two items

Yes, you're right, there hasn't been a great deal appearing on this blog over the last week or so. However, I have all sorts of reasons/excuses for that, none of which I'm going to present...

Anyway, here are a couple of things worth noting that you may not have caught up with elsewhere.

Scottish Seeds in Antipodean Soil: the development of Presbyterian Worship in Aoteaora New Zealand, by Graham Redding (the most recent past-Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Aotearoa NZ). I read an earlier version of this recently...

Graham's paper sets our early colonial worship patterns in the context of the Reformation and Church of Scotland history and then explores worship trends in NZ Presbyterianism to the modern era. This work in progress is the first attempt by any within the Presbyterian Church to explore and map the contours of this fascinating topic at such depth.
Why, he asks, have Presbyterians in this country never had a service book like the Anglicans? Is there anything distinctive about worship in a Presbyterian church? Does it have any underlying convictions? In what ways has it evolved over the years? What are its major antecedents? What have been its main liturgical and theological influences? Which personalities have played a key role in its development?

The current Presbyterian Moderator, Peter Cheyne, notes that there is a wortwhile series on discipleship from George Barna available here in New Zealand. It's called Growing True Disciples of Jesus, and the details of price and where to get it are available on Peter's blog.

Some updates on ChCh

Via a tweet leading to a website where there was a post about another blog, one written by the current Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, I found out a bit more about what's happening on the Prezzie front in Christchurch. Peter Cheyne has written quite a lengthy post about his visit to Christchurch to see at first hand what the churches are experiencing.

On the Anglican front, I was sent a lengthy email a few days (which will probably already be slightly out of date). This lists what's happening in a number of parishes around the city. I'm not in the position to post this here - and I don't know that it's been posted in this particular format elsewhere either - but if anyone wants a copy by email, I can forward it to you. Just ask in the comments section of this blog. The official Anglican site is here and there's a good deal of information about where the Christchurch Anglican community is at on that site.

The Catholics of Christchurch also have a good deal of information on their site, including the dire state of the Cathedral - a building I know better than the famous Anglican one (which I think I've only ever been in the porch of). A few years ago when my wife and I were in Christchurch, we spent a bit of time in the Catholic building, and it was distressing to see photos of the present state of it after the recent earthquake.

There isn't a central Baptist website for Christchurch - Baptists being rather more independent church-wise, they've each got their own sites.

Official closing

Today, the National Mission Office officially closes. John Daniel and I stay on for a period, tidying up lose ends, but in an official sense we're 'not here.' (It's debatable, according to some lights, whether we ever were, but that's another story.)

So for the time being there will continue to be blog posts. The Service of Recognition was held last night for the Team - you could take the word 'recognition' in a number of ways, I suspect: recognition for the work done, recognition that we actually existed and did do some work (in John's case, a heap of work); recognition that the National Mission team will be greatly missed; recognition, belatedly, that perhaps it shouldn't even be departing the scene - but that's a done deal.

More than one person, in presenting their tribute, gave the impression that my main work has been to blog. That's not quite the case, although I believe that the blog has been one important aspect of the last three years in the life of the NMO. I've done quite a few other things while I've been here, from admin work to running errands to making coffees to cleaning up to writing up information I've researched (mainly for John, but also for other people) to doing a heap of reading online (the distillation of much of which has appeared on here or in the ezine).

Peter Cheyne, (the current Moderator for the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ) who was leading the Service last night, invited me up to speak, along with John and Heather. When I demurred, not being a person confident to speak on such occasions, he said, with a grin, Well, I guess we'll hear about it on the blog tomorrow.

Which means that there are people who read it. And one good thing about Facebook is that the blog posts published here also get published there....and get a wider readership. Considering that most of what has been presented here has been the wisdom of other people rather than mine, that's only as it should be.