Our diocese gathers annually in a meeting of Bishop, clergy and laypeople called a synod. At the opening service I deliver a speech called the charge, which sets the tone for the synod and indeed for the year ahead.
I usually open with a mihi whakatau: the Maori greeting given to temporary visitors (whakatau - to moor a canoe. So, mihi whakatau is an invitation to haul up here for a while and join us in a place of safety and communion together)
It is customary to then mention those deceased in the year past and something of the happenings of the diocese over the past year. It has been such an astonishingly full year that I skirted over this section a little lightly.
The main part of the charge is one which, in my usual style, I extemporised but the bare bones of what I said are in the printed text here. I finished by asking people to silently consider the questions at the end with regard to their own lives and then to talk with neighbours about the relevance of the same questions to the diocese.
I usually open with a mihi whakatau: the Maori greeting given to temporary visitors (whakatau - to moor a canoe. So, mihi whakatau is an invitation to haul up here for a while and join us in a place of safety and communion together)
It is customary to then mention those deceased in the year past and something of the happenings of the diocese over the past year. It has been such an astonishingly full year that I skirted over this section a little lightly.
The main part of the charge is one which, in my usual style, I extemporised but the bare bones of what I said are in the printed text here. I finished by asking people to silently consider the questions at the end with regard to their own lives and then to talk with neighbours about the relevance of the same questions to the diocese.
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