Kia wehe ki te atua
te timatanga
a te matauranga
Mau nga rongo ki te whenua
Arohanui ki te tangata
Nga whanau o te Karaiti
Whakatau mai
Whakatau mai
Whakatau mai
Whakatau mai i raro i te aroha o te atua
Whakatau mai i raro i te marumaru o tenei whare
Whakatau mai I roto e te aroha o te tangata
Whakatau mai
Whakatau mai
Whakatau mai
te timatanga
a te matauranga
Mau nga rongo ki te whenua
Arohanui ki te tangata
Nga whanau o te Karaiti
Whakatau mai
Whakatau mai
Whakatau mai
Whakatau mai i raro i te aroha o te atua
Whakatau mai i raro i te marumaru o tenei whare
Whakatau mai I roto e te aroha o te tangata
Whakatau mai
Whakatau mai
Whakatau mai
The Year Past
Over the
past year there is one social and personal malady to which I have never been
prone: boredom. It has been a full and rich year, and one in which I have been
often aware of the movement of the Holy Spirit in my own life and in the life
of our Diocese. We have been witness to all that makes us human, sharing
together may joys and sorrows. During this past year several key members of our
diocese, past and present, have died. These include:
Canon Alan
Blackburn who was ordained in 1938 and served as a priest in this diocese until
1975. At his death at 95 years of age he was New Zealand's longest surviving
priest, having been ordained for 71 years;
Mrs Nancy
Olssen of the Peninsula parish;
The Ven.
Alexander Duffy who served various parishes in our diocese between 1955 and
1971;
The Rev'd.
Helene Mann, ordained in 1986 and serving with her indomitable, gregarious and
passionate spirit right up til the time of her death;
The Rev'd.
Ray Wallace, who served with us from 1952- 1958;
The Rev'd.
Harold Clark, vicar of Green Island 1977-1985;
Mr. John
Leask, husband of the Rev'd. Airdrey Leask and an integral and much loved member
of the Stewart Island parish;
Mr. Brian
Thornton, husband of the Rev'd. Ann Thornton,
Rev'd.
Elizabeth Swinney, a team priest in Winton from her ordination in 1995 and a
much loved and respected kuia in Southland;
Mr. Stan
Amsden, diocesan manager from 1984-1997, and a cathedral tour guide for the
past 10 years;
Mr. Tom
Dobson, a much loved parishioner of Green Island and frequent visitor to the
diocesan office.
During this
past year I have been grateful for the able, committed and faithful ministries
of those who work with me in Peter Mann house. I would not be able to do my job
without the support of my Personal Assistant Debbie Flintoff. Debbie's ability
to solve problems and take initiatives and her very impressive interpersonal
skills make for a very harmonious and mutually respectful working relationship
for which I am daily grateful. On a weekly basis I am told how much people
appreciate Mrs. Dominique Aitcheson. Her efficiency and appetite for hard work
see a prodigious amount accomplished every day, and she too is endowed with a
greater than usual level of good interpersonal skills. During this year our
accountant Mr David Woods retired, and while I was sorry to lose his skills and
his long experience of the particularities of running a diocese, I wish him
well in his retirement. After a lengthy period of contracting out the diocesan
accounts, Mrs. Ginny Kitchingman was recently employed as diocesan accountant
and in the short time she has been with us, she is already making her mark with
her skill and the pleasant manner in which she interacts with other staff and
with parishes.
Co-operating
with me in ministry I am proud to work with my Chaplain, the Rev’d. John
Franklin. John’s work is not often seen by the diocese at large, as it consists
often in personal encounters on a one to one basis, and in running events
attended by small groups of people. But in his counselling and spiritual
direction and in his promotion of spirituality throughout the diocese his work
is very much an extension of my own, and I am grateful for it. The Rev’d Alec
Clark and Mr. Benjamin Brock Smith have been innovative and conscientious in
their promotion of Christian miistry through the diocese and further afield. We
are fortunate to have with us people of such intelligence and skill. I have
particularly appreciated Alec’s boundary workshops over the past year and
Benjamin’s pioneering of a new mentoring programme on a national basis.
I am
grateful for the wisdom and support of the Rev’d Helen Wilderspin who works with
me in her capacity of Vicar General. Helen’s eye for detail and skills in
organisation are a great benefit to me and to our diocese. She manages the
duties of her role and the demands of an extensive parish with a great deal of
energy and skill.
A few weeks
ago I accepted with much regret the resignation of our Diocesan manager, Mrs.
Bronwyn Miller. Few people realise the enormity of the task Bronwyn has had to
manage. As the incomes of parishes has declined, so has the amount given to the
Diocese, and thus the amount available for the manager to do what is asked of
her. During Bronwyn's tenure, our office staff has been reduced dramatically,
but the demands on the office remain constant. During this time of increased
pressure, there has been the added burden of the insurance crisis faced late
last year, and managed with great aplomb by Bronwyn. I will miss her
forthright, no nonsense approach to problems and the personal friendship she
has offered me. Between now and the time Bronwyn departs in March 2013, a small
committee headed by Vin Maffey will meet to consider a replacement. This is an
opportunity to reassess the tasks of the office and to redesign our entire
administrative structure, and we will not waste it.
The Way Ahead
It would be
tempting to stand here this evening and rehearse before you once again the
shared problems with which we are all now so familiar. But I won't. We have
talked about it already in other contexts and we are all familiar with all that
faces us. We understand the complex social issues which have led to wholesale
social changes in our rural areas. We have a grasp of the deep spiritual
currents which have weakened the place of the Christian Gospel in the hearts
and minds of many in the Western Hemisphere. We know about the global downturn
and the costs to us all of the Christchurch earthquakes. We know what has
caused the shake up in our diocesan life; what we don't know is quite what to
do about it.
My own
response has been to try and listen. Two months ago I acquired a caravan, and
in the time since have spent 11 nights camping in it beside churches in our
diocese. The difference I have experienced between having a home base in a
parish, no matter how temporary, and being a guest in someone's home has been
huge. It is not just that I have a temporary office, a private retreat and a
place to see people. There is a deep unconscious reaction in people to my
having an abode amongst them. I have spent brief times, in other words, living
in the towns of Southland and Otago, talking to our people, walking their
streets, shopping in their supermarkets and getting a feel for what it is like
to be there. Most importantly, I have prayed in their churches. In 10, so far,
of the 70 churches of our diocese I have risen before dawn to sit in the
sanctuary and be still for a period before God. I intend to have prayed in the
other 60 before we meet again in 2013. I do this so that I might "hear
what the Spirit is saying to the Church" because I think that the way
ahead for us is going to be found in that quiet place.
I am not
alone in praying for our diocese at this time. I know I am one of a great cloud
of witnesses which includes all of you here. Just two weeks ago we met across
the diocese to seek God in a weekend of prayer. I was deeply moved at the
enthusiasm and imagination with which people approached the task of
intercession, and in the time since have been reading the insights garnered
from every part of the diocese. Some of them are warmly encouraging. Some are
deeply challenging. All of them help focus the light of Christ on our present
situation.
There are
two tasks we need to address as a diocese, and over the next couple of days, as
a synod. Or rather, there are two aspects of the task of reforming the diocese:
we need to reshape the diocese outwardly, as far as its structures and
procedures are concerned, and we need to renew our inner, spiritual life; the
life we share as the body of Christ. Most of the energy we have spent on these
tasks over the past few months has been directed at the first of these, and
while this is necessary, many have commented to me on the crucial importance,
and indeed the priority of the second. The relationship of the two aspects of
our common life together is intricate.
While it is true that an
authentic relationship with God through Jesus Christ is our very reason for
being, unless we are able to give shape to that relationship we will not be
able to either live it or make it accessible to others.
In John 15
Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine to describe the life of the church. As any
viticulturalist will tell you, to reach it's full potential a vine must have a
frame of some sort to grow on. The changes I have proposed to the way we order
our ministry units and clergy may be thought of as the frame. It is important
to get the frame right, but we do so only as a preliminary step towards another
task, that of growing, nurturing, shaping and harvesting the vine. The danger
we share with many other churches is that we become overly concerned with the
framework, minimizing or even forgetting altogether the purpose for which it
exists. This is because the task of structural reform, while complex, is quite
easy. Vine growing, that is, nurturing the inner life of the Spirit, is simple
yet hard. We will have accomplished nothing if we merely revise our diocesan
structures without seeking God for renewal of our inner life with at least as
much rigour and energy and time as we put into the preservation of our
buildings and systems.
Lately I
have been thinking a lot about another metaphor of the relationship of our
structures and our inner life. In 2009 Clemency and I visited Assisi. Amongst
the places I had long wanted to visit was Rivotorto, the site of the first
Franciscan Friary. After some difficulties in finding a permanent residence for
himself, his brothers and the women who were beginning to answer his call to
radical discipleship, Francis gave
Claire the church of San Damiano's as a home and moved the men a few km down
the road to Rivotorto. There he built a rough shelter to act as a refectory and
chapel while the brothers build hovels around it as sleeping quarters. The shelter is still there, as we found after
a pleasant walk of an hour or so across the plain from Assisi. It is small and
has all the architectural charm and inviting comfort of a bus shelter or a
beach changing shed. Made of river stones with a clay tile roof, it is just as
Francis and his brothers left it more than 800 years ago, bearing witness to
the austerity and purity of their life together.
Around it
has been structured a vast church, bearing witness to quite a different ecclesiology.
The huge 19th Century mock gothic Basilica of St. Mary surrounds and
towers over the friary. There is a large high altar and side chapels and statues
and frescoes and paintings and an enormous gilded statue of the Blessed Virgin
staring beatifically down from the roof.
It is all
quite beautiful and uplifting. But inside, a great double row of pillars frames
a wide nave, with astonishingly, one of the pillars going smack through the
roof of Francis' little shelter.
I don't need
to spell out the significance of this unconsciously ordered icon. But I invite
you to think together of our church and of your own inner life. For you
personally, and for the diocese:
What is the
little old shelter?
What is the
basilica built around it?
In what ways
does the basilica protect the shelter and enlarge its life?
What is the
pillar going through the roof?
Conclusion.
There is no
escaping the difficult task of reordering our diocesan structures. If we are
going to be what we claim to be there is no escaping the deeper and more
difficult task of hearing again and being transformed at depth by that call
which first drew us to Christ
No reira
tena koutou
tena koutou
kia ora hui hui mai
tatou katoa
tena koutou
tena koutou
kia ora hui hui mai
tatou katoa
Comments