheke Island is a fast‑changing and growing community; its 8,000 population swells to over 30,000 in summer.

With no significant church on Waiheke Island, an increasingly affluent population as a suburb

Roi Nu outside WIBC

of Auckland, and the thought of calm sailings to a subtropical island destination on our minds, we took the first steps of involvement in assuming the governance of WIBC’s social enterprise, New Hope, in 2015.

However, our involvement always came with the hope of being able to resurrect a small and dysfunctional congregation, looking to the future at what a healthy church might look like in 10 years’ time. Of course, being from ‘Auckland’ was always problematic for islanders so I knew this wasn’t Easy Street.

Has it been easy? No. At almost every turn the politics of people and power have created constant challenges that are not yet totally resolved. My hope at the start was that we would close the church and replant it from scratch. However, this wasn’t the preferred option of the remnant so, for better or worse, letting them take the local lead has always been my strategy.

A perfect match And then, out-of-the-blue and out‑of‑the-box, I came across Roi Nu Maran, a Carey Baptist College graduate at the end of 2017 with no calling to a church. She was available for the summer of 2017/18. She’s delightful, so I thought it would be a good experience for her to spend a sunny summer on Waiheke Island.

At the end of that summer the Waiheke congregation asked if they could keep her. And to cut a long story short, with the support of Windsor Park, the Northern Baptist Association and a private donor, we’ve been able to plant a full-time pastor on Waiheke Island and watch her bloom. WIBC became a ministry of Windsor Park Baptist Church.

Roi Nu’s appointment is initially for two years. However, I know there is a bigger story; as a single woman, initially a refugee from Myanmar to New Zealand, with English not being her strong point, this was always going to be out-of‑the‑square.

But an out‑of‑the-square pastor in an out‑of‑the-square island congregation—you couldn’t have found a better match.

Roi Nu is part of the pastoral team of Windsor Park and receives all the joys of being part of a team. She is not a sole pastor; she’s just located in an office on an island. It couldn’t be better!

Her pastoral approach, her love and grace, her integrity, her wisdom and her desire to stand up for the values of the Kingdom, have won her many friends.

The fruit is ripening quickly.

All for God’s glory Merging two churches in our New Zealand Baptist ecclesiology is almost unheard of. The challenges

seem to be bold print, even though the benefits should be headlines. I’ve long had a deep sense of regret at the pride we hold in autonomy, which I still consider a hindrance to fruitful ministry in our time, and in particular as each year rolls by.

I am grateful for the WIBC congregation; they have had courage to try something different. It’s still a work‑in-progress; it’s still not easy.

But at least we’re still going! That slightly more than half-full glass is still on the island and long may we drink from it for the glory of God.

Story: Grant Harris Grant has been the senior pastor of Windsor Park Baptist Church in Mairangi Bay, Auckland, for the past 10 years. He enjoys the diversity of the multi‑disciplinary approach Windsor Park takes to mission. With Windsor Park’s empowering congregation, he’s able to try all sorts of crazy missional ideas and, so far, most of them seem to work out. But, says Grant, there’s still plenty of time for things to go haywire!

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Jesus and my leadership The surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus

Charles Hewlett invites us all to examine our relationship with Jesus, especially those who are in leadership roles in the church.

H

ow do you take care of your relationship with Jesus? Do you proactively monitor your faith and evaluate how you are doing?

Do you take stock of your excitement and fervour, confidence and trust, hope

and expectation? What about your resilience? What words would you use today to describe your relationship with Jesus? Think about it for a moment.

And what about the more active questions. Are you growing in your love for Jesus? Is your knowledge of him increasing? Are you serving with greater delight?

I wonder if these questions are important to you in your leadership. Do you actively concern yourself with them?

Paul There was nothing more important to the Apostle Paul than his relationship with Jesus.

In Philippians 3:7-11 he speaks of “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Knowing Christ was so

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awesome to him that everything else paled in comparison.

He writes: Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, first-hand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him (MSG).

Nothing was more central to Paul than his relationship with Jesus: knowing him, gaining him, becoming one with him, experiencing the mighty power that raised him from the dead, suffering with him, and becoming like him.

Wow! This is intense. Determined. Passionate.

Taking stock I have developed six simple questions to help me audit my relationship with Jesus. They are not exhaustive. But they help me to take stock of the most important thing in my leadership—my affection and devotion to my Lord, Saviour and Leader.

Kaitlyn Weatherly/lightstock.com

Baptist / R E F L E C T I O N S F R O M C H A R L E S H E W L E T T

W hat words would you use today to describe your relationship with Jesus?

1

Am I listening to God? In Christian ministry it’s easy for the Bible and prayer to become nothing more than a work tool— instruments we use in our pastoral care of others. What daily disciplines do you incorporate into your life where you are forced to slow down and listen to the voice of God? Personally? Hearing his Word?

Talking with him? For your own life?

2

Am I helping in my world?

It’s also easy in Christian work to become so focused on our personal ministry and its success that we forget about the one for whom we are labouring, and seeing where he is perhaps most at work.

I believe that making the space to volunteer in scenarios outside my everyday work ministry has helped me to grow significantly in my faith.

For example, it has revealed to me just how expansive God’s love for people is—that he doesn’t just work in the formulaic ways I presume and through the people that I expect. It has forced me to trust him with new and different things, and to realise that maybe my problems aren’t so significant after all. I have had to make my gifting work in unfamiliar situations, and to serve rather than lead. The inspiration and growth that comes from observing the faith of others is significant!

3

Am I accountable to another?

Effective leaders are open to learning from others—proactively giving mentors permission to speak into their lives and to hold them

accountable. This is particularly important when it comes to growing in our love for Jesus. Who is the person you have given permission to ask the question, “Where are you in your relationship with Jesus?”

4

Am I caring for my body?

This is the question I have been working on the most over the past 12 months. And it’s not always easy!

But the Apostle Paul does ask: Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?

For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

I am celebrating weight loss through improved diet and exercise. My regular meeting with a counsellor/ supervisor has become important to me in maintaining healthy thinking and decision-making. The Carey Centre for Lifelong Learning helps with my intellectual development.

I have no doubt these things greatly benefit my relationship with Jesus, and make me a better leader.

5

Am I remembering my calling?

The truth that God shaped and formed me in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), and that he created me, by Christ Jesus, to join him in the work he does (Ephesians 2:10), is enormously encouraging. Regularly reading my personal ministry statement, ‘To keep the eyes of the Baptist Union of New Zealand on Jesus’ reminds me of my purpose.

It fuels my passion, helps keep my focus on Jesus and his Kingdom, and encourages me to do better.

Can you articulate your purpose?

6

Am I asking myself questions?

I have found it helpful over the years to proactively ask myself a series of questions based on

Philippians 3:7‑11. I pull them out of my drawer from time to time.

It’s amazing how quickly they bring focus!

• As a result of my learning, listening and serving this week, do I actually know Jesus more?

• Do I appreciate him more?

• How is my relationship with him growing stronger?

• Am I becoming more aware of the things that are important to him?

• Am I displaying the fruit of the Spirit more?

• Am I experiencing the resurrecting power of Jesus more and more in my life?

• Am I becoming more fervent about sharing my Jesus with others?

• Is my desire growing to see people and communities transformed

by Jesus?

• Is the idea of sharing in the sufferings of Jesus just a little less scary than before?

How would you go at answering these six questions? Why not try it? May we consider everything a loss compared to the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.

Story: Charles Hewlett Charles is the national leader of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand. He is often heard saying, “I love Jesus. I love the Bible. I love the gospel. I love the church. And I love mission.”

Follow Charles Hewlett: /charles.hewlett.nz /charles.hewlett

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Baptist / C U L T U R E

Carolyn Anderson-Shanly with her painting Wairua Tapu.

A prophecy in paint Seeing God’s heart for unity

Elesha Gordon tells us how a Baptist woman’s prophetic painting made waves at Waitangi Day commemorations this year and why it was taken on a tour around New Zealand.

C

arolyn Anderson-Shanly’s painting, entitled Wairua Tapu, played a role at Waitangi Day commemorations this year. Inspired by a vision, the painting depicts God’s heart for unity in Aotearoa.

It was at an evening service at Hills Church, also known as Hillsborough Baptist Church, when the lyrics of Edge Kingsland’s song Wairua Tapu (Holy Spirit Welcome) resonated strongly with Carolyn and her husband Edward.

They printed off the lyrics and put them up on their kitchen wall. But it was not until 7th March 2018 that God spoke to

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Carolyn about the meaning behind the song.

“I felt him say to me, ‘Now is the time the Holy Spirit is coming to Aotearoa in an unprecedented way and will cover the land,’” says Carolyn.

A prophetic painting Carolyn has been a painter for more than 30 years but this was the first time she felt moved to paint a prophetic artwork.

She went to work on the piece, which depicts two hands coming together with Māori and New Zealand

flags on either side. Above it is the image of the Holy Spirit pouring down and covering the land. As she was painting, Carolyn felt God tell her to paint the words of the Edge Kingsland song around the sides. It was when she had finished the piece that God told her it was his heart for the nation.

“It would be a prophecy visible in paint for all to see,” she says.

Carolyn had another vision, this time of a pōwhiri. It was this vision that began unfolding more than a year later.

“We sat this painting at his feet as an act of faith and worship,” says Carolyn, describing the vision. “I saw Māori and Pākehā walking together in unity in a pōwhiri and I was sobered by such an overwhelming sense of humility and holiness.”

A week after completing the piece, Carolyn was unsure what to do next with it. She was reminded of two Māori women she had met at the School of Prophets Aotearoa in Taupō. She managed to track down their ministry and emailed them a photo of the painting, asking to know if it resonated or not.

Stephanie Harawira replied to Carolyn’s email. Stephanie is the national director of Pacific Pearls, a multicultural group of prophetic women. Carolyn says Stephanie

“ T H E H O LY S P I R I T I S C O M I N G T O AOTEAROA IN AN UNPRECEDENTED WAY A N D W I L L C O V E R T H E L A N D .” responded that she was amazed at how the painting aligned with what the Holy Spirit had been speaking to her and her people.

“Her heart also is to see our nation healed and to see Māori arise in unity, free in Christ and free to be Māori,” says Carolyn. “The more contact I had with her and her ministry, the more the Lord gave me his heart of love for Māori.”

Waitangi and Hikoi Aotearoa After more than 25 years of attending Waitangi, Stephanie advised Carolyn there was a place for the painting at the 2019 Waitangi Day commemorations.

At the same time, the Pacific Pearls team was called to a hikoi that took place after Waitangi celebrations and journeyed from Cape Rēinga through the country to Bluff, and ending in the Chatham Islands at the close of April.

This unprecedented hikoi—named Hikoi Aotearoa—involved more than 20 revivalists from around the country

and visited 40 marae over 12 weeks.

Hikoi Aotearoa was invited to Waitangi 2019 commemorations and Carolyn helped lead the pōwhiri with her painting. The large canvas piece was carried in by four men, including politician Alfred Ngaro and Stephanie’s husband, Tai Harawira. It was then placed at the front of the stage.

At that moment, Carolyn witnessed the vision that she experienced a year before in her West Auckland kitchen unfolding in front of her.

“It was humbling and holy,” she said. “Even unbelievers recognised the powerful message of unity it holds.”

But that was only the beginning of what God had planned. Edward and Carolyn joined Hikoi Aotearoa as Pākehā treaty partners and embarked on the 12-week journey through the country. At each marae they stayed at, the painting was symbolically brought in and displayed.

“As significant as taking the painting to Waitangi 2019 was, it was just the beginning,” Carolyn says. “God’s heart for our beautiful nation is prophesied in paint for all to see, and depicts his will for unity.”

Story: Elesha Gordon

The painting on display at Te Pounga Marae 2019

Elesha is a journalist from Auckland. She calls Hills Church (Hillsborough Baptist Church) home and leads a group of young adults with her husband Daniel.

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Baptist / N E I G H B O U R H O O D & J U S T I C E

Rebecca McLeay

Building trust together

When we initially commissioned Nick Regnault to write this article, our brief was for him to update us about the pilot refugee scheme in which both South West Baptist Church and Gleniti Baptist Church are involved. Then the Christchurch mosque shootings of 15th March 2019 took place. As Nick reflects, a whole different story of unity from the one we had planned has emerged as a result.

T

his was to be a story of success, of movement of refugees from instability to safety, from fear to friendship. It was to be about the hands and heart of Jesus reaching out through us across the differences of geography, faith, colour and culture. I was going to write about how a bunch of churches and secular organisations are uniting to engage with the Government

MUSLIMS A ND CHRIS TI A NS A LIK E W ERE BE W ILDERED TH AT NE W ZE A L A ND C OULD S UFFER S UCH A N ATR OCIT Y.

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in the hope of expanding the refugee sponsorship pilot programme.1 And about how 10,000 Kiwis have signed a pledge in support of community sponsorship.2 But the events of 15th March have obscured those good things with clouds of pain, grief and deep sadness.

The four former refugee families settled by Gleniti Baptist (Timaru) and South West Baptist (Christchurch) had been doing so well: rapidly learning a new language and culture, making friendships, and stepping slowly into employment.

But the attacks on the two Christchurch mosques were devastating. Among the refugee families we care for under the pilot scheme, a father and son were murdered, and another son badly hurt. The father of a second family was also badly injured. Everyone was terrified and Muslims and Christians alike were bewildered that New Zealand could suffer such an atrocity.

Care for the families Our care for the former refugees and other victims has increased in its intensity and complexity. We’ve sat at

Our goal is to sit, to listen and to become trusted friends. hospital bedsides and have gone to funerals together. We cook halal meals, take children to school, keep food in the fridge, and meet a thousand other practical details.

We welcome extended family arriving from offshore, navigate through bureaucracy, offer safe places for worship, try to be caring and culturally sensitive, and share what few crumbs of experience we have with others who want to help. All through it our goal is to sit, to listen and to become trusted friends.

We cannot say that our friendship and support lessen the pain and grief.

However, our hope is that, by being here together, our Muslim friends know they are not alone, that we too share their grief, and we too mourn for what we have all lost.

Gratitude and hope We too have felt supported and loved.

We acknowledge the Baptist Union and the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative3 and the many churches and

individuals who have made their love known with words of solidarity, and through practical support and prayer.

Many have asked us how to help and that has led me to reflect on what has helped us get through this, and what we could hope for.

We are hugely grateful for the strong existing relationships of trust that some of us have with some of our Muslim brothers and sisters. We wish we had more because without relationships of trust we have no bridge. We are encouraged by expressions of compassion and solidarity. We are fortified by people of goodwill looking past differences of faith, colour, religion and language, to lend a hand, a heart, an opportunity for healing.

Perhaps the last words are best said from the perspective of a Muslim family that lost friends in the tragedy.

The family settled by Mark Pavelka and Gleniti Baptist Church returned to Timaru after a week in Christchurch, saying that the love and encouragement they received from everyday Kiwis was unlike anything that they had ever known.

People of goodwill, blind to our differences, working together to build enduring relationships of trust— this, I believe, is a bridge towards something great for our nation, for our faith and for ourselves.

Story: Nick Regnault Nick is the resettlement coordinator at South West Baptist Church in Christchurch. He coordinates teams of church people that over the past 12 months have been preparing for, and walking alongside, former refugees. After the mosque attacks on 15th March 2019, South West Baptist Church, with the support of Tearfund, has been assisting victims through practical care, love and friendship.

1. A proposal for community sponsorship supported by the Anglican, Baptist and Catholic denominations was presented to the Minister of Immigration in November 2018. A copy is on swbc.org.nz/ community/resettlement-programme.

At the time of writing we are waiting for a response from the Government.

2. The iWelcome pledge gathered over 10,000 signatures and was accompanied by a collection of stories from the pilot sponsors. The stories can be found at iwelcome.org.nz.

3. The Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative is an organisation headquartered in Canada that works with governments and community organisations around the world to foster the growth of community sponsorship programmes. refugeesponsorship.org.

INVESTING IN

YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD? Baptist Neighbourhood & Justice Initiatives are proud to be associated with the Tindall Foundation as funding managers for community‑led initiatives managed by Baptist churches or trusts.

If you are involved in local projects working with families to offer them a hand up from the place they find themselves, get in touch to discuss what sort of funding may be available to your group.

Round two will close on 26th July 2019.

Application forms will be available on our website by mid-June: www.baptistnji.org.nz For further information contact Fiona Maisey: 09 526 7056 | fiona.maisey@baptist.org.nz

Baptist / L E A D E R S H I P

Many hands,

heart one

Edwin Andrade/unsplash.com

Obeying the call to unity

Jesus’ prayer for unity among his disciples has rung out down through the generations.

Nigel Irwin believes this prayer remains in effect to this day. He tells us about an international movement that encourages churches in every city and town to function as one to advance gospel transformation.

I

cannot think of too many endeavours more exciting and inspiring than to be part of God’s answer to the prayer of Jesus in John 17. As he turned his face toward Golgotha and the cross, Jesus earnestly prayed to his Father that his followers would be one—that they would walk in unity, so that the world would know that the Father sent the Son, and loved them even as he loved Jesus.

As we know, God answered Jesus’ prayer through his death and resurrection, making us one, which was his ‘manifold wisdom’ from the beginning (Ephesians 2:14 and 3:10).

Followers of Jesus are subsequently commanded to maintain this unity, established through Christ by the Spirit, in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3). New Zealand’s inaugural Movement Day event last month was coordinated in obedience to this command.

Movement Day in New Zealand Following in the footsteps of 30 other global cities in 2019, Wellington hosted New Zealand’s own expression

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of Movement Day on the 14th and 15th of May at the Salvation Army Citadel in Vivian Street.

Leaders from throughout the nation came together to celebrate all that God is doing, and to accelerate the advance of the gospel in Aotearoa. We heard powerful transformation stories from 14 cities and towns, from Northland to Invercargill. We also heard specialist perspectives on unity and collaboration from key speakers such as Tak Bhana (Church Unlimited), Dave Mann (The Hope Project), Stuart Lange (NZ Christian Network), and Mark Powell (NZ Christian Network).

Additionally, our international guests Roger Sutton

J E S U S E A R N E S T LY P R AY E D T O H I S F AT H E R T H AT H I S F O L L O W E R S WOULD BE ONE.

A divided church contradicts the unifying principle weaved throughout Scripture.

(GATHER, United Kingdom), Ian Shelton (OneHeart Australia) and Craig Sider, (President of Movement.org, New York) helped us to see that we are part of a truly global move of the Holy Spirit to promote and strategise unity for the sake of Christ.

Multiplying impact The key principle behind Movement Day is the call of God for his church in every city and town to function as one.

As stated on Movement Day’s website (movementday.com), The goal of a MD expression...is to accelerate a gospel movement— catalyzing highly trained, motivated and committed leaders determined to find solutions to the “stubborn facts” plaguing a city or region.

We define “stubborn facts,” as crime, poverty, spiritual apathy, struggling educational systems, unemployment, etc. Our approach: multiply the impact of one, through the unity of many.

We can see the dysfunction and pain in our towns and cities. As we are moved to weep over these things, I believe God is calling us to collaborate as churches with each other, and with Christian leaders in the marketplace, para-church, and civic government spheres, to address the pain and felt needs of our town or city, for the sake of Jesus.

When our communities see the church working together and with leaders from other spheres, they see the unifying power of the gospel, where it is Jesus Christ alone who is glorified, rather than any one church

or denomination. A divided church contradicts the unifying principle weaved throughout Scripture, of God bringing his people together as one with Christ and each other.

Building God’s Kingdom Critical to unity is an absolute commitment to ensuring that we are primarily interested in building God’s Kingdom, not our own empire. As church leaders, there is a temptation to build our own particular congregation in prominence and influence. Pride is a subtle but powerful obstacle to unity because we can often struggle with the blurring of boundaries around our church congregations, as our churches come together and work as one.

Movement Day is not an advocate of dissolving denominations.

On the contrary, we believe our denominations bring vital strengths to the one church in the city/town.

However, the Apostle Paul’s epistles were written not to denominations, but to cities.

Consequently, when we read his exhortation for the church to be one, we must read that firstly in the context of the one church in the city, rather than individual churches isolated from one another.

Paul’s teaching to the church in Corinth was that we need every member of the body to bring their unique gift, combining it with all of the others to present a cohesive and powerful whole in our pursuit of gospel transformation in the town or city in which we’re placed.

We can tend to assume this teaching relates primarily to our local congregation, however Paul began his letter with the words, “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2). It is clear then that when Paul speaks of the Body of Christ in its diversity, he

is calling us to unity at a broader level than just the congregation.

Our Movement Day expression was focused on setting aside our own agendas, telling the stories of God at work, and seeking him for leading and strategy as we headed home to our towns and cities to accelerate the advance of gospel transformation.

No one speaker or region was given preference or prominence; rather, everything was done for the glory of God alone. Following Paul’s exhortation to the Colossian church, we were intentional about ensuring that everything we did, in word or deed, was done in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:17).

The next Movement Day This will not be a one-off event. As we gather the leadership team together in the coming months, we will be seeking God for guidance on when to plan for the next Movement Day event.

I encourage you to keep an eye out for news of the next one. In the meantime, I welcome your contact if you’re interested in talking further about how we as Baptists might be champions for unity in the many places we’re called to lead throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

Story: Nigel Irwin Nigel has been senior pastor at Whanganui Central Baptist Church for almost seven years. He is also director of City by City (citybycity.co.nz) and executive director of Movement Day New Zealand. Nigel is married to Suzanna and they have a 10-year-old foster daughter and two impossibly cute dogs. Nigel can be contacted about Movement Day at nigel@citybycity.co.nz.

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Baptist / Y O U T H

salmon swim!

Encouraging ‘Gen 2’ faith expressions

Youth and young adults who have grown up within migrant churches often struggle to find where they belong. Is it with their parents’ traditional-style, first-generation church? Or is it in the Western-style churches of their friends, or even outside the church altogether? Steve Davis tells us about several individuals and ministries he believes are enabling migrant churches and their young people to engage with this generational challenge in constructive ways.

W

hen I spoke recently at a migrant church, one of the younger musicians told me this after the service:

I don’t have any space in my family and church to really express who I have become in this city, and I’m constantly navigating two identities.

One is while I’m at home. My parents expect me to always respect and obey them explicitly, without question, and to hold the cultural values they hold dear as my own. Plus at church, the parents and older generation have all the power and authority, and they define what happens there by their beliefs and norms.

But when I’m at school and outside the home, I’m facing numerous challenges to those values. I think and believe very differently to my parents and their generation. I also am bored and don’t understand why they express their beliefs in the way they do. I’m ready to walk out!

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I know of many churches where this is happening, and at an alarming rate.

The inevitable flow Rev Dr Samuel S Chetti, a past president of the American Baptists’ Southwest Region (south-western USA, Los Angeles and Hawaii), shared a ‘Flow of Generations’ presentation at a Carey Baptist College seminar in 2014.

In it, Dr Chetti described the dynamics that first‑generation churches face, using the spawning of salmon as an example.

“The inevitable flow towards salt water is the destination of salmon, no matter how many dams you put into place,” he said. “You cannot keep the salmon long term in a freshwater environment—it is inevitable that they swim towards the sea.”1 The lesson is simple: for first-generation parents to insist that their children grow up in the faith templates and shapes of the church of their own spiritual formation doesn’t work.

RICE Movement Auckland

LE T T H E

Their children are navigating a different context and culture. The challenge is for the first generation to encourage the next generation, wisely and compassionately, to explore the faith patterns that fit into their new context.

RICE Movement Auckland

Resourcing churches and people A valuable resource in this area is the book Tapestry of Grace: Untangling the Cultural Complexities in Asian American Life and Ministry by Benjamin C Shin and Sheryl Takagi Silzer. Sheryl will be in New Zealand later in the year, providing workshops in both building cultural awareness and building a multicultural team. Watch for updates on the Baptist communication networks for dates and times in September and October.

I have learned from my Australian counterparts of two ministries that are responding to these multigenerational challenges. The first one is called Red and is located in Adelaide.2 Their mission focus is resourcing Chinese churches in that city to best navigate the ‘Gen 2’ challenge. This is led by second-generation Chinese who have a heart both for mission and for respecting their cultural background in this new context.

RICE Movement is another response. RICE stands for Renewal Inter-Church Evangelism. Initially started in 2002 as an outreach event of five Sydney youth groups, today RICE is a youth movement that holds annual evangelistic rallies in multiple cities, including Auckland, plus various other events.3 The other Kingdom benefit of RICE is that while the first-generation Chinese churches in Auckland are often segmented from one another, RICE brings a cross-denominational connection that has not been there before.

Elisa Choi, RICE Movement rally director

OUR EXPERIENCE WITH RICE MOVEMENT The first generation in our church are pretty much Hong Kong-born and Cantonese-speaking. The 1.5 (who migrated when they were children) or 2nd generation (born in New Zealand) are culturally very different. For example, my daughter. She came to New Zealand when she was about eight. She teaches in a primary school now; she thinks and prays in English, but we speak Cantonese at home. So, she is bilingual but she is prone to a Kiwi kind of mindset.

We initially heard about RICE Movement about two‑and-a-half years ago. Steve Chong, RICE’s founding director, came over from Australia to speak at a Bible camp at Ngāruawāhia. There were a few Chinese pastors from Auckland there. We were excited to hear about RICE because it was a 1.5 and 2nd‑generation Asian movement. It had been going for about 15 years at that stage. I thought it was good for the young people to have peers and it is cross‑church, cross‑denominational.

RICE Movement started planning their first Auckland rally at the end of 2017. I thought it would be good for our young people to be involved, but I also wondered if it would take too much of their time and effort and then they would be serving less in church. But the leadership decided it would be good for them. And I believe it has.

The rally was held in August 2018. It is great to gather young people from various churches together and for them to realise they have the same sort of identity and that we can use the gifts of God and our experiences to reach out, not just to Chinese or Asians—there are Europeans and other different groups who join in too.

It has been over a year now and around 30 of our young people are involved. We have seen people grow and become renewed and on fire for the Lord. It has encouraged our older members to see this, especially the parents. What more could a pastor ask for!

Story: Albert Tang Senior Pastor, Pakuranga Chinese Baptist Church

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Baptist / Y O U T H

“ We c a n e m p ow e r each other to be better in our c h u r c h e s .”

Elisa Choi (Epsom Baptist Church) has been a champion for RICE Movement in the Auckland region.

This year she is RICE’s rally director, coordinating all of the teams leading up to the annual rally and all the other events between as well.

She says, “There are about 80 Chinese churches within Auckland alone, some of them within less than a kilometre of each other. Last year, if it wasn’t for RICE rally, they wouldn’t

they had brothers and sisters going through the same thing just across the road.

“It was really powerful to have everybody come together, share what they have been going through, and be able to rely on each other and on their unity in Christ to build each other up. We can empower each other to be better in our churches and bring whatever we have learnt and take that back to our churches.

“We are also seeing a huge swell of church leaders—not only Baptist church leaders, but from other denominations too—coming together, to pray for this next generation and for unity within Auckland, within New Zealand and within the body of Christ itself.”

even know that each other existed.

There was a whole bunch of young people who thought they were just soldiering on and ministering in their own little silos; little did they know that

A way ahead?

Gen 2 young people are not limited by the constructs of the previous generation. Indeed, ‘Pan‑Asian’ (the

starting point is Asian, and not Pākehā) multicultural church planting may well be the most effective way ahead to engage and disciple the massive culturally diverse groups that we are seeing in Auckland and New Zealand.

Story: Steve Davis Steve is the national team leader for Baptist Multicultural Inclusion Ministries.

1. Dr Sam Chetti, “Next Steps on the Diversity Journey” (seminar presented at Carey Baptist College, November 2014).

2. facebook.com/red.ministry.

3. ricemovement.org/upcoming-events.

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Baptist / C R E A T I V I T Y

a prayer meeting tonight. Perhaps the ideas will come while I’m there.” Before the closing prayer, a picture of the needed design flashed before him. He went home and made a working sketch that very night.

But here is a bigger angle. Creative people must not be proud. Albert Einstein said, “I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, obsession, and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.” Music composer Antonin Dvorak called his genius ‘the gift of God’ saying, “Do not wonder that I am so religious. An artist who is not could not produce anything like this.” Devout Haydn, attending his last performance of his great oratorio The Creation lifted his hands toward heaven and said, “Not from me— from there, above, comes everything.” Perhaps gratitude enhances creativity.

Dr Beulah Wood President of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand and the New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society

Prixel Creative/lightstock.com

What are creative people like?

Creativity does not depend on intelligence. Thomas Edison was expelled from school at the age of 12 for being ‘educationally subnormal’. He later invented the electric light and the gramophone.

Creative people are curious and observant, like a carpenter notices wooden things and a lawyer notices logic loopholes. Then they give themselves an environment that promotes ideas like walking or playing music. Musician Ralph Vaughan Williams nearly drowned swimming in the North Sea while seeking inspiration to compose a great symphony about the ocean.

Others encourage the subconscious mind. They think about the question and then ‘sleep on it’, start working on the problem until ideas arrive, nurture hunches, learn the subject and then relax. Think of physicist Newton and the apple. He did the preparation. The rest of us could see a falling apple and never think of gravity. (Suggestion: start groundwork on a talk or sermon two weeks ahead. Early study could have surprising fruit—pardon the pun!)

Creative people pray, as did Jesus, the Creator, even when choosing his disciples. J S Bach initialled fresh music manuscript pages ‘JJ’ (Jesu Juva—help me, Jesus) or ‘INJ’ (in nomine Jesus), and finished with ‘SDG’ (Soli Deo Gloria—to God alone the glory).

My father admired Robert LeTourneau, a business tycoon of early earth moving machinery. With an army contract that needed a new machine design, LeTourneau started work and then dropped it, saying, “I’m going to

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Central Baptist’s

125th anniversary

The second building on the original church site (1939)

This year marks 125 years since 15 people gathered together in a Palmerston North home to form a Baptist church. The anniversary in late February 2019 was marked with a large group photograph, morning tea and a cake cut by the oldest member, 96-year-old Veronica Browning.

However, the official celebrations will take place at Labour Weekend.

Today’s three congregations of almost 500 people worship in what is the third building for Palmerston North Central Baptist Church, also affectionately known as CB.

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For the last 36 years, it has been at its second site in Church Street, the street in which the majority of the city’s churches are also located. Not long after opening at the current site, the former United States President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalind attended a service, complete with tight security.

The Labour Weekend celebrations (CBC 125) will commence on the Friday evening with a pōwhiri, followed by a social time to meet and greet, and to view visual displays about the church’s history, pastors and congregations. Saturday’s activities will largely centre on the sharing of stories and testimonies, followed by an evening of entertainment. Grant Harris, who grew up within the church and is now Windsor Park Baptist Church’s senior pastor, will be the speaker at the thanksgiving service on the Sunday morning.

While the quasquicentennial is as much about thanking God and acknowledging the legacy left by the past generations, it is also about looking to the future and continuing his story. An example of this is a newly formed initiative called Ngā Kaitiaki o te Taiao (Caretakers of our Environment) which thinks about ways to protect and care for our environment so that future generations will benefit from today's foresight.

For more about CBC 125, please email cbc125@pncbc.org.nz.

Story: Elizabeth Shearer

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Our stories

BOP Baptist Sacred Hui In March 2019 Jesus followers from Baptist churches around the Bay of Plenty (BOP) gathered to pray and fast together, believing together for God to do something miraculous in his church, in this country and in this broken world.

Called a ‘Sacred Hui’, the gathering was prompted by downward trending statistics in the Baptist Year Book.

The message went out: “Before we start with vision casting and strategy meetings, setting goals and looking for new programmes, let’s stop and seek God through a united commitment to pray and fast, to discover his heart for the region.”

People from churches across the BOP, from Whakatane and Rotorua to Katikati, attended two combined corporate times of prayer. Friday evening 1st March was a time of reflection, confession, repentance and worship. Prayer stations were set up at Otumoetai Baptist Church that encouraged whole family participation. These included symbolic wearing of sackcloth and ashes, writing confessions and shredding them in a shedder, writing messages in sand, writing prayers, using magnetic letters on a whiteboard to express worship and praise, and much more.

Sunday evening 3rd March we met again at Otumoetai Baptist, this time with prayer stations around the ‘seven mountains of societal influence’: religion, family, education, government, media, arts and entertainment, and business.

This also gave opportunity to pray for specific requests from churches in the region. Church groups met together to discuss what they believed the Holy Spirit was saying to them as a result of the time spent locally in his presence. These were then written on bricks and a memorial wall was built.

This, too, was designed for cross‑generational participation.

Between these two corporate times, each church was encouraged to fast and pray at their local church, for their fellowship and for the other Baptist churches in our region.

Churches did this in different ways, including holding a prayer breakfast or an evening prayer vigil, having prayer stations during a Sunday morning service, or meeting at three mealtimes to pray. The style wasn’t important; that we were joining with our family of churches in this Sacred Hui was the overarching blessing and motivation.

The question has arisen, “Will we do it again?” The answer from many has been a strong, “Yes!”

Story: Russell Embling, Pastor of Katikati Baptist Church Photos: Margi Baldwin

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Baptist / O U R S T O R I E S

Small Town Farming and Theological Study Studying theology full-time at Carey Baptist College in Auckland was a far cry from Janet Scarrow’s beef and sheep farm in Raetihi, but it has been a journey she likens to building a wall brick by brick. One by one, layers of

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Janet receiving her Bachelor of Applied Theology

meaning and understanding have been added to enlarge her understanding of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Janet recently graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Theology, but her journey started back in 2006 when she was inspired by her sister to study “just one” course, Introduction to the New Testament. That little spark ignited a previously unknown appetite for the thrill of discovery— “discovering the hidden layers in the words of those who were inspired to write the Bible, with the help of those who are now inspired to lecture at Carey.”

“I have brought home,” Janet says, “a deeper understanding of who God is and how he is using what we have where we are for his purposes.”

Janet farms beef and sheep on more than 324 hectares and loves the significant connection she has with the land.

One of the life-changing moments at Carey occurred while she was taking the Understanding Culture course.

“The conversation unexpectedly exposed a second narrative, when I discovered that the privilege I enjoy through farming a part of Aotearoa New Zealand came at the expense of the Māori family who, through the actions of my ancestors, were swept off the land,” she says.

“My journey of study became more personal from there on. I didn’t expect the faltering and subsequent end of my marriage. However, unbeknown to me, these hidden years of studying a paper or two by distance formed a secure faith in God and a future place of rest and recovery from devastation. Under the circumstances, spending two years

Carey Baptist College receives historical A grade Carey Baptist College made history recently by being the first and only private training establishment to be acknowledged by the Tertiary Education Commission to have a faculty member receive an ‘A’ quality category in the 2018 Performance Based Research Fund quality evaluation round. In addition to this, Carey was the highest ranked non-university as measured against the intensity of research relative to staffing numbers. “We are proud to be leading the way in Christian education,” says Dr John Tucker, Carey’s principal. “Christian scholarship has a long and enduring history, and Carey is proud to continue this legacy in service of both the church and society in Aotearoa. As this latest ranking shows, Carey Baptist College staff are well-equipped to do this.”

The graduating class of 2018

studying full-time at Carey was the most difficult thing I have done. It meant leaving family, friends, farm and a significant financial investment. However, a spin-off from ‘being in the right place’ were the recommendations from Carey staff of exceptional counsellors and others who continue to journey with me.”

At Carey’s recent graduation, along with Janet, 75 other graduates were awarded their Applied Theology qualifications, from certificates through to bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

“Our graduates come from diverse backgrounds, ages, ethnicities and life stages. We’re proud of every one of them. Janet’s story is a real encouragement to us. We want all our students to experience a profound personal

transformation during their journey with us, and we’re excited to see what God does through them in the years ahead,” says Dr John Tucker, Carey’s principal.

Janet continues to farm, but she does so with a new sense of “who I am, while continuing to participate with God in our small rural church in an informed way. I hope to continue this journey of discovery by training to become a spiritual director in the near future.

“Small rural churches can be isolated geographically and access to people resources can be more complicated.

A way to address this is for rural people to go and study at a higher level and to return to their communities with a fresh vision to inspire others to be surprised by God’s leading and the healing he offers.” 

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how theological study can deepen your love for God to make a difference in the world.

You could study: Thinking Theologically Introduction to the Old Testament Christian Spirituality Mission of God Worship Then & Now

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E a s t e r

Baptist / O U R S T O R I E S

Northern I’ve had the joy and privilege of serving the Baptist family as the Northern Easter Camp Director for 11 years now. I serve alongside a brilliant team who give their best because they believe that this next generation will encounter Christ in profound ways, giving their lives to follow his call.

There are some things we will never get tired of seeing: young and old enthusiastically throwing themselves into the mud pit; the sports; the Intermission Paint Party; the seminars; thousands of young people abandoning themselves in praising their creator with song, dance and play, or responding to the power of the gospel and a life in Christ; leaders praying with their young people; seeing lives changed, bringing freedom, healing and salvation to this next generation; the work of the Holy Spirit; the justice message of the Kingdom of God; and the unity we experience as the people of God in Aotearoa.

‘Haere mai’ was our call this camp—to come as you are to this place and time; come and follow the King; all are welcome here.

This year we saw young leaders come of age and, as they served throughout camp in many incredible and varied ways, the old guards like myself smiled and cheered them on. We are excited about what God might do with this next generation in the future.

Story: Blue Bradley Director, Northern Easter Camp

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Central This was the first year that Central Easter Camp registrations broke 2000! The feedback we have received is that it was the best camp yet, in terms of response—on Friday, the first response night, around 60% put up their hands—and in the range of creative arts we used. From Friday through to Sunday we used drama, spoken word, multimedia and dance to tell the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We had fantastic speakers too. It was extremely powerful.

This year we wanted to target as many different types of young people as we could. There was a wide variety of activities on offer—from karaoke, to MC competitions, skating, soft archery, arts and crafts, and more. We brought in a ‘prayer ambulance’ from Wellington Anglicans. It was stationed in the village the entire weekend. It is an actual ambulance but it is decked out and young people could go there to get prayer at any time.

It always had people going through and teams of people ministering to them.

We’d like to give a ‘shout out’ to Chris Finlay, the interim regional mission leader. His and the Wellington Association’s support of Easter Camp has been phenomenal.

As a postscript, our Easter Camp reunion event held on 24th May had so many people register that we had to change from a 600-seat venue to a 1000-seat venue, with people coming from as far as Napier and Taranaki to Upper Hutt!

Our dream is to see the whole of the lower North Island come to know Jesus.

Story: Johanna Vannathy Director, Central Easter Camp

Southern The Easter weekend is the most significant in any church’s calendar. It’s also significant for thousands of teenagers across New Zealand as they embark on the Eastercamp journey. Southern Eastercamp sees over 80 different youth groups from around the South Island come together for five days of camping, community, crazy afternoon activities and the chance to engage with the Easter story.

We received many encouraging prophetic words from a handful of our local youth pastors and prayer team in the lead-up to camp this year, about expecting a fresh move of God’s spirit to break out at camp. Over the weekend we saw many make first-time decisions to follow Jesus, others set free from both physical and emotional scars, and an incredible hunger for more of his presence and things of the Spirit.

Our prayer team ran two prophecy evenings from their prayer tent and each night there was a race to get to the front of the line. We had kids waiting for up to two hours to be prayed for to receive a prophetic encouragement. It’s exciting to watch a generation so hungry for God! Teenagers are often known for their high energy and excitement. While this was true of them at camp, there was also an ease and an openness from them to embark on the Easter journey. As they now take messages of hope, challenge and new life back home with them, it makes me incredibly excited for the future of our city and for the schools and communities with whom these thousands of young people connect.

Story: Laura Hughes Director, Southern Eastercamp

C a m p s !

Max Paterson

eCamp eCamp 2019 was another wonderful weekend with God, fun, sun and fellowship!

The almost 750 campers were well served by their leaders, crew, cooks and the wonderful staff at Finlay Park who love nothing more than to see young people touched by our great God. Highlights from eCamp are always the great activities, food, soccer tournament, talent quest and wonderful worship, this year provided by a team from Manukau City Baptist Church.

We always make an effort to have a speaker who will connect well to the intermediate age group. This year Ben MacGregor from Grace Vineyard church in Christchurch was just that right person to explain the gospel message to those both with and without a Christian background.

He used Scripture and personal stories to help our young people understand what Jesus has done and what that means for us in our lives as followers. Young people connect with their leaders in small groups to discuss these messages each day and then on Sunday evening Ben gave an opportunity for those who wanted to respond publicly to what God was doing in their lives.

Seventy-five chose to give their lives to Jesus for the first time, 174 recommitted their life to him, and a further 75 asked for prayer—some for the Holy Spirit and some feeling a call to baptism.

Please pray for the leaders of these young people who now have the responsibility to disciple these youth in the way of the Lord.

Story: Raewyn Moodie on behalf of the eCamp committee

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Sunday

Each year on the last weekend of March, the Whangamata community of 4,000 swells to a population of 100,000 for Beach Hop, a rock ‘n’ roll festival of music, cars, retro caravans and ’50s fashion.

Since 2006 we as a church have run a Sunday rock ‘n’ roll service as a bridge to present the message of Jesus Christ. This year, with the theme of ‘Identity: received not achieved’ we saw more than 250 folk engaging in an evangelistic, fun and challenging time together. With around 50% of the gathering not followers of Jesus, this gives us an incredible opportunity to demonstrate the love of Christ through an engaging environment, a specific music genre, dance and message. We are privileged to host the Redeemed Motorcycle Club, which gives rides to the kids and the kids at heart as part of the morning.

Both locals and guests respond with enthusiastic comments such as, “If this is what church is then I’m coming back!” We have people who have now been a number of years and our faith conversations continue and deepen. Many family members state, “This service has opened the door for us to have faith conversations with other family members who were closed to any discussion to this point.”

For church members this has been a journey of acceptance as a legitimate event to engage in as a church community. It is often as they have witnessed what happens that there is a dawning realisation that the message of Jesus is not compromised or watered down.

As the church of the 1800s used gas lamps as the attraction to host evening services for evangelistic opportunity, so we use Beach Hop here in Whangamata.

A summation of this year’s rock ‘n’ roll service came from a gentleman of the more ‘bogan’ variety. He explicitly conveyed, minus the expletives, that it was a long time since he had been to church and that “this was the best conclusion to Beach Hop and I will be back next year.”

Our prayer is that the ongoing journey we have with this community will lead to more people knowing Christ Jesus as Saviour and Lord and experiencing life with him.

Story: Greg Hollier, Pastor of Whangamata Baptist Church

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Mike Bartley

Baptist / O U R S T O R I E S

Kindy cleans up estuary In 2016 Pakuranga Baptist Kindergarten became an Enviroschool and began to look at ways we could honour God by caring for our environment. As we talked with our community, the families were keen for their children to get to know the local area more, so we began a new programme with our children called ‘Outdoor Explorers’. In this programme we take small groups of children out around our local estuary and explore the river and bush area every week. As we explored we would often find people had dropped rubbish, so we began to take bags with us so we could pick it up and bring it back to kindergarten to put in our rubbish bins.

One day as we were walking on one of our favourite paths by the estuary, we found that someone had dumped 24 large bags of rubbish in our beautiful special place! They were too far down in the creek for us to reach them, and there were too many for us to bring back, so when we got back to kindergarten the teachers phoned the council to organise for the rubbish to be removed.

Meanwhile the children had a meeting and decided we should write to the newspaper to bring attention to the rubbish being dumped. They also thought that perhaps we needed to do some more cleaning up and that we might

After an encouraging retreat with Baptist leadership teams in April, there is a real sense of momentum building around a number of initiatives.

These include chaplaincy, regional support, our LEAD conference, and also the means by which our younger generation will find their voice in our movement.

I have the privilege of joining with our northern region young adults in September as they gather for their first Hauoratanga Camp in Ngāruawāhia, to listen and participate in what Baptist life might look like from a young adult’s perspective. Their vision inspires me and I am excited about how this might

need help from all the families in our kindergarten and church communities. The idea of an estuary cleanup day was born.

This year the idea came to fruition on 2nd March, when families from the kindergarten and church worked together to clean up our place. We were surprised at the amount of rubbish we found, and to see that even things like grocery trollies and tires were being dumped. The children were proud of themselves for organising this cleanup, and the families felt that this enabled them to give back to our community in a real and tangible way.

Story: Jacqui Lees Kaiwhakahaere/Team Leader Pakuranga Baptist Kindergarten

come to life in our movement. Let’s be proactive and encourage those in that age group to register and get along.

It is great to see Charles settling into his role as our national leader and bringing his experience and presence into many of our regions and teams across the country. I know this is a blessing to our movement. I’m also excited by the theme of our LEAD conference this year, ‘Together’, and the many great contributors we have lined up. It will be a wonderful space to be challenged, engage with Scripture and worship together.

Finally, I ask for your prayer as we, your council and administrative team, wrestle with the many complexities of life together as Baptists. Please also pray for the forging of new initiatives, policies and processes in the coming months in the lead-up to our annual Hui together in Christchurch.

Would you consider joining with

us at the Hui in November? Even if you are not a paid or pastoral team member, it’s a worthwhile investment and an inspiring time to meet as a Baptist family.

Ngā mihi nui Rob Stacey Assembly Council Chair

Assembly Council acts as the Assembly between annual Baptist Assemblies (Hui) and provides leadership for our Baptist movement. It is responsible for establishing policies and practices consistent with the determinations of Baptist Assembly and the well‑being of the movement.

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Baptist / O U R S T O R I E S

Baptist Leaders’ Retreat On 10th and 11th April, national and regional Baptist leaders got together for relational building time, visionary thinking, prayer and a bit of fun. This retreat included our national leader, Baptist National Centre management, regional mission leaders, ministry heads, Assembly Council members, and representatives from Carey Baptist College, Carey Centre for Lifelong Learning and the New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society.

Out of our discussions came the desire for a season of Christ-focused prayer. In response, the National Centre is initiating a prayer diary that covers the 15-day period between 9th June (Pentecost) and 23rd June (the start of LEAD). These daily thoughts and prayers, given by 15 Baptist pastors from around the country, will help us to keep our eyes firmly focused on Jesus. As Charles Hewlett has said, “Then we will have strong churches. Then we will have healthy relationships. Then we will impact our nation.

Then we will bring honour and glory to God.” Details of this will be sent to our many staff and leaders across the movement and can also be found on our Facebook page facebook.com/NZBaptistChurches.

At the retreat we discussed the significant work of chaplains across the country and how we as a movement can support them more. We talked about the importance of the emerging generation of youth and young people in our churches. We are looking forward to a time of seeking God’s will and engaging with his Spirit for his guidance across our movement. Please join with us.

Story: Kathryn Heslop Office Manager, Baptist National Centre

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Welcome Neil Perry On 1st May I began my role as the Bay of Plenty & Eastland Association’s regional mission leader.

My name may be familiar to you as my wife, Barb, and I have served overseas with Tranzsend on four separate occasions (in four different locations). We also ministered in three churches in New Zealand in our more than 35 years of ministry, and that’s not to mention me being based in the NZBMS office in Auckland for more than eight years.

In late January this year, Barb and I returned to New Zealand having spent the last three years serving with Tranzsend as pastor of Oasis International Church in Macau. We have settled into our house in Whakatane, just down the road from the youngest of our three married sons. As well as being close to family, we are enjoying the beauty and clean clear air of New Zealand.

I believe one of the greatest challenges facing the church in New Zealand today is to regain a sense of confidence in the gospel in what has become a very secular and increasingly anti-Christian country. I look forward to working alongside pastors and church leaders, encouraging them as they reach out into their communities with the good news of Jesus, and seeing his Kingdom established in their specific contexts.

Chris Finlay I’m an interim. As a retired pastor I’m into interim assignments. Last year at Newlands, this year at Paraparaumu, and, since 1st April, the interim regional mission leader (RML) for Wellington. When Charles Hewlett’s direction for the RMLs is known, the Wellington Association will make a more permanent appointment.

Under the ‘Growing Healthy Churches’ regime I served as area consultant for Canterbury Westland.

The RML role has many similarities, including the joy of seeing God’s many and varied ways of working through his church. We see the trials as well, and so can identify with Paul’s ‘burden for all the churches’.

I keep in mind that the purpose of the RML is “to engage with the Baptist churches in the Wellington region to catalyse mission.”

Wellington region is stirring and the work is busy, but I entered this role knowing I must facilitate the leadership and ministry of others.

Fortunately Jesus is no interim leader and he is way ahead of me! So I keep meeting people in whom he has birthed a commitment to local churches beyond their own. I’ll endeavour to support these labourers while Jesus builds his church.

farewell

Bruce Gibbs Just like you, my life has been full of transitions. Some have been easy while others quite challenging.

Born in China of missionary parents, I experienced personal trauma as a five-year-old when in 1949 the communist uprising necessitated a hasty escape to New Zealand. My dad, Trevor, superbly supported by my mother, Margaret, moved into pastoral leadership of seven Baptist churches. The godly way in which they coped with the associated joys, challenges and pain of pastoral leadership prepared me well for life in general. This included principalships of three schools.

With my brave wife, Lyndsay, the next seven years involved living in an active war zone, while leading an international development and relief organisation encompassing 30 missionary agencies in a central Asian country. Later Lyndsay and I job-shared a full-time position at Whakatane Baptist.

Eleven years ago, I became the Baptist Union’s transitions facilitator. Utilising my training and life experiences, I am grateful to God for the privilege of supporting pastors and their families faced with difficulties that for some has resulted in them transitioning out of their current positions. At 75 years young I am not retiring, just looking forward to transitioning into more voluntary service for Jesus!

v.135 no.3 † rua tekau mā iwa 29

>

Baptist / O U R S T O R I E S

meet…

Lauran Bethell

Global consultant

Lauran Bethell is a global consultant on the issue of human trafficking, working with the support of International Ministries, the mission agency of American Baptist Churches USA. Baptist Women New Zealand is organising a visit by Lauran to New Zealand in August 2019.1

This is her story.

How did you get involved in this field?

I went to Thailand in 1986 with International Ministries. In 1987 we opened up a shelter there called New Life Centre, for young girls who were at high risk of being exploited in the sex industry. Later, families asked us to help rescue people out of brothels and so we started doing that in cooperation with various agencies like law enforcement.

By the 1990s I realised that God was calling increasing numbers of people to do ministries like this in their different contexts all over the world. I was being invited to come alongside them to offer advice and encouragement. By the late 1990s travelling took 30% of my time. Combining this with directing the New Life Centre became untenable.

Someone came along who was perfect for the director’s role, which freed me to concentrate on consultancy work.

I left Thailand at the end of 2000 and moved to Prague in January 2001. I now live in the Netherlands. Europe is central to the rest of the world and has the communications and transportation connections I need for this work.

Where does your passion lie—advocacy or front‑line work?

I have worked in advocacy. I’ve testified in Congress in the USA and I worked closely with different government agencies when I was in Thailand. Laws and their enforcement are important but I believe the best advocacy is shaped in collaboration with those who touch the lives of victims and survivors. Jesus didn’t go to the government to change lives—he met people where they were and ministred to their needs—food, healing, care.

I feel called to focus on the grass roots and to create communities of practitioners who are meeting the victims,

30 toru tekau † v.135 no.3 baptistmag.org.nz

pimps and bar owners with the good news of Jesus Christ.

When we develop relationships with them, we realise they are all beloved sons and daughters of God in need of redemption and hope.

What can churches do to help front-line workers?

Churches have a huge role to play—through prayer, with finances, and by offering whatever other assistance the workers may need. They can also raise awareness within their midst.

Trafficking is a tough issue. What gives you hope?

We have always enslaved people, in lots of different ways, and we’ve always had prostitution. Human trafficking is like a virus. As soon as you think you have a cure for it, it changes its form. It will adapt to whatever you are doing to prevent it. I have been at this 33 years now. I am still standing, but you don’t see a lot of fruit sometimes.

But the good news is that there is now a lot of awareness about it and a lot of people are being called to do exciting new things to combat it. Prostitution, which used to be called victimless, is now being called for what it is—exploitation.

Early on I realised that I am not ‘Lauran Bethell, Director of New Life Centre’ or ‘Lauran Bethell, International Consultant’. First and foremost, I am Lauran Bethell, beloved daughter of God. This is God’s work. It is a profound call. And it is a call that needs to be renewed every minute. But it is God’s battle and he is fighting it in places we cannot see.

1. Stay updated about Lauran’s visit and other Baptist Women New Zealand events at facebook.com/baptistwomennewzealand.

Prixel Creative/lightstock.com

What’s on your mind?

A reflection Reflections from Christchurch on the mosques massacre A massacre in my own city! I couldn’t believe it as the full horror unfolded.

So many innocent people murdered; so many suffering so much. No one deserved any of this; it is a gross injustice.

An emotional, gut-level response is a natural and immediate reaction to such shock and horror. But then what? Pretend things can go back to what they were? Not realistic. Live with fear and hatred? That is no answer, especially for followers of Jesus.

In every situation the critical questions for Jesus followers are always, “Where is God in this?” and “What is the Spirit saying to us?”

I believe it is crucial that believers everywhere ask these questions, do the work that is required to hear from God, and then have the courage to implement the changes and learnings he reveals. Together we must make a considered, truly Christian response to this horrific event, and others like it, such as the outrage in Sri Lanka.

Jesus’ commands make the pathway clear. He tells us that the greatest command is to love God with everything we are, and to love our neighbour as our self, even if our neighbour is an enemy. What does it mean to love?

To understand love we start with God. What does his love look like?

What impact does it have on us? How does it feel? What changes does it bring about in us?

And we learn to love as we immerse ourselves afresh in Scripture and prayer—indispensable sources of insight and wisdom. The stories of Jesus and his interaction with people like the woman he met at the well, and the stories he told like the Good Samaritan, instruct us.

However different our neighbour in our street, at work or school, or on the bus, is to us, and however different their beliefs, their values and their lifestyles from our own, we are called to love them. As we do, we’ll see the Spirit of God at work in exciting and powerful new ways.

Like a diamond, here are some facets of love:

• We are generous with compassion, healing, humility and mercy. We work to alleviate suffering.

• We know the enemy is never people; it is evil spiritual forces and powers.

• We know we are not entitled to any favour or significance in our society.

We follow in the footsteps of the crucified Saviour.

• We live and share the here and now good news of the Saviour and his life-transforming Kingdom that is among us.

Tragedy is an opportunity for us to serve God, and to experience God, in new ways. This doesn’t take away the pain; it doesn’t make evil good. But God can and does turn evil for good, just as happened on the cross and at the tomb left empty.

• We affirm all people as loved

by God. • We lament with people. We weep with those who weep. In a society and sometimes a church obsessed with celebration, we learn how to live in lament also.

• We condemn evil whenever it is found. We stand against injustice, oppression and abuse. We reject revenge, leaving consequences to God.

Reflection: Paul Askin Paul is a follower of Jesus, husband and family man, farmer, hunter, reader, author and pastor.

v.135 no.3 † toru tekau mā tahi 31

Directory PASTOR

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Gay & Christian support & discussion group monthly meetings Snell’s Beach has traditionally been a retirement area but this is changing as young couples move into the area. This change is now being reflected in the church as we are in a season of growth.

We are looking for a full or part-time Pastor who will: • enjoy being a team leader and develop a team of other staff and Elders who are involved in ministry; • love to build a life giving church family that will reach out to the local community; • be challenged by the potential for growth.

FOR MORE INFORMATION EMAIL jandcleaver@hotmail.com

MISSION AVIATION FELLOWSHIP Tree Tops Lodge in beautiful North Queensland is a joint venture of MAF and Wycliffe.

It provides accommodation for missionary staff and families working throughout the Asia/Pacific region seeking a break from the mission field, offering rest and recuperation in a peaceful Christian atmosphere.

There are currently positions for Management Team Members, typically husband and wife couples, that urgently need to be filled.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THESE KEY ROLES, CONTACT OLIVIA DIRECTLY AT omonk@maf.org.nz

027 279 4461 office@ponsonbybaptist.org.nz ponsonbybaptist.org.nz/gay-andchristian-information

40TH ANNIVERSARY REUNION

Invitation to past members of Auckland Baptist Tramping Club

40TH ANNIVERSARY REUNION 13-15 September 2019 Ngāruawāhia Christian Youth Camp CONTACT BARBARA: 09 576 1144 barbaralangridge1b@gmail.com

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT WHO WE ARE, OUR PURPOSE, AND HOW WE SERVE.

2019

REGISTER AT WWW.BAPTIST.ORG.NZ/LEAD

HUTT CITY BAPTIST

24-26 JUNE

Glo bal Mis si on

Photo of the month Like most good things, it took time but the WovenLife Foundation is registered and up and running, giving our team in South East Asia a focal point for the work they accomplish alongside the local church.

Find out more about the WovenLife Foundation on pages 36-37.

TOG ETHER W E CA N RE A C H T H E W O RL D

v.135 no.3 † toru tekau mā toru 33

Baptist / G L O B A L M I S S I O N

A word from Rachel JUST A WORD BEFORE I GO By now many will be aware that I have made the decision to step down as General Director of NZBMS and, by the time you read this, I will have exited my office for the final time. This has been a difficult decision based on personal well-being.

As I finish, I struggle to extract the thoughts running through my head. However, some make their way to the surface:

Arohanui Rachel Rachel Murray has announced her decision to stand down from the position

• NZBMS is part of a broader family of churches and we work together to fulfil the call that God places on the lives of individuals and churches. It is a privilege to serve and to be an accountable part of a denomination focused on Jesus. Just like families we don’t always agree, yet we are still family, and I value the fact that I have relationship with so many because of this. The strength of that should never be underestimated.

of General Director of NZBMS, a position

• The team that is NZBMS (in New Zealand and overseas) is a diverse bunch of sincere, utterly committed, focused, fun-loving (even a little quirky) followers of Jesus. I am honoured to call them friends.

replacement is underway.

• Mission does not take place overnight, in two weeks or even two years. It’s not something that we tick off as ‘been there, done that’. It’s local and global, and is a lifetime, non-optional journey that requires commitment to what and where he calls us. Location and task may change but the call to share and show him is long-term.

worker based in South Asia, share their

• One of my favourite quotes is from a local believer in Asia, referring to repeated visits and relationship by Kiwis, and is, “You came back!” The simplicity yet sincerity of the statement reiterated the invitation we have to be present with others and the need for longevity in relationship.

In a world that values fast and short-term, the need for long‑term must not diminish.

• This is tough stuff and where God is working, there will inevitably be opposition. The need for prayer surrounding mission and for God’s transformative power to be realised, is critical.

• We join God in what he is already doing—we serve, we labour, we will make mistakes and there will be ‘successes’. And, in spite of us, the outcomes are his responsibility. There is a sense of assurance in that!

Thank you for the ongoing support given to NZBMS and particularly that I have been shown by so many people throughout my time at NZBMS. It’s been a privilege to serve you.

Ngā mihi nui Rachel Murray, General Director

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she has held since August 2014. Her last day was Friday 31st May. In the interim Andrew Page will take on the role of Acting GD for a period of six months while the search for Rachel’s On this page, Andrew Bollen, Chair of Mission Council, and Joel, a NZBMS tributes to Rachel.

It was with great sadness that Mission Council accepted the resignation of Rachel Murray as General Director of NZBMS. Rachel came into the role having served as the Team Leader of Mission World where her work engaging with other mission agencies was highly valued. A period as interim General Director of NZBMS led to her being appointed permanently.

In her term as GD, during a period of rapid change and many challenges on the global and local mission front, Rachel has done an incredible job of leading our organisation. She has worked tirelessly to place the work of NZBMS and the task of mission before us, helping us to see mission as a vitally important part of the brief of each and every church and individual.

She has represented us well in celebrations of mission partnerships both in New Zealand and globally.

Central to Rachel has been her love of the Lord and commitment to serving him through NZBMS. This is seen in her joy and celebration of what God is doing and in other people’s successes. Her love and care for staff (and their families), both at home and overseas, has been demonstrated over and over. Her sense of humour and her collaborative and inclusive style of leadership have been valued by all. She will be greatly missed in the GD role.

From Andrew Bollen, Chair, NZBMS Mission Council on behalf of Mission Council

N Z B M S

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Each edition, in this column, a member of Mission Council reflects on one of the Rachel has been the big boss of Lizzie and I since we first began working with NZBMS as overseas staff members and we have been truly grateful for her friendship, guidance and encouragement. In fact, I am already anticipating the unusual feeling of arriving back in New Zealand (whenever that might next be), walking into the NZBMS offices, down the hall, and then not seeing her battling it out in that office. For us, she has always been there. Sure, there will be a lesser chance of being hit by a flying soft toy without her there, but that is about the only positive I can think of!

Joking aside, Rachel has been the right person in the right role for the right season of our organisation. Her passion and love for the work and the people who are wrapped up in it is second to none—that’s why we affectionately call her ‘Mama Rach’. I reckon this name is particularly apt for her as time and time again we have been greeted by a warm hug, a reason to laugh, and even (for me at least) a disapproving familial look. We know, no matter how busy Rachel gets, she somehow makes time to sit with us, find out how we are, offer us some kai, and pray with us. Whenever she comes and visits Loyal Workshop, she remembers our women and they remember her. She readily shares a laugh and a hug—she is someone who genuinely loves.

Rachel has also modelled what a great female leader can look like. She is intelligent, relentlessly strong, empathetic, a team player, and a resilient human being. Her leadership has helped foster a whānau feel among our people that is invaluable. Aotearoa-based and Asia-Pacific-based, we NZBMS staff are a hugely diverse bunch of characters. Nonetheless, Rachel has harnessed this beautiful diversity and managed to pull us all together for a common purpose.

Rach, we’ll miss you terribly but we support you and are excited for this next life chapter of yours.

themes surrounding Prayer and Self Denial 2019. This month, David Allen reflects on “Does God care for these people?”

Does God have favourites? We get to live in relative comfort and safety in New Zealand while many around the world live in fear and poverty. We get the privilege of hearing the gospel in words, images and language we can understand while many, many people have yet to hear. Is that fair? Does God care? Does God have favourites?

We can all throw out the easy answer: “Yes, of course God cares. Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.” Maybe the more helpful question is: how does God care? Let’s face it, life is unfair. So, how does God care for those who have received the short straw in life?

As I write this, we are in Holy Week, leading up to Easter. There is much we don’t understand about our world, about suffering, about God. But this week reminds us of what we do know—“God so loved the world that he gave...” It wasn’t ‘fair’ that Jesus suffered and died, but he chose the cross to show that God cared. Not just for the Jewish world of the first century, but for every people, every tribe, every race across all of history. God cared so much that he gave himself, to share our humanity, our pain and our frailty, and to call us into his family.

God still loves the world and he is still giving—every time someone is loved in Jesus’ name, is helped, fed, listened to, respected, encouraged, freed, given choices or offered the gospel, in Jesus’ name, the world sees once again that God cares. He calls us to join him.

From Joel, NZBMS, South Asia

The New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society will shortly be advertising for the role of General Director. Expressions of interest are welcome from anyone thinking of applying for the role. Send your email and details to GDSearchNZBMS@gmail.com.

We will reply with further details as the full search process is initiated.

James 1:27 The Message: Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight...

David Allen Vice-President, Baptist Union and NZBMS

v.135 no.3 † toru tekau mā rima 35

Baptist / G L O B A L M I S S I O N

WovenLife Foundation In our February edition we announced the establishment of the WovenLife Foundation, a new initiative led by our team in South East Asia. In this edition we want to tell you about the intended work of WovenLife and encourage you to pray for and support our team as they work to transform lives in their area of the world. Here are six things you need to know about WovenLife.

1

NZBMS has been working in South East Asia for almost two decades. Over that time, the focus of the work has evolved and shifted both in location and emphasis. To ensure the continuation of this work, the WovenLife Foundation has been established.

2

Working alongside local churches, WovenLife is based in a provincial area where there is a very small percentage of Christians and the majority of people live as subsistence farmers. It is an area that rates poorly on many socio-economic indicators.

3

In the local language the name WovenLife means ‘developing the quality of life’. It came from a time of prayer where God gave the team an image of the lives of people in their region being woven together into community, and as a consequence being woven into the life that God has for them. Weaving is one of the traditional skills of this area so the name represents the people of this place using their local language, skills and culture in the service of their Creator God.

4

Establishing our own organisation represents a commitment by New Zealand Baptists to work in this area for the long haul, and to partner with local Christians to see churches strengthened, communities developed and lives made whole in Christ.

5

While our team is currently small, there are both short- and long-term, opportunities for people who can: • teach English including those with skills in early childhood education • encourage Christians and church leaders • work with children and young people.

In the longer term there are openings for people who can: • work to strengthen relationships in families • advise farmers on how to improve their livelihoods • mentor people who are seeking to develop small businesses.

6

Prayer teams are welcome at any time to visit WovenLife and pray over the work and the area it works in. If you are interested, contact the home office: info@nzbms.org.nz.

N O I S S I M

TRIVIA

orld’s f the w T o % t NO Wha tion do a la u p o p o ccess t have a oilet? clean t page 38 Answe

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r on

N Z B M S

Good things take time Andy, one of the WovenLife team members, reflects on what the WovenLife Foundation will mean for the work in South East Asia.

The discipline of waiting Remember the story of Abraham? Now, there was a man who knew what it was to wait. Twenty-five years, in fact—from the time God first promised him he would be the father of many nations until the birth of his son Isaac. I’ve often wondered what sustained Abraham’s faith through those years of waiting. Yes, at times his faith waivered but he stood firm in believing in the promise God had given him.

Our time of waiting wasn’t quite as dramatic as Abraham’s but it still felt like a long time for WovenLife to come into being.

From submitting our application, through to receiving our registration certificate, was just less than two years (one year and 50 weeks to be exact). Throughout this period of waiting, there were times when we wondered if it would really happen; had we heard wrong? Had we made the wrong decision?

Did God really want us to be here? We faced recurring disappointments when told approval was imminent only to hear nothing more for months—but, in the end, the waiting paid off and WovenLife is now a reality.

A secure future WovenLife gives us long-term security for our work in this region. It means we can plan for the future. It gives us a legal way to own property and assets, and employ local staff. It gives a greater opportunity to secure visas and provides a sense of commitment and a strong local identity that we can use to build on our reputation with locals. It means we can develop new programmes and projects and broaden the scope of our work.

What’s happening now Now, even with WovenLife officially underway, it feels like waiting continues to be a part of our experience—waiting to discern what we should do next; waiting to see new projects up and running; waiting to see people come to faith; waiting to see relationships renewed.

In many ways, the short term hasn’t brought radical changes from what we were already doing. Members of the team teach English in several outlying villages, offer kids programmes, play and learning, and work with local churches.

One new initiative is an activity seeking to build relationships with young people. The city has a large youth population made up of young people who have come for high school. It has been a dream of the team for many years to start to work with this group and find ways of reaching them. Hence, we started Connect4—a board game club. On Friday nights we meet at a local café to play games, practice conversational English and get to know each other more. There is already a small group attending and we hope this will continue to grow in the future.

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Leaving a Legacy Susan Osborne reflects on events from days gone by.

WovenLife is a great name for a foundation that is the result of several strands of NZBMS involvement in Thailand over the past 20 years.

New Zealand Baptists have been working in Thailand for over two decades through a number of organisations, principally OMF. It wasn’t until 2000 that Stu and Ruth, NZBMS personnel seconded to the Australian Baptists, went to work in Chiang Mai. Their focus was to reach Thai urban Buddhists, a largely unreached people group. As part of this journey, in 2004, Cornerstone Workplace English (CWE) was established. This English language school focused on the workplace and was a Marketplacers International Ltd/NZBMS business with a local partner.

Within two years, two more families, Ilkka and Maree and Dan and Angela, joined the team and, after intensive language study, began teaching at CWE. A number of short-termers assisted with the teaching—as a result of this experience, Peter and Lynley returned as permanent NZBMS staff.

Neil and Barb joined as team leaders in early 2007, which helped considerably when two of the existing families resigned. CWE continued for another year before closing, the team feeling they had little opportunity to share their faith within the work environment. NZBMS staff joined with Family Connection Foundation, an NGO working in Chiang Mai and beyond.

When Ian and Colleen arrived in Thailand to take over the team leadership, they felt, together with Ilkka and Maree and Peter and Lynley, that God was leading them to work in Kalasin, one of the poorest and least responsive areas in North East Thailand.

The work there remains, with the team working with church leaders supporting and building the local church. They also teach English and life skills within the community.

Currently the team is made up of Ilkka and Maree, Andrew and Roanna, and Josh and Robyn and their families. Extending the Kingdom of God amongst Thai Buddhists remains the goal of the valuable work NZBMS is doing in Thailand.

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Baptist / G L O B A L M I S S I O N

MISSIO

N

TRIVIA ER A N S W) people

STORIES

Stories of Treasure and Transformation

in 3 33% (1 have clean t o or e do n cess (m a c a t e il o t to cce s s have a phone!) e il mob

Something exciting

We love sharing the different ways God is transforming the communities we are a part of.

In this month’s edition of ‘Stories’, we feature three reports from the field.

Our students have received their O-Level results back. As their teacher, I was a bit nervous but they mostly did really well. Let me tell you about two of them—when I saw their results, I cried tears of joy. When Karly got her results, I just about fell off my chair before giving her the biggest hug ever. She had to overcome some health issues—but she did it. The other student, Anish, has dyslexia. When he got his results, his maths teacher and I danced around the staffroom.

I love the fact that we can be a part of their story of life transformation. Both of them helped out with extra classes at GEMS while they prepared for the next lot of exams, which were held in May.

From a Tranzsend worker in South Asia

Something valuable Something new The year got off to a busy start for us as we commenced three new activities. The first is a Friday conversational English class at a local high school; it is an opportunity to build relationships with staff and students and to invite the students to attend our second new activity, Connect4. This is a youth programme using board games to build connections with young people and create opportunities to talk about the important things of life.

The third new activity is Sparkle which Ro has started in partnership with some friends in one of the villages where we work.

Sparkle is a music and dance programme for preschoolers and their caregivers, created by the mainly music team. This will be a good way for our friends to strengthen their relationships with others in their community.

Please join us in these new ventures by praying for them.

From Tranzsend workers in South East Asia

R EAD M ORE

about the work of Tranzsend at tranzsend.org.nz.

38 toru tekau mā waru † v.135 no.3 baptistmag.org.nz

We’d been praying about whether we should continue with our regular activities as we move into the new year. We were thinking about this as we went out to teach the children at one village and wondering if it was time to finish there.

On arriving we were greeted by 25 kids.

We then went to talk with the couple who are our main contacts in the village. They said, “The kids love you. Your teaching has benefit for them. No-one else gives our kids extra tuition. Come every day if you like!”

Then at the end of the evening, three girls approached us and asked if the song we taught them at Easter “1,2,3 Jesus is Alive” is on YouTube because they want to perform it at school. We figured this was the answer to our prayers.

From Tranzsend workers in South East Asia

N Z B M S

-

R E A C H I N G

T H E

W O R L D

OPPORTUNITIES TO SERVE Whatever you do—whatever your skills—whatever your level of education—there will be a role for you somewhere in the world of overseas missions. If you have any of the specific skills needed below, please pray about whether you are being called to serve, and contact the emails below for more, no obligation, information.

ENGLISH TEACHERS FOR LAOS Serving with OMF. To teach at an English language learning school with students between the ages of 16 and 30 years.

English teaching training will be required but this can be done in advance in a variety of ways.

For more, email: NZ.ServeAsia@omfmail.com

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST/ PHYSIOTHERAPIST/ SPEECH THERAPIST IN CENTRAL ASIA

IT PERSONNEL— GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES Serving with Wycliffe Bible Translators.

To serve in a rehabilitation centre aiming to provide high-quality rehabilitation to children with cerebral palsy (age 0-16) from families who can’t afford to pay for therapy.

Work with a local team, with opportunities to provide training for the staff, teaching parents and working with children on a day‑to‑day basis. A willingness to learn language is important.

We need: Computer Maintenance Technician; Computer Project Manager; Computer Technical Writer; Consultant/Trainer Applications; Desktop Publishing Specialist; Multi‑Skilled Computer Specialist; Network Administrator; Software/ Data Librarian; Software Developer; Systems Analyst; Web Author—all these skills and more have a place.

Short- and long‑term opportunities.

For more, email: talk2us@interserve.org.nz

For more, email: admin@wycliffenz.org

Serving with Interserve.

For more information and to express an interest email info@missionworld.org.nz or phone 09 526 8446

In His Presence: A Day of Prayer

Wellington

Auckland

10am - 3pm I Lunch provided Tawa Baptist Church

10am - 3pm I Lunch provided Carey Baptist College Chapel

Saturday 22 June, 2019 229 Main Road, Tawa, Wellington

Saturday 27 July, 2019 473 Great South Road, Penrose

An opportunity to hear from NZBMS and our partner organisations in Mission, and join together in prayer as the body of Christ in the Wellington and Auckland regions. Come and be encouraged by what God is doing in the nations.

RSVP to info@nzbms.org.nz (ph 09 526 8444) by 17 June 2019 for catering purposes

“Listening to Rhema, particularly on my way to work on the car every morning, sets me up for the day with God as my focus and with some good messages and songs!�

- Anon

Auckland 1251 AM, Hamilton 855 AM, Palmerston North 91.4 FM, Wellington 972 AM, Christchurch 540 AM, Dunedin 621 AM | For a full list of frequencies visit rhema.co.nz

facebook.com/nzrhema

rhema.co.nz