Keep on trying to love

I was checking for something among earlier editions of this newsletter and next minute got that terrible sinking feeling. On so many occasions there had been news about our new facility in Kerikeri. Big announcements even. Talk about embarrassment!

But that is not stopping us from presenting in this newsletter, with more pictures than ever before, the plans we now have. It is a facility for church and community. It has changed somewhat – 150 square metres less for one thing – but it is still going to work as a centre for the community with spiritual heart.

Being embarrassed or feeling foolish for taking so long doesn't come into it. It can't be of concern when it's God's work we're working on. God, or however you understand the heart-beat of life, is notorious for being unpredictable and beyond our management. The purpose at hand matters more than our feelings, our commitment to the task of serving the community is much more important than our pride.

Here's something I read at the recent meeting when we had our latest round of discussion on the subject of building. It's called “Trying to love”:

I find that it is better to love badly and faultily than not to try to love at all. God does not have to have perfect instruments, and the Holy One can use our feeble and faltering attempts at love and transform them. My task is to keep on trying to love, to be faithful in my continuing attempt, not necessarily to be successful.¹

Keeping our eye on the bigger picture is my antidote to getting disheartened or succumbing to cynicism. Our task is to keep on trying to love – our community, one another, the world around us in which we're so fortunate to live – and when the time is right our efforts to be faithful will bear fruit. In this and in everything else we're involved in.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn

1Morton Kelsey, Companions of the Inner Way

Let one who is without sin...

Let one who is without sin cast the first stone.

This line from John 8:7 is a favourite with so many people I've known. I remember seeing it acted out in chapel when I was training. My classmate Tau (whom I saw in Rarotonga last year – he was visiting his home area, we were on holiday) had the role of the woman “taken in adultery” who was about to be stoned. Jesus came back with these words and they stopped the accusers in their tracks.

When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders...

This I realised is one reason I really enjoy being in churches with older people in them. Youth is great for new ideas and a fresh approach – and we have that. But real progress comes when this sits alongside age, when age has developed wisdom. The judgemental mind-set has been rubbed hard at the edges and what is right and good is no less important, but it's not important before all else.

It was the older ones in the encounter with Jesus who led the way to what seemed a new approach, although it had been around since the dawn of memory. That is, acting with mercy and with grace.

The judgemental mind-set does harm to those who pass judgement as well as those they accuse. Life/the Spirit of life teaches us to temper our principles and certainty to embrace, to awhi, those who need love more than anything else. The event back during our training caused outrage among some – that a man would play this woman, and a man who would be a minister. We were all relatively young and enthusiasts, so I do hope age has brought change!

We have the younger ones among us to pull us into the future with their boldly argued schemes and their strong convictions. The older ones among us keep us on track with being human in the best possible sense of the word – knowing our humanity and ready to forgive others (including ourselves).

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn

To tweet or not to tweet

Greetings for the New Year. Me te Atua e manaaki e tiaki koutou katoa i tēnei tau o 2014.

Recently at the Sunday service I quoted from a blog that talked about a tweet sent out by Pope Francis. This raised a bit of interest (myself included, as I don't “tweet”) so I did a bit of research. One assumption was that twitter (the name of the application with which one tweets) is a young people thing. Apparently not, or not just young people.

The Pope is one example, Barack Obama another. In fact President Obama is in the top 10 of “follower” numbers, that is people who choose to receive a person's tweets. All the others in the top 10, however, are people who are just famous for being famous. The bulk of twitter seems to be all rather vacuous and a symptom of our dominant culture of celebrity. However, in its midst, Pope Francis is followed apparently by 11 million people over 9 different language accounts. One of His Holiness' tweets says: “Holiness doesn’t mean doing extraordinary things, but doing ordinary things with love and faith.” In a way his twitter followers are like the crowds who gather in St Peter's Square: they want to hear words of faith and wisdom from someone they respect.

Some years back people used to gather in Cathedral Square in Christchurch to listen to the Wizard. Many years back, John Wesley stood in the midst of town centres to preach the gospel.

Twitter is defined as “a short burst of inconsequential information” and “chirps from birds”, which is exactly how its creators saw their product. But some twitter users are proving it has potential to share messages of value, snappy enough to hold in people's minds. (A tweet is limited to 140 characters.)

So when you tweet, you send forth to any who want to listen your gem of wisdom (or otherwise). I read that 40% is pointless babble, 6% self-promotion, yet what researchers call “conversational” and “pass-along value” together makes up 47%.

Facebook is more my kind of thing. If a tweet is like a soap box, Facebook is like a get together of family and friends. Potentially all of them in the one place at the one time. I don't usually share news about myself on Facebook – I mainly post photos when we go to interesting places. But when my appointment to the parish was renewed, that news I did share which saved a lot of phone calls. Facebook has been great for keeping in touch with people who are good friends but live in other parts of the country. Also I've reconnected with a lot of cousins and it's an easy means for sharing family information.

The key to Facebook, as I see it, is that I choose privacy settings that limit everything on my page to “Friends Only”.

(The Parish Facebook page is different – it's a public page, but publicity is what it is for, sharing news and making ourselves more visible on the electronic platform of the wider community.)

On Facebook we have a conversation as friends; we share interesting things we come across; and we fill in part the gap between the times we meet face to face. I've made the call that every Friend request I accept has to be of someone I have met in person.

Familiar to most readers of this newsletter will be email – which in many ways is an electronic version of letters in the mail – and skype – like telephoning, but with video and, once you have the computer and internet connection, no extra cost to anywhere in the world. Texting is also something of a commonplace, across a range of ages. Maybe it's a bit like morse code – sometimes it feels like you have to learn text code to make sense of it – but it really has taken quick and non-intrusive communication to a new level. Although in making that last point, it does depend on the receiver whether it in fact intrudes into the social interaction they are having when it arrives. When you send a text you are not requiring the person to answer it on the spot. But the sight of people sitting with others in a café and looking at their mobile phones is rather disturbing. What's the point of them being together?

The key to it is that the technology has a purpose. It is not itself the purpose. And that purpose is to communicate. Be it sharing news or views, keeping close as family across the distances, retaining contact and nurturing friendship, the point is people.

What is important is what helps feed relationships: what helps us be people in good relationships with others, with the world we live in, with God, whatever that might mean to each of us.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn

Awhi atu awhi mai

Being church and being caring people – those two surely go together.

A common reason for being part of church is the caring for one another and for others. We all have something going on that means we value a little bit, or a big bit, of TLC. Lately it's seemed even more in focus, with the effects of age and various illnesses affecting quite a number in our parish family.

How does one care well for one another? What makes for good pastoral care, that is the question.

And it's a very important question. Because we don't want the environment that goes with the old adage about “do-gooders”: you can spot a “do-gooder” by the hunted look on those he or she is doing good for!

“Pastoral care” is the church's own special term. It's genuinely “pastoral” being connected in meaning with the essence of being a good shepherd, which some of us know in literal terms and all of us can imagine. Psalm 23 gives a good run-down: providing for, pointing in the right direction, sheltering, supporting, helping celebrate the positives, just being there.

A shepherd tends the flock, attends to their needs, which in turn is done by paying attention.

That is surely the key to caring well for others and not being more of a nuisance than a support.

Back with the shepherd: perhaps you can produce a so-so flock of sheep by following a set routine of food provision and disease protection. Okay maybe, but probably not if there's a really bad drought and you're not noticing that the grass is running out before the set time. The good farmer is attentive to what's actually happening adjusting provision and care accordingly. A no brainer as they say.

Likewise caring for a friend who is unwell. We need to be attentive to what is happening and therefore sensitive to what will really be caring for our friend. Each person is different and the more we know a person, the more we get to sense what they will appreciate. And we can ask. Simply ask: what would be helpful, what could we do to show that we care.

This is definitely a two-way thing: caring is not something I do to another person, but is the particular character of the relationship between us when we are giving support one to the other. A two-way thing means it works best when we communicate, when we are enabled to say honestly what helps and what doesn't.

When we're really sick, we are allowed to ask not to be disturbed. Many, many times I've shared a particular thought with someone whose illness is terminal and they've settled in at home where family can care for them and friends can visit. You don't have to be the gracious host – to stay alert or keep a conversation going when you don't want to. You are allowed to close your eyes, which can be a gentle hint that it is time for the visit to end. There are some rules of thumb I use for visiting like this, in particular keeping it short. The main thing is to ask, to sound the person out on what is best for them, let them be open about it, and thereby let them stay in control of something when a lot else isn't in their control any more.

I think it's similar when recovering from illness. You don't have to be the gracious host, meaning you don't have to answer the door, or the telephone, if what you need right at that moment is to rest. All friends ask of you is that you give good hints of what helps – what helps you know you're not alone in your feeling miserable

Two sides to the relationship called caring. Awhi atu awhi mai.

Shalom, Robyn

Looking to the future together

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa o te parihi o Kaeo-Kerikeri Union, o ngā hāpori o Whangaroa me Kerikeri hoki.

The prospect of continuing on as your minister has got me pondering seriously, as well as revelling in the delight of being able to stay. It's good not to have to start again. But I know there need to be new starts here, and important changes for us to make to ensure we are a sustainable mission venture. I will definitely not be cruising to retirement!

When we left Methven nearly ten years ago, I didn't want to leave, but parishes have often felt it best to have a change of minister. Some in the parish would be ready for change even if others would rather not.

Five years ago at the first extension of my appointment I imagined getting to this point in time and knowing it would be best to move on. Even though we wouldn't want to leave and many strong relationships in parish and community would have been built up, it would be right to go. It would save the debate and the awkwardness, the mixed feelings with some wanting me to stay and some ready for a change. And, if the wider community really wanted me to stay, my choosing to go could save the “bad look” of the parish saying “no”.

Of course, five years ago I imagined that the new facility in Kerikeri would be completed and bedded in as a great community venue and home for our services.

Because that hadn't happened, the circumstances required a rethink. Hence my first expressing some time back in the privacy of church meetings a commitment to stay on for the long haul, if I was wanted. As we looked at the challenges of both the finances and the need to break new ground in the kind of facility we were building, it seemed only fair to commit to the hard work of making it work.

The decision to stay on – and for the parish to keep me on – until 2019 therefore needs to be a catalyst to re-think expectations. In some ways it needs to be as if a new minister were starting. There's benefit in the fact that we've got to know each other pretty well, and we can build on what seems to me a good level of trust and shared vision, so it's much easier than starting totally afresh.

The biggest risk is that we expect only continuation of what we are familiar with.

These extra years are our chance to find the way to turn into congregations that are viable for the long term. We are not competing with other churches who attract the numbers to belonging and believing. If that's what we were, we would be best to heed Jesus' call to unity and merge with them. We remain a separate strand in the fabric because we can offer the gospel where it's not getting to now.

Our viability depends on our point of difference as a church: connecting in a unique way to people outside the walls of traditional church.

Traditional church is a group of members who meet together, pray, sing, and socialise together, and care for one another and for others. Many reading this have long experienced church like this and find it very important in their lives.

When we see church only in this way, there is a real concern that, unless we get more to join the group, our aging church family will get smaller and smaller and eventually die away. The only known option to survival therefore seems to be to get more members of the group.

Now, I didn't say “club”, but that is one of the dangers of seeing church only in this way. It is what we have inherited from the years in the mid 20th century when church was a social success, before it became just one among many social activities of choice.

Now the world is different. Church can be caring family AND it can reclaim what it is supposed to be – disciples (followers) of Jesus working together on what he started. For the church to survive it must, before all else, stay true to its mission of being Christ for the world around it.

Be the body of Christ first and later we'll find ourselves needing to count the numbers who want to connect to the body (to make sure there is room for them).

My challenge to us is to be a warm and caring body of people whose “welcome” means two things: feel free to join in with who we are and what we do together AND make yourself at home at our place, make our place your place.

If our life together is such that we offer space for people to grow, regardless of creed or culture or anything else that usually divides us, then people will want to join in.

In the words of Sir Hemi (James) Henare of Otiria:

Tāwhiti rawa tōu haerenga ake te kore haere tonu. Nui rawa ōu mahi te kore mahi nui tonu.

We have come too far not to go further. We have done too much not to do more.

Shalom, Robyn

Standing with our Whanaunga

On Sunday 7 July Kaeo congregation relocated for the day to the Te Ngaere Marae of Ngāitūpango. The Waitangi Tribunal was due to arrive in the afternoon to spend the week hearing evidence from Whangaroa Hapū. Te Ngaere is an important place in Whangaroa history, as for all of Ngā Puhi. It is remembered as the place of the first Whakaminenga (assembly) of the rangatira of the north, who gathered in response to the European newcomers so that they could strategise about how best to relate to them and get mutual benefit. Their deliberations were the basis for a number of communications, including meetings, with the Crown, as they sought to work directly as local sovereigns with the newcomers' sovereign in England.

In the morning, prior to the tribunal's arrival, all the supporting people of Ngā Puhi – Ngā Puhi Nui Tonu – were welcomed by the home people of Ngāitūpango. Our church congregation chose to be there because the Whangaroa hapū are our own people. We stand with them as their relations.

As I sat in the morning powhiri listening to the speeches of a number of people I now think of as friends, I was thinking of words I might have used to convey the greetings and love that we of Wesleydale Church brought, just by being there. The spirit of whanaungatanga, of being one people before the Creator (however we name the source of all that is) – that's what I carried in my mind and heart throughout that day and each time I was able to sit and listen at the Tribunal Hearing.

My thoughts began with the creator, which is where Māori whaikorero regularly begins.

He hōnore, he korōria ki te Atua, he maungorongo ki te whenua, he whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata katoa.

Ko te mihi tuatahi ki te Atua Kaha Rawa, ki a Io, Io Matua Kore. Ko ia te Kaihanga o te ao me te pō, te Matua i mua i tōna mata he iwi kotahi tātou.

The purpose of the Tribunal hearing goes deep for our Whangaroa people – he kaupapa nui tēnei. Nō reira – therefore, our presence was one small way of acknowledging that, and of expressing our wish to be alongside as they took courage to speak of past and future, of pain and aspiration. Rural ministry has shown me that the only way to deal with hurt and loss is to face it, to bear to sit with it, and together work for a new season to come. It's also taught me the power and empowerment of solidarity.

I tae mai rā mātou mō te kaupapa hōhonu nei ki te tū kei taha i ō mātou whanaunga, ngā hapū o Whangaroa. E ngā whanaunga, e hoa, e hiahia ana mātou ki te awhi, ki te tautoko i tērā rā powhiri, i ngā rā e rima o te wiki Taraipiūnara, i ngā wā hoki e whai ake nei.

He wā ki te kōrero nei. He wā ki te whakarongo. Nō reira, tō mātou mahi ki te whakarongo. Ōku whakaaro, tōku titiro, e hia kē nei ngā hua nō tēnei kaupapa whakarongo, mō te oranga hei te iwi, mō te oranga hei te motu, te iwi me te tauiwi ngā tahi.

Na, anō te pai, anō te ahuareka o te nohoanga o ngā teina o ngā tuakana i runga i te whakaaro kotahi. (Psalm 133:1)

Through listening and continuing to listen to our Whangaroa relations, I've gained a glimpse of a future I hadn't dreamed of until now: well-being and livelihood on the land for people who belong there, who want to live on and with the land. And finding a way to this without adding injustice to what has already been an overdose of injustice.

If you are wondering how, take a listen to people of Whangaroa hapū. “Hearing people to speech” is something we can all do for those around us, just as we need to do for those dear to us. It's what relationship is about.

And if you are wondering why this “Rambling” has parts that not everyone will understand (some of you will say that is always the case when Robyn gets going!), the fact is that this newsletter goes out for all who are interested in our parish and community, and a number of them are first language Māori speakers. By only writing in English we perpetuate the situation in which part of our community is kept invisible. Its voice (reo) is kept silent.

Big apologies though to those for whom the reo is your reo: apologies for my faltering attempts to communicate with you. I think I understand when kaumatua friends apologise for their English, knowing that things that matter are spoken most clearly in the first language. Yet they persist, because it's important to do what we can to communicate one to another. I want to give that a go too.

Shalom, Robyn

Forgiveness means that I continually am willing to forgive the other person for not being God--for not fulfilling all my needs. I, too, must ask forgiveness for not being able to fulfill other people's needs.... When you forgive people for not being God, then you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God.                                                                                                    Henri Nouwen

Space for Change to Take Place

This is a bit of a re-ramble, as it's time to focus our vision again for the new facility in Kerikeri.

As our church website puts it:

Our decision to build is based on the belief that this can be a facility for the whole community.  The Kerikeri Union church congregation will, through regular worship and activities, provide heart and warmth for the building, but the vision is that it be the community's building.

When it came to decision time, when we saw the figures and how much had changed since we began five years ago, I know many felt it a daunting prospect: to spend all that money; to do something that cannot just be a reproduction of what we had before... For to be viable financially and in terms of being an effective mission operation in the local community, the new facility has to be utilised every day of the week. As the website says:

Our site at 144 Kerikeri Road beside the Heritage Bypass offers an exciting opportunity to build a church and community facility that will be both a hive of human activity and an oasis for reflection and spiritual uplift.

Can we do it? I believe we can, but I know we'll keep asking this question, because it is no automatic process “build the building and it will just happen”.

Peter MacKenzie, Executive Officer for our union parishes umbrella group, visited early this year and heard about our plans. He said that if it is to be a facility truly for the community, the community needs to share in its development. User groups and other community groups were consulted at the beginning of the project to assist with the brief for the design. Past user-groups are first on the contact list for joining us in the new building. But we can't just build and expect all to come. We need to convey a sense that it is their building not just ours.

We talked about this at a workshop in June last year where the quotation from Henri Nouwen alongside captured our attention. It is so easy to slip back into old habits, thinking that we are being hospitable because we say “everyone welcome”, and we do want people to come and join us (and be like us) and make our group bigger.

The vision for our facility doesn't preclude people coming and joining our church congregation or becoming part of the work we are doing as a church in our community. But that's not so much the focus as the likely flow-on effect. Like collateral benefit from us being people who are open and accepting and, before all else, offering a space for growth in personal and communal well-being.

“Building the kingdom” means, for us, providing the space in which kingdom values – lives shaped by the Master Jesus – will flourish.

“Go make disciples” means doing our bit to help God's spirit grow in people's hearts and minds. It's like we tend and care for the soil – a living, life-giving space – in which seeds can sprout and thrive.

I think of the new facility as community space where those who use it feel at home: space where people can be themselves, where things are happening, whether church-based or in other groups, that help people grow and develop in body, mind, and spirit.

It means a place which is common ground for all present, where the common good is at centre stage.

That is, not a church building that we let the community use, but a community building for which we act as kaitiaki. The church congregation will take responsibility to ensure the facility has a safe and welcoming spirit, as well as to maintain its physical environment and manage its shared use.

One other thing struck me as we made our formal decision on plans and the money. Our temporary accommodation has proved to be ideal to our current needs and for many who live in the vicinity it is very convenient. However the decision involved not just thinking about now, or the next few years. Here's how I've expressed my gratitude to the congregation for their future-directed, community-facing (and Christ-centred) decision:

Thank you especially to older members of the Kerikeri congregation, for whom the regular life of worship in the Ted Robinson Chapel is just ideal and could be seen as enough for your lifetime. The new facility is a vision that younger generations in the congregation are already very excited about. On behalf of the younger ones in your midst, thank you for being willing to be bold for the sake the future!

Shalom, Robyn

May 2013

Space for Change to Take Place

Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbour into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment.

Source: Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen