Dearest Covenanters

This is just to remind you of the different services we have to mark Easter this year (see the flyer below). It’s important for us to take time to reflect upon and give thanks for all that God has done for us in Jesus’ death and resurrection. The different services give us opportunity to do this whatever stage we are at in our relationship with God.

Our Good Friday Three Hours at the Cross installation gives us an opportunity to focus outwards this Easter as we return to thinking about the meaning of the cross, hear the passion narrative read and pray for our  sisters and brothers around the globe who are suffering for His name’s sake.

You can stay for the whole three hours or come and go as you need between 12noon and 3pm.

Yours in Christ
David

Lenten Study Series – God in My Everything – begins 12th March, 7:30pm at St. Michael’s.

If you long for a deeper more satisfying life in God but feel the busyness of life makes a close relationship with Jesus challenging  – if not impossible – then this year’s Lenten study series is for you.

This 5 part series, God In My Everything, looks at ways we can establish a ‘rule’ which sustains us in our everyday lives together. The series is based around the book of the same name by Ken Shigematsu.

Shigematsu shows that spiritual formation is more than just solitude and contemplative reflections. Spiritual formation happens in the everyday, in each and every moment of life. For those caught up in the busyness of work, family, and church, it often feels like time with God is just another thing on an already crowded ‘to-do’ list. Shigematsu explains how busy people can enter into a closer relationship with God through a personal ‘rule of life’ that fits almost any vocation or life situation.

Shigematsu proposes three spiritual disciplines which he sees as the roots lying beneath a personal rule: Sabbath keeping (“oasis for body and soul”), prayer (“deepening your friendship with God”) and sacred reading (nourishing your soul through the Word).

This will sound familiar to Covenanters – except we have four disciplines to his three! At points, we may struggle a bit with the slightly cheesy North Americanisms (Shigematsu has very much embraced his new post-corporate-Japan life in Canada), and a tendency to overstate the obvious. Just the same there is real value in much of his teaching here.

Shigematsu then explores how these disciplines may be expressed in different areas of life which he groups under three further categories: relating (spiritual friendship, sexuality and family life), restoring (care for the body, play and money) and reaching out (work, justice, witness). Again, some parts of this are a bit up and down in their quality, but the very practical aspects of his teaching certainly speak to the concern of his book – helping frazzled, over achieving middle class people find a sustainable spirituality in an alien world often experienced as hostile to the ways of God.

 God In My Everything – Lenten Study Series
Begins 12th March, 7:30pm at St. Michael’s.

This picture just released by AP News shows the true extent of the humanitarian crisis inside Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk.

Click to enlarge this picture. Take some time to look at it…

For those of us who profess to be members of Christ’s body on earth – God’s “called out ones”, the church – there is a fundamental question we need to ask ourselves here…

Are these not people like you and I? Even if not brothers and sisters in Christ do they not bear the image of God? Can we really be too busy not to join together in prayer for them?

Some scoff at this response to such an horrific calamity – they see it as little more than self indulgent psycho-babble, a cop-out (see Saul Alinski Went To War). Yet scripture asserts (Matthew 6), we have a great weapon with which to combat evil in this world and advance the reign of God – prayer. Prayer to our Father in heaven, the one who loves us and purposes only good for us, the one who is ruler above the nations, the one to whom we must all give account. (Matthew 24)

Moreover, when Jesus taught us how to pray he told us to focus on what God is doing – God’s reign upon the earth. “Your kingdom come! Your will be done! On earth as it is in heaven”. It is through prayer, then, that we participate in God’s activity the world.

Conversely, to not pray is to not participate in God’s purposes. Yet we can also cut ourselves out of what God is doing in other ways.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul urges “pray in the Spirit on all occasions”. (Ephesians 6:18) This implies that it is possible not to pray in the Spirit but of ourselves. (Luke 18:9-14 gives an example of such prayer). Paul tells us elsewhere that true prayer is prayer in the Spirit since it is God’s activity in us not ours alone. (Romans 8: 26-27)

Like all else in the life of Jesus’ followers, prayer is a gift. We simply have to be open to receiving it. It’s that simple, that effective and that costly.

Come pray 8:30am and/ or 5:30pm on any Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday throughout Lent at St. Michael’s.

Continue reading Syria crisis – come pray →

“RA Markus points out in his classic study Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine that in Augustine’s view ‘what prevented the Christian from being at home in his world was not that he had an alternative home in the Church, but his faith in the transformation of the world through Christ’s victory over sin and death and his hope in the final sharing of this victory in his kingdom.’

The church then is not a counter-polis, but a people with a counter-hope. This makes the church radically open; the Christian’s sense of identity and difference from the world does not depend on erecting impenetrable boundaries between church and world.” 

(Peter Leithart http://www.leithart.com/2011/08/30/radical-augustine/)

Leithart’s epiphany regarding the radical openness of the church is understandable given that he stands within the reformed tradition with its strong confessional emphasis. If you believe this and this and this and that, and sign up for it… you’re in. If you don’t you’re out. Leithart is pointing to something quite new for that tradition – the church’s radical openness.

Anglicans on the other hand, even in the midst of our global debate around “inclusivity”,  Continue reading On the radical openness of the church – and why the need for a deeper level of commitment →

Issues-Facing-the-Anglican-Church-in-NZ-Today was an address given by +Brian Carrell in 2002. It remains as relevant today as then. Sadly little has changed.

+Brian’s sections on Unity and Diversity, Revelation and Naturalism are especially germane. Of particular note is his brief outline of the origins of the C19th Tractarian / Oxford Movement. Given links between the C19th romantic movement and the Anglo-Catholic revival – especially its origins in evangelical piety – distinguishing between soupy worship music or  “light a candle and think of God” romanticism of today, and the robing and ritualism of “traditional Anglicanism” (whatever that may be?), seems spurious. Why privilege one above the other?

Deep rooted renewal of our church cannot be about “culture wars”, or shouldn’t be, but about the validity of our church’s theology and worship.

Additionally, Bishop Brian’s noting of our contemporary detachment of Word from Sacrament, the mystification of the priesthood and the re-invention of the “mass priest”, also needs careful consideration.

Why is all this important? Because as followers of Jesus we act out of our beliefs and our worship is one way we symbolically re-enact this. If our worship is skewed so will be our wider witness.

Anyway, have a read and decide for yourself.

Cheers and prayers
David

A couple of years ago Stevie Walker gave a Gospel talk on Mary and Martha and discipleship. In some ways it sowed the seed of Covenanters and that is why we have chosen Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (Diego Velazquez, 1618), as the header for Covenanters.

It’s a serious, even mysterious painting. Stevie’s take on the scene from Luke 10 is just as challenging. The conflict between the Mary and Martha, he argues, is about the meaning of discipleship, ultimate values and how then we live.

Stevie’s focus is on the text, not Velazquez’ painting. If it were he may have noted that Velazquez’ placing of fish upon the table is no mistake – Mark 1:16…

Anyway, have a read of Stevie’s sermon: Mary & Martha – radical inclusion discipleship & making space