Newsletter October 2017

THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION

September has again seen our two lay Synod representatives, Alistair Parke and Vicky Mee, and me attending the annual diocesan synod. This aligns to the annual meeting of the ministry units within our diocese.  This is a formal meeting that opens with a Eucharist service in St Mary’s in Holy Trinity.  Bishop Jim White was the preacher at this year’s service.  Copies of the text of his sermon is available at the back of the church.

The service was followed by Bishop Ross and Bishop Jim’s charge which follows this introduction to the Messenger.  The business of synod included the presentation on a bill that addressed issues relating to the “Quota” – the amount that we as a parish are required to pay to the diocese.   This is being moved from a voluntary contribution to direct debit which the diocese will deduct from our accounts.  There is the opportunity to seek clarification of the amount we are being charged and also to lodge an appeal relating to the amount we are required to pay.  Further bills discussed issues around clergy housing, annual financial returns, appointment of clergy and synod representation.

There were reports for City Mission, Selwyn Foundation, Blessings of same-gender marriages, Anglican Board of Mission and Christian World Service.  Vicky presented a motion on the housing crisis and seconded motions relating to TPPA (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement) free trade deal and the contracting of a field worker for sustainability within the diocese.  John Allen currently holds this position.  John, a parishioner, leads our communal garden project and “the grow your own food” educational workshops.  Other motions included topics such as rescuing women from slavery, mission, equal gender representation on committees and working groups, inequality in NZ, resource sharing and the roles of faith and action in tackling climate change.

While issues relating to major issues facing the church such as attendance and finances were raised in the Bishop’s charge these really did not feature in the business of Synod.

On a personal level I enjoy meeting up with friends and colleagues who I don’t have the opportunity to connect with on a regular basis.  It is good to share ideas and hear what is happening in other ministry units in the diocese.

The Diocesan Council is elected at Synod and it has the responsibility of dealing with issues in between Synods.  The structure of our church is to also elect representatives to attend the Inter Diocesan Synod where the Anglican churches of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia come together.     The national church leaders then come together for international meetings with Anglican churches from other countries.   It can be very challenging to agree on some aspects of church life and hence the slow movement on some issues such as the blessing of marriages and devising services for these.

I do ask that you keep our Bishops and those in church leadership in your prayers as we grapple together on so many important issues that face our church as we relate to each other.

Blessings to you all

Jan

PUKEKOHE PARISH SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING

SUNDAY OCTOBER 15 at 11am

Agenda

1.  Proposed moving of the St Paul’s church in Buckland.  Parish agreement on this project is now being sought.

2.  Financial situation of the parish.

How do we address the current shortfall in income over the expenditure?


WORSHIP

St Francis’ Day Service with Blessing of the Animals

Family & Community Service followed by morning tea

October 1, 9.30am

Bring along your friends, family, and pets.

If it is really fine and warm we will have the service on the vicarage lawn, otherwise it will be in Reid Anderson Hall.

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MASONIC LODGE CHURCH SERVICE

Sunday October 15

We come together to celebrate the Freemasons’ generous contribution towards our organ.

This will take place as part of our regular 8am Sunday worship.

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Pastoral Care

ALL SOULS’ DAY SERVICES

Thursday November  2, 10am and 7pm

The church will be open throughout the day for prayer and the lighting of candles in memory of a loved one.

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PUKEKOHE COMMUNITY ACTION

OPEN EVENT

November 1 at St Andrews, 5PM – 7.30pm

Come hear what we are doing in the community

Seasons for Growth – A new after-school group is beginning on Thursdays for children who have experienced a significant loss or grief in their lives. This will begin early in the next school term.   If you are interested in finding out more about this group please talk to Jan or Marisa.

Space for you and your baby – A group for first-time mums and their babies will be beginning in the third week of October.

Oasis – This is the natural progression from Space. As the babies “graduate” at the age of 1 year they transfer through to the playgroups. which have music, morning tea, free play and a story with a related craft.   There is the time for mums to chat amongst themselves and to build relationships because many are new to Pukekohe.  I enjoy the group as the parents are so encouraging and supportive.  Do feel free to drop in and see the children having fun.

Selwyn Group – For the older members of the community.  Join in the exercises, chat over a cup of tea or coffee and then enjoy cards, Scrabble, Rummikub or other activities.  It is good to see people getting out mixing with others and on Tuesdays enjoying lunch together.  This group runs every Tuesday and Thursday morning from 9.30 am.

For further information on any of these groups please speak to Jan.

FAMILY GAMES NIGHT & SHARED MEAL

Postponed until early November  Please add your name to the list if you would like to join the fun.

Beetle, Scrabble, Rummikub and Cards or bring your favourite game along to share. 

THANK YOU

Soup Lunch

To all who have hosted soup lunches or provided soup over the winter.  It is great to take the time to share in hospitality especially over the cold, wet winter days.

Thank you Gael for organising these.

Parish Breakfast

To Richard, Dianne and family for catering again for another wonderful parish breakfast in September. This is so much appreciated.

Thank you to those who have offered to assist Richard and Dianne with this ministry next year and to those who help with the cleaning up.

NEXT PARISH BREAKFAST  ~  SUNDAY OCTOBER 29, 8.45am

This is the final breakfast for 2017.

SOCIAL OPPORTUNITIES

Music group for the hospitals   

I would really appreciate even a couple of people joining me and our teams to help with the singing at services at Pukekohe Hospital on the third Wednesday of the month at 10.45am and at the Palms Hospital in  Beresford St on the second Wednesday.

This would hugely increase the value of our services to the residents of these two hospitals. We have a pianist at the Palms Hospital.

Please speak to Jan if you would be willing to help at either or both of these hospitals.

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MOTHERS’ UNION

Next meeting on October 4, 10am service followed by meeting in lounge.  This month’s Guest Speaker is Glenis Kerr.  All Welcome.

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WOMEN’S FELLOWSHIP

This is an open group with the purpose of getting to know each other better and offering support and encouragement to each other.

All are welcome.

Our next meeting is Thursday October 19

We meet at the church at 10am.

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Bible Readings in October

Date October 1: 8am     
First Exodus 17: 1-7
Gospel Matthew 21 : 23-32
Theme Every One’s a Critic

17th Sunday after Pentecost

Date October 1: 9.30am     
St Francis of Assis
First Nehemiah 2: 1-8
Gospel Luke 9: 57 – end
Date October 8
First Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9,12-20
Gospel Matthew 28: 33-46
Theme A Rule of Love

18th Sunday after Pentecost

Date October 15
First Exodus 32: 1-14
Gospel Matthew 22: 1-14
Theme Soothing Our Souls

19th Sunday after Pentecost

Date October 22
First Exodus 16 : 2-15
Gospel Matthew 22: 15-22
Theme Our Whole Selves

20th Sunday after Pentecost

Date October 29
First Deuteronomy 34: 1-12
Gospel Matthew 22: 34-46
Theme Time To Say Goodbye

21st Sunday after Pentecost

FROM VESTRY

REMINDER ABOUT KEYS:  There are many keys with people who are no longer in need of them. If you have a key and only use it on a very occasional basis (less than once in a three-week period) would you please return it to the office.  Of course the people who attend to any aspect of church cleaning or flowers where access is often needed outside of the hours during which the church is open need their keys.

LEAKING CHURCH ~ We are grateful that the leaks in the roof which were mainly in the chancel area have now been repaired.
SUSTAINABILITY

Caring for Creation

Cherishing our Earth through sustainability actions for individuals and households.

Yah, it’s Spring!  Yes it is.  Don’t look out the window … my calendar says it’s spring.

Even if the weather doesn’t know about the calendar, the fruit trees and bees do, so it is time for us to get out in the garden and do spring things.

Things like starting seeds.  That’s what we did on last week’s Grow Your Own Food course – leafy greens, carrots, squash and more were all started in our special seed-raising mix.

We could do with your help around that – if you have surplus seedling pots, trays or root trainers, could we have them? They’ll be used to propagate seedlings to be sold at the St Andrew’s Parish Fair on October 28.  Just leave them out the back of the church next to the communal food garden behind the vicarage.  Many thanks.

Talking about the food garden, our “Friends of the Food Garden” group meets every Wednesday evening to work on the garden.  It’s not onerous work, and it is as much a time for a chin wag as it is a time to get hands dirty.  So do come along and join us from 7pm to 8 pm on Wednesday evenings with your garden gloves, trowel and fork.  And a story to tell would be great too.

The St Andrew’s food garden is a sustainability project that reduces carbon emissions and builds resilience.  It is also a social justice initiative that provides food to our food bank, kitchen and Friends.

Running alongside the food garden is the Grow Your Own Food course and, starting soon, the Franklin Garden Tools Library.  We have some funding to establish the library but need tools and volunteers.  Who can imagine a library without books or librarians?   So if you have some garden tools that are surplus to your needs, would you consider donating them to the Franklin Gardening Tools Library?  And if you have time to volunteer to the library, please call John on 09-238 1357.

FUNDRAISING

SATURDAY ~ OCTOBER 28

PARISH FAIR

This is one of our major fundraising events for the year !!! 

Please can you help ?

Setting up will be from 1pm on Friday 27

FAIR is from 8am until 1pm on Saturday 28

We really would appreciate :

* cakes * jams * pickles * books

* household and white elephant items

* new items for the tombola

* grocery items for the raffle

Fun for all!

BISHOPS’ CHARGE

TO THE SECOND SESSION OF THE 55TH SYNOD OF THE DIOCESE OF AUCKLAND

Greetings

It is good to be together as Synod once again. This is an important moment in our year, and is the key time when we can give visible expression to our diocesan life in all its vitality and diversity. We gather to speak and listen well together, held by the love of God and guided by the Holy Spirit of God.

We wish to acknowledge and welcome those who join this body for the first time. So if this is your first time as a member of the Auckland Synod, please stand so that we can greet you.

We trust that you will not feel as though you have landed on an alien planet as we make our way through our business with some of its inevitable quirks, and that you feel welcome among brothers and sisters in this diocesan family.

In memoriam

Please stand as we acknowledge the following people who have died in the past year and who were members of this Synod.

HOUSE OF CLERGY: The Reverend Des Olney; The Reverend Bob Hansen; The Reverend Richard Colegrove; The Reverend Murray Bean; The Reverend Murray Harford; The Reverend Pamela Warnes; The Reverend Bob Glen; The Reverend Mavis Ambler (Methodist Minister, South Hokianga Co-operating Parish); The Reverend Nick Kirk; The Reverend Margaret Williams .

HOUSE OF LAITY: Christina Tapu – Lay Canon of Holy Trinity Cathedral; Laraine Stevenson – Synod Rep St John’s East Tamaki; Lester Priest – Synod Rep for Maunu LSMU; Gloria Brewis – Synod Rep from Panmure; Captain Phil Clark – National Director Church Army; Mary Ann Ferrier – Lay Canon, Holy Trinity Cathedral; Dr Kevin Pope – Synod Rep for Pukekohe (latterly a parishioner at St Aidan’s, Remuera).

Rest eternal grant unto them O Lord. And let light perpetual shine upon them. May they rest in peace. And rise in glory.

An Election Year . . .

It is unusual to be holding a Synod so close to a general election. We are glad that an early election date did not clash with the Synod as that may have created some legal constraint over what we could have moved and debated in the course of our business.

We know that Anglicans will vote from yellow to green, and all of the colours in between. We know better than to suggest what colour Anglicans should look like. But the elections matter because the future of our nation matters, and there are many things that capture the concern of each of us, and each Anglican around the Diocese.

We point you to the things that this Synod has discussed and debated in the years since the last election.

Along with the General Synod and many of the other churches, we have been consistent in our calls for the refugee quota to be increased to 1500 people per annum, and in our willingness to support the integration of refugees into our communities.

We have been constant in our concerns about housing, its affordability, the ongoing provision of state housing, the opportunity for social housing projects, and those who experience homelessness or inadequate housing. We have grappled with issues around income inequality, the growing gap between rich and poor, the tragedy of child poverty, and the implementation of the living wage.

We have expressed our concerns about the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. We have raised issues about climate change, especially in support of our neighbours in the Pacific.

We note that this Session of Synod returns to housing, inequality, the TPP Agreement, and climate change.

So as each Anglican prepares to vote, we will do so out of our political persuasion, our theological world-view, and from the matters of personal concern. We also encourage that Anglicans be 3 cognisant of the things that we have said as a Diocese are of importance and need change, and apply that in our decision-making as well.

God’s World

There is much that can rise up to trouble us around the world, and we often find ourselves grateful for our relative isolation. But that should not make us complacent. Archbishop Winston Halapua is in the UK where he has addressed a number of groups about the urgency of rising sea levels and the risk represented to Pacific Island nations.

The growing military tensions between North Korea and the United States are a genuine cause for fear, taking our world back to Cold War times and the threat of nuclear conflict. The many forgotten civil wars around the world, and the millions of displaced people and refugees that long for a home and for personal security should disturb us more than they often do.

We must take fresh confidence in the Gospel message and the gospel task as we seek to be a people who (as our Confirmation promises challenge us) extend forgiveness, who love neighbour, who strive for peace and justice, and who give of self for the sake of following Christ.

Can we be that kind of Church?

Growing in our life and purpose as a Diocese

Last year we began to grasp a few nettles in our Synod discussions. They stem from some hard questions regarding what it means for there to be an “us” in our life as a diocese. What we want to be is a Diocese that has a genuine collegial, corporate belonging together. We desire to move beyond being a mere collection of local congregations, which we risk becoming. So we sought to ask the question of how we build that life so that “we” are best equipped to participate together in the missio dei, God’s work in the world in which we participate.

We have been giving considerable thought to those matters through this last year. The challenges which we are beginning to attend to about quota, and church closures, and the use of capital funds, and so on, are not isolated and reactionary issues. They are issues that connect to our vision of the whole as to how we best harness the resources of the diocese to allow us to flourish and to be effective in the work of mission. We have been in conversation with Diocesan Council about these things, and recently invited a group of lay and clergy to consult with us about them. We recognise that our ministry of episcope is one of oversight. That carries with it the responsibilities of leading and caring and managing. But it also carries the sense of being given the opportunity to “see over” the whole, to have an overview of the diocese and thus the possibility of providing some vision for its future and direction.

One way of putting the challenge before us as bishops is: Where do we place ourselves between the two poles of complete independence and autonomy of the ministry units at one end, and complete direction and control of the Diocese over Ministry Units at the other end?

Working this out is never as easy as it may sound because, like it or not, in practice we are now more at one end of the pole than the other and are a collection of semi-autonomous, diverse communities of faith with different emphases, interests, theologies, and practices. And as such we do not take kindly to what we perceive as outside influences (such as bishops) making pronouncements about what we should be doing. So, we know that any vision for the diocese cannot be about the simplistic imposition of common programmes, common branding, common messaging, common answers. We are more complex than that.

Here, however, we see the brilliance of Anglican ecclesiology in the parish system (though we call different places by different names these days). The “parish” or as we call it, the Ministry Unit, is called to live out worship and mission in the local context, responding to the joys and sorrows, needs and gifts of each community. Thus we refer to the way in which as Anglicans we are not essentially a gathered church, setting ourselves up in a regional way and calling together people from all over the place who might like our style or who are people just like us. We know there is an element of that about who we are today, but in essence we remain committed to being present in local communities, gathering local people, meeting local needs, making the good news known locally. And just as the Gospel is contextualised within cultures as a whole, we also adapt and respond to the particularities of local communities as we shape our life to be able to connect well to those communities.

So, while some predict the end of the parish model and even that the Anglican Church needs to completely reinvent itself, we think this prediction is wrong. We believe that, while local ministry will need to adapt and change in different ways, the deep theological underpinnings of the Incarnation that drives us to do God’s mission and ministry in a particular way and in a particular place, remains primary.

Because we believe that the mission of God is mostly worked out through local churches, and not in some big corporation style ‘diocesan way’, it is our view that this local life must be strengthened and resourced to be able to fulfil its calling as a worshipping, mission-focused people of God.

We have spoken about this over the years as seeing our task, as bishops and as an episcopal team, to be one of strengthening the life of the local church so that Anglican Christian church life flourishes, and through it the gospel impacts positively in the wider community. We wish to see local churches move increasingly from the majority of their energy being spent on ensuring their survival to a new confidence about giving their life away for the sake of the Gospel and of the people we are called to serve.

In speaking about church growth, Bishop Richard Chartres reflected on his 25 years of episcopal ministry in London, and the ways in which the Diocese of London had developed and changed. He noted that “the Christian community will continue to thrive as long as it is vision-led and not problem-led.”

We echo that view, and so to be clear our vision is: for a diocese made up of flourishing ministry units where what it means to flourish is about knowing the gift of God in Christ and sharing that gift with the same graciousness by which it comes to us.

Over the last couple of years we have been working on the question of what a wholly or healthy or flourishing community of Christians looks like in some greater detail. We know that there is variety in expression, and indeed, we should expect that, but we might wonder about features in common of flourishing communities – communities that are serving God and neighbour well, and are outward and visible signs of the life and love of God.

Of course we are not the first to consider what it is that makes for a healthy church. In recent years a great deal of work has occurred in this space. The two stand-out contributions are represented by the publications Natural Church Development by Christian Schwarz and The Healthy Churches Handbook by Robert Warren. We have studied this material (and more besides) but have been inclined to lean towards the Healthy Churches model for a number of reasons some of which are actually expressed in that book.

Time does not permit us to detail all that thinking here, but it is important that we underscore two points:

  1. We are not just interested in numerical features of any particular community. To make use of the late Bishop Ted Buckle’s four modes, we are concerned about numerical, maturational, organic, and incarnational features of each community of faith’s life.
  2. We are not wanting to in any way suppress the appropriate variety of theological or liturgical expression in the various communities of faith in our Diocese – we believe that part of our strength and richness as a Diocese is found in our diversity. We are not wanting to impose a single kind of expression of mission and ministry.

What we ask ourselves as bishops and episcopal team is: How can we help local Anglican expressions of faith to flourish? We believe that God desires that flourishing to be first local and, at the same time, part of a larger Diocesan whole. Our work at “the centre” is fundamentally about doing all that  we can to strengthen each local place to be able to incarnate mission and ministry as faithfully and as effectively as they can. So, for example, the Diocesan Youth Facilitator (and that whole ministry) is focused not on forcing a single response for every context nor on turning up and delivering a programme from the centre, but being alongside and enabling the ministry of each context. To be sure, there are some Diocesan Programmes (like BOLD and Grace Collective and E-Fest), but again the outcome we are looking for is the development of leadership and ministry for the various contexts and communities that the young people come from.

In the first instance, we have to understand the ways in which each ministry unit is functioning and flourishing, and then, when we understand that reasonably well, we can encourage and work alongside that community in order to “build up the body of Christ.”

Once again, the Healthy Church work helped here since it has a number of “markers” of health and a questionnaire that enables a community to understand where they are in relation to them. What we found though, through trialling some of that material, is that we needed to develop it for our own context. This we did with workshops and with the help of some consultants. This is now being implemented through the new Ministry Unit Review, which Archdeacon Sarah Moss is leading out. Good initial progress is being made with this through the good work Sarah is doing in the Ministry Units where she has been involved so far.

Again, we will not set out all of the detail of that programme here. But the purpose of it is to work intentionally with each place to allow them to take a snapshot of their life, identify those things which work well for them, along with the areas of their life which are weak, and to discern where the fresh mission opportunities lie.

It is important for us to note here that local flourishing and mission activity are not linear or somehow separate things. It is not that we work on flourishing so that one day we might be able to undertake mission activity. Without mission, giving away of the life we have received through Christ, there is an absence of true flourishing in any Christian understanding of the word ‘flourishing’. Part of flourishing is an attitude and activity that draws a community beyond itself to reach out to others. It is also important that you hear from us that we have, and are committed to, a vision that is about flourishing local communities caught up in worship and mission, for the love of God and neighbour.

Perhaps we can go back to some basics here. We believe that our life which begins and ends in the life and love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is not one which we live in isolation from one another. Instead we believe that we are in it together. As we affirm in the Eucharist:

E te whānau, we are the body of Christ.

Brothers and sisters, ko tātou te tinana o te Karaiti.

By one Spirit we were baptised into one body.

Nā te Wairua kotahi tātou i iriiri hei tinana kotahi.

We are not then, just an amalgamation of individuals. We belong one to another in a deep, fundamental, and holy way – together we are the Body of Christ.4 There is a divine desire for us to not live alone.5 So, we need to set aside unaccountable individualism and we must collaborate and co-operate in every way possible. It is also important to recognise that when any particular gathering of Christians proclaims that “we are the body of Christ” it is at once true and not-true. It is true because it is indeed so, but it is not true because each and any congregation is only a small part of the church catholic and universal. For us Anglicans we hold the sense of the church being more than any single congregation in as much as the basic unit is the Diocese – priests, deacons, and laity gathered around the bishop. As bishops we are called to serve alongside each community but we are also called to serve the Diocese as a whole. As priests, deacons, and laity we need to understand we belong to more than one local expression of the Anglican Church. That’s the nature of licensed ministry. It is both yours and mine. It is ours. Thus all ministry is diocesan ministry, worked out in different local contexts.

This then is what we see. But what do we see opportunity for?

To speak of a vision and a purpose for our life together points us to what we already know. We believe that a holistic understanding of mission has five marks: · To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom · To teach, baptise and nurture new believers · To respond to human need by loving service · To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation · To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth

We believe that this work of mission sits alongside worship as a core purpose of the Church. We note that often there is considerable effort put into the planning and offering of Sunday worship, and ensuring that there continues to be a place in which to worship, and some people who will offer that worship. But the mission edge of our local churches can seem dulled as people struggle both to know want to do, and to find the capacity to do it.

As we have already noted, we believe that the future lies in our capacity to harness collaboration, and rediscover ourselves as one people of God sharing life and ministry as a diocese, where what we do in our individual places is part of a whole. We may think that conceptually now, but how can we make the experience of it more real for all of the people and places of the diocese? Where there are new opportunities for development, or where we might want to respond to urgent ministry needs, whose responsibility is that? We would suggest that it is as a diocese as a whole.

Together we are responsible for the mission of God within the whole diocese, not just our own part of it. So, for instance, how do we meet the challenge of being present in a meaningful way in lower socio-economic areas where there are very limited possibilities of local people supporting the costs of stipend and housing? Or how do we continue to offer ministry in rural areas where there is a shrinking towards urban centres? Or how do we attend to the strengthening of earthquake-prone buildings across the diocese? Our presence in hospital chaplaincy is shrinking, how do we support and grow such vital ministries? You can see the fish-hook that is in here. If we want to do these things well together we must find new resources, and be courageous to accept that some things may need to die in order to allow other things to come to life.

We know that the whole Diocese has strengths and weaknesses and we need to work on these together where we can. We know, for instance, that we are living in an increasingly secular nation, that we are in overall decline, that we are asset rich and cash poor, that we have many of our resources in capital assets and too few people ministry resources to respond to the needs we perceive as we would like, and so on. But we keep coming back to: how do we help this or that group of Anglicans flourish and be more faithful and loving where they are? And how can the people, the skills, the resources, and the assets of the Diocese be best applied to allow that to happen?

It is this vision of building healthy or flourishing local churches, which includes actively participating in the mission of God, that directs our work and leads us to identify the strategies which can make it happen, along with the stumbling blocks which can prevent it and which we must overcome together.

Let’s get into it

There is more to do than listen to your Bishops. We are conscious that we have spoken at length about our life as a Diocese, more so this year as we desire to bring more clarity to these matters and so to find the freedom to do God’s work.

The business of Synod gives us much to discuss the next two days. We seek God’s grace and blessing as we go about it. And may the glory belong to God.

Bishop Ross Bay and Bishop Jim White

September 7, 2017

SELWYN’S VISION – LET’S FINISH WHAT HISTORY STARTED

Bishop Selwyn’s vision of a completed Cathedral on Parnell ridge has now been realised, 174 years after the land was bought and 60 years after the foundation stone was laid. The culmination of the Selwyn’s Vision – let’s finish what history started project enables our Cathedral to be formally consecrated and set aside for the service of God.

We are delighted to invite you to the
Service of Consecration of Holy Trinity Cathedral
Saturday October 28 at 3pm
The service will be in Holy Trinity Cathedral, with a live video link to St Mary’s and the Bishop Selwyn Chapel. Seats will be available in Holy Trinity, St Mary’s and Bishop Selwyn Chapel on a first-come, first-seated basis. Doors will open at 1.30pm.

Health and Safety Policy

A copy of the Parish Health and Safety Policy along with the processes required for the implementation of the policy is currently being developed.  When this is completed a copy will be on the shelf at the back of the church, published on our website or available from the parish office.

An evacuation plan is in each area for the church and complex.

Reid Anderson Hall Assembly area is the car park adjoining the hall unless the location of the emergency situation is on the south wall preventing evacuation on that side of the building.  In this case the assembly area is on the road frontage in front of the church.

Nora Brown Hall Assembly area is on the road frontage in front of the church or on the vicarage lawn depending on the location of the emergency situation.

Other rooms in the complex Assembly area move to the vicarage lawn.

St Andrew’s Church Assembly area is on the road frontage at the front of the church.

St Paul’s Church Assembly area is on the road frontage at the front of the church.

First aid kits and accident reporting sheets are located:

  1. Reid Anderson – In the cupboard over the small hand basin in the Kitchen.
  2. Nora Brown – on the shelf above the microwave. Record sheets are next to the microwave.
  3. Parish office – 2nd to top shelf on left side in the back room. The office is locked when unattended.

Forms are to be completed as soon as the accident has been dealt with.

Treatment including resources that are used are to be recorded on the Sheet.

Prayer of St Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light, and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

To be understood, as to understand;

To be loved, as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

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