A Covid-19 liturgy for young people. Lesley Mouat, Chaplain at St Matthew's, Masterton, prepared DIY chapel services for students at home during the lockdown, and sent them out through their school app. Be sure to watch the video! Put yourself into a space where you can be still and quiet for 5 to 10 minutes. If your parents will allow – light a candle (please remember to put it out carefully before you leave your chapel service) and settle into silence for a moment. A Pilgrim Song 131 God, I’m not trying to rule the roost, I don’t want to be king ...
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Akanesi Folau writes from Tonga of her family experience during the Covid-19 lockdown. On one afternoon, during the lock-down we were sitting down as a family for our family prayer and my eldest son was leading us into a bible verse, then we shared how it touches our lives and what message it gives us. Then there was an argument between us parents. My son intervened and spoke softly to make both sides happy in a Godly way, saying we are both right. Covid-19 taught us parents that having to listen and give space to our children for they are ...
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‘Perhaps we bless each other all the time, without even realizing it. When we show compassion or kindness to one another, we are setting blessing in train. There is a way in which an act of kindness done becomes an independent luminous thing, a kind of jewel box of light that might conceal itself for days or years until one day, when you are in desperate straits, you notice something at the floor at your feet. You reach for it and discover exactly the courage and vision for which you desperately hunger’. John O’Donoghue has written a whole book of ...
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Patricia Allan analyses the years of debate about the future of the earthquake damaged Christchurch Cathedral in terms of Social Drama Rebuild or pull it down- why was the future of Christchurch Cathedral such a controversial issue? Was it a contest of power between ‘the old boys’ network’ of Christchurch and the Anglican Church? Was it because the Bishop was a Canadian woman? Were misogyny and xenophobia the underlying themes? Was it about the identity of Christchurch being closely tied to the Cathedral as ‘icon of the city’? Was this a contest of power- economic, political, cultural and ecclesiastical power? ...
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When you hear the words “Education for Ministry”, do you react by thinking to yourself -- “Ministry, what ministry? I'm not planning on becoming a minister, or priest, or preacher!” But all of us are called to ministry - for in the most basic sense, ministry means to reveal the love of God in how we live each day. Ministry can take place anywhere - at your workplace, in your home among whanau and friends, in your community, in the wider world. It combines scholarly and systematic Bible study and education in theology and church history, with small group worship, ...
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This easy-to-use book has strong feminist imagery and references focused on wom-en of the Bible. Updated and expanded, it now provides reflections on Tamar, Di-nah, Naomi, Michal, Vashti, Jephthah’s Daughter, Lenna Button, Susanna Wesley and Ann Turner to use in church during the sermon slot. Includes prayers & dialogues. Buy it here Rosalie Reynolds Sugrue is a fifth generation West Coaster. A wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother and author, Rosalie is a retired teacher, and has also worked as a psychiatric nurse and motellier. She has been active in Jaycees, the Methodist Women’s Fellowship, the Community of Women and Men ...
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Retirement in 2005 from leading a busy city parish was approaching, just as grandchildren kept appearing. ‘I could write a book for grandparents’, I thought ‘something about the ritu-als that give children a sense of identity and belonging’. So that was the plan. Three months after my church farewell, my husband was diagnosed with melanoma. He died a year later. The book idea persisted, even as I reinvented my life. On a U3A trip I met an older man just completing his BA Hons. degree and immediately thought ‘That’s what I want to do’. Next morning an 80yr old man ...
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A message to Anglicans around the world from the global leadership of the Anglican Communion As governments around the world react and respond to the Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic, many people are finding them-selves facing unprecedented restrictions on their day-to-day lives. Many of us will have lived with such restrictions on a temporary basis in our particular country or region over recent years in response to instability, wars, and natural disasters. But for many, such restrictions are new. In any event, the global nature of the restrictions put them on an entirely different scale not seen since the Second World War. ...
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