Dear Friends,
This weekend past Teresa and I were able to take a special break in Auckland – special because we were visiting our first grandchild, Kiritapu, who is just three weeks old.
This coming weekend also involves travel, but the focus is on Cursillo on Friday and the election of a new Archbishop on Saturday. In my role as Episcopal Overseer for Cursillo NZ I will be commissioning Mary Cropp as National Lay Director on Friday evening in St. Paul’s, Paraparaumu. Then, in Wellington on Saturday, I will be with General Synod representatives from our Diocese and the other six Pakeha dioceses for a meeting of the Tikanga Pakeha Conference – the formal vehicle for Tikanga Pakeha to make decisions. This will be an opportunity to express our gratitude for the leadership of Archbishop Philip Richardson who has been our senior bishop and one of our church’s primates for the past ten years. Then we will formally elect our new senior bishop who will take up the role of Archbishop and Primate in our church from 1 July 2023.
One of our sessions on Saturday will be sharing what God is doing in our Diocese. In a meeting yesterday with our General Synod representatives, it was wonderful to share stories of what God is doing across our Diocese in preparation for that session on Saturday. God is growing our churches and growing people within our churches.
Something to look forward to later this year in respect of growing our churches is a second Leading Your Church into Growth (LYCiG) conference. I am looking forward to this conference and to being able to meet with clergy and laity from every ministry unit in our Diocese. Details of the conference and how to register are being communicated to every ministry unit. Let’s do this!
I was very pleased to red this morning that the Youth Hub has received a further substantial donation and this can be read about on Newshub. This construction project, being built on Anglican Care land on Salisbury Street, is becoming a reality and will be completed.
Kate Day, known to many in our Diocese, has written a biography of a well-known NZ medical missionary, Edric Baker. The books is called “Call Me Brother: The Story of a New Zealand Doctor in Bangladesh” and there will be a Christchurch book launch at 3pm on Saturday 1 July at Holy Trinity Church, 168 Stanmore Rd, details here. RSVP to kate.v.day@gmail.com. All welcome but please RSVP. You can buy the book or e-book at kailakuri.com/biography. All proceeds will go to the Kailakuri Healthcare Project.
This Sunday 11 June 2023, Ordinary 10 or Te Pouhere Sunday or St. Barnabas’ Day. In our Diocese we have a St. Barnabas’ South and a St. Barnabas’ North (Fendalton and Woodend-Pegasus parishes respectively). The gospel reading for this Sunday celebrated as 10th Sunday in Ordinary time is Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26, a reading about the essential disposition of God to humanity being mercy. For Te Pouhere Sunday, reflecting on our life together as a Three Tikanga church, the gospel readings could be John 15:9-17 or Matthew 7:24-29 or Luke 6:46-49 or John 17:6-26 which is, I suggest, too much choice! At the heart, however, of the significance of being a church of three different culture streams working together in unity is a willingness to be kind and merciful to one another. When we are such a church, we are encouraged—and the significance of Barnabas is that he was a mighty encourager!
Arohanui,
+Peter