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.

Jordan Redding

Sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, on those occasions when it probably should!

On Saturday the 30th August at the Roslyn Presbyterian Church, there was a concert to celebrate the relaese of Malcolm Gordon's new album, “One Voice” and the comeback of Mephymology. Malcolm's song “Te Whiti” can currently be heard on Radio Rhema and Life FM.

The concert also featured the premiere of the music video for “Child Song”, which was written by the young Dunedin man, Jordan Redding. It's been adopted as the theme song for Global Mission. (That's the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand's office called Global Mission. It's situated in Auckland.)

Interestingly enough, Jordan attended Kavanagh College, the Catholic co-ed school in Dunedin, until last year. The reason I heard about him is that he was one of 2008 Otago Daily Times Class Act finalists. This initiative identifies and celebrates the excellence of young people in the province of Otago.