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Dear supporters, friends, whanau in Christ, At last we have found a designer to help us out with this edition, and, tarra, here it is! I hope you will enjoy the read. I also really appreciate any feedback you want to give me, or interest in how Church Army can in any way help you share the Good News of Jesus. Arohanui Monika moni@canz.kiwi
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The 65th General Synod Te Hīnota Whānui - 25-29 October, 2022, in Nelson, New Zealand.
Now an 'in person' event. GSTHW 2022 Lead Up Dates. 5 weeks out: Monday 19 Sept, Mailing of Summons and Notices of Motions (B/I/2.2), with pre-session papers (5 weeks before, as required under SO 97 and SO 101). 4 weeks out: Monday 26 Sept, make papers available electronically online (1 week after mailing, as required under SO 99.a). www.anglican.org.nz/News/General-Synod-Te-Hinota-Whanui-GSTHW This time we are privileged to have both CMS and Bishopdale presenting. This series will grapple with the question, "How do we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" NZ is a very different Nation from when I began in full time ministry. With so many Nations and cultures around us, where do we start? As before registration is by simply registering using the form on the main page and we will send you the link a day or two before the series begins  The last series ended with Andrew Burgess giving us an introduction to the Five Marks Of Mission adopted by the worldwide Anglican Church to give focus to our task under God. The Rev Mark Beale is our speaker for this series. Mark was the founding Vicar of a new Church in South Auckland. He started with a house and "Granny Flat" and ended with a large congregation worshipping in their own building. The journey between those two points is fascinating and Mark will share some of the stories along the way as well as telling us how we can all be involved personally in living out the Gospel. Beginning where Andrew left off he will show how those "Marks" can be lived out in the daily life of every Christian, as well as how one new Church developed as all five Marks were applied. There are three sessions beginning on Wednesday the 1st of June at 7pm and continuing on the 8th and 15th. As before all sessions will be recorded and available for those who cannot join in with the "live" sessions.   We were very encouraged by the response to the ZOOM Series AFFIRM put on last year and have decided to do another series throughout 2022.
The theme for the year is "Crossroads: When World and Gospel Meet." There will be various presenters throughout the year with a variety of subjects all focussed on Mission. Our aim is to show how our Five Fold Mission Statements are integrated and dependent on each other. We will let you know as each one comes up with plenty of time to advertise. As before they can be done by individuals or with a small group (especially while we are in the Red "Traffic Light" zone). For more detail - see the AFFIRM Hub 2022 page. We trust that you will find the series helpful as many did last year. It is our honour to be serving the Church in this way. Every blessing, Lorraine and Pete Lloyd AFFIRM  Graham Dow (Bishop of Carlisle, UK, 2000-2009 and previously Bishop of Willesden, London), who has spearheaded healing ministry wherever he has worked, has made available together on his website his addresses, sermons and articles as well as catalogues of his books (out of print items available from him) and teaching CDs.
https://www.bishopgrahamdow.com/ Good to chat last night. I realized after the conversation that I felt sad about the state of the church in NZ. But when I thought about it, I wasn't really sad about motion 29 and it's associated changes. I'm sad about the lack of many good examples of effective mission and healthy growing churches. I really hope this becomes the focus of the Affirm Christian Community - a network of churches committing to being more effective in mission for the full biblical gospel, and willing to take risks. Imagine if the affirm Christian community became known as the church planting wing of Anglicanism in NZ. Like, the Christian Community, I think, has to push against the voices inside it which want to make the focus (in word, or in deed) to be preserving doctrine. Having good doctrine is a necessary pre-requisite of the mission, but it is not the mission. Many churches with correct doctrine have died. I think y'all should be saying, with one accord: 'we have an opportunity and authorization to come together and get serious about getting effective in the mission. Let's take that opportunity and see what God will do.
Peter Williamson Chaplain at Harvard University InterVarsity’s Harvard Team Leader for Post-grad Student Ministry By The Revd Dr Andrew Burgess, Bishopdale College, Nelson
I am not a Bishop, or a Vicar General, nor an Archdeacon. I’m not even a member of Standing Committee. I’m just ‘Burge’ … but I want to offer my thoughts as someone who ‘represented’ Nelson Diocese at the General Synod. The General Synod or Te Hinota Whanui of the Anglican Church in these islands voted to adopt the recommendations of what we have been calling Motion 29 report. (The actual motion at the 2018 meeting we just had was Motion 7, just to confuse things, but it adopted the Motion 29 recommendations, with some minor changes.) I don’t want to try and go into detail on the report – for many people reading this the key issue is straight-forward, and that is the acceptance of blessings for same-sex couples in a civil union or marriage. The church, as a whole, agreed to allow Bishops to choose to have some sort of service or part of a service written, and for those Bishops to allow an ordained Anglican minister to use that material for a blessing of a civil union or civil marriage, regardless of the gender of the couple, and so on. by Bryden Black, Easter 2018
First impressions of this documentary (that is what it calls itself) are that it is first rate, well produced, and with a suitably beguiling sound track (music by Ludovico Einaudi, by any chance). As far as the medium of ‘talking heads’ go, it seeks to present a biblical case for at least same-sex blessings and ideally for same-sex marriage. Its avowed audience furthermore are those who seek themselves to acknowledge a high view of biblical authority. Does it achieve its goals? Apart from dispelling the usual miscues sometimes/often paraded in these discussions (e.g. the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen 19), frankly, in my opinion, no; it fails. Not only did we not actually hear new ground being broken here, the old arguments assembled via an array of interviewees continue finally not to convince. And it fails to convince for a number of reasons, some specifically and others cumulatively. We shall take some specific reasons first. The full article can be downloaded here. |
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