Greetings everyone,
We rejoice with Féy and Murray Cotter who received news this past week that they have been embraced by CMS as full mission partners, paving the way for their return to Albania early next year. Although they both felt a very strong call from God to go back to Albania and know this is where He wants them, they are really struggling with the thought of leaving their family and the Diocese. Please keep them both in your prayers over these next months of preparation and planning.
The memo I sent to everybody last week advising of John Kingsbury’s resignation from Holy Trinity Richmond would have come as a real shock to many of you, as it did to me. After meeting with the Vestry at Richmond last Sunday afternoon they have made the decision not to rush into another appointment but to take a time in interregnum to get the parish back onto an even keel. They won’t be looking at making an appointment until sometime early next year. Please uphold the parish also in prayer – as you continue in your prayers for John and Sharon.
It does highlight once again the critical importance of the very best of supervision for all clergy; it’s not enough to have someone nice and safe to talk to. We need to be meeting regularly with someone who draws out of us what is really happening for us and this implies honesty on our behalf. I will ask your forgiveness in advance for the fact that I am going to be like a ‘dog with a bone’ and insist on this level of, and commitment to, supervision.
You will all be receiving Synod papers within the next few days (if you haven’t got them already) and I do look forward to us all being together again – this year back here in Nelson. There won’t be any great surprises in my charge to Synod – the strategic plan is in place and remains the defining focus for our next few years. But there is a sense in which we constantly need to have that vision recast in different ways because we lose it in the ‘busyness’ of the routine – ‘vision leaks’! I appreciate all the work that Victory Church is doing as they prepare to host us.
Hilary and I head back to Fiji this weekend – my last act as commissary of Polynesia – to take part in the installation of Bishop Winston Halapua as the new Diocesan Bishop of Polynesia and one of the three Archbishops of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. Bishop Winston asked me if I would write a new song of praise for his installation which has been a privilege and a challenge (just in finding the spare time to do this). This song is going to be the final hymn/song in the service.
I was very grateful to see so many at the conference with Graham Cray in Christchurch and hope that the whole concept of being missional and thinking missionally is starting to take root. I like the Archbishop of Canterbury’s whole concept of a ‘mixed economy’ church – both working hard to be an ‘attractional’ church as well as planting ‘fresh expressions’ of church. This is reflected in our strategic plan.
I was taken completely by surprise at the gift given to me at the conference, on behalf of so many of you, to enable me to purchase new hearing aids. I have been struggling with this issue for some time with the Government withdrawing funding for hearing aids. I have just been in today and had the hearing tests and should have the aids by Synod. My deepest thanks for the overwhelming gift.
There are a heap of things happening in the second-half of the year (such as our inaugural School of Theology) which will be advertised elsewhere in this ad Clerum – please note them in your diaries.
I’ve been thinking a great deal this week about the whole theme of ‘Joy’ in the writings of Paul – joy as a mark of authentic Christianity. Therefore in recognition of Maori Language week: ‘Na ma to Atua, nana nei te tumanako, e whakaki koutou ki te hari katoa, kit e rangimarie, I runga I te whakapono, kia hua ai to koutou tumanako, I runga I te kaha o te Wairua Tapu.’ (Romans 15:13)
With much love and prayer
+Richard