Our small church and the big disaster

Of all the terrible images that have been appearing on TV while I have been trying to put together our parish newsletter this week, this one has made a huge impression on me. I know this Christchurch city landscape well, both viewed like this from the Port Hills and from the many times I flew myself over it in the 1970s.
The rising cloud of dust almost completely obscures the business centre of our country's second largest city, with its fascinating blend of buildings Victorian and modern, utilitarian and graceful, sacred and secular. All kinds of structures have suffered indiscriminate damage in the moments before this photo was taken.
And while this awful cloud was rising over the dying CBD, all kinds of people died: young and old, white collar and blue collar, wonderful and ordinary. Some were snuffed out in a moment; others lingered for hours and perhaps even days before rescue or merciful death relieved them.
In view of the immense losses of life and property it seems obscene to be preoccupied with news about the bits and pieces of life in our little parish. But the people of Christchurch know they have to pick themselves up out of the rubble and move on. And we in the Bay, who are more vulnerable to tsunami, landslips and fire than we care to admit, also have to get on with the everyday stuff.

So the newsletter went out last night. Even in appalling death and disaster, life goes on.

Live yours well, friends.

Earthquake in Christchurch

The disaster in Christchurch beggars belief.

All New Zealand has known that there would be a Big One one day. If we were trying to predict which major city in NZ would get it we wouldn’t have put Christchurch far up on the list. Until last September.

Then, we told ourselves, well, it was a once in a hundred years event so perhaps that was the one we have waiting for since Napier in 1931. And we gave thanks that the losses in Christchurch were almost only of property and possessions. A devastating blow to the city, but at least no major loss of life.

Now, Christchurch has been hit again. At the worst possible time of day and with a ferocity out of all proportion to the technical size of the shake. And it will probably be weeks before around 200 worldwide families hear the worst possible news.

Such are the ways of inscrutable Nature. We all live under the shadow of the end. Right now I am rejoicing in a report indicating my prostate cancer has been unmeasurable for another three months. That’s very encouraging - but it's kind of temporary. Another three months it may be different.

However, my life could also be changed in an instant by a tsunami, a hillside slip or a bushfire on our lovely hills. After this week, I am again reminded that I am a temporary citizen on this fragile planet.

Ah, Nostalgia!

After church on Sunday we celebrated Tui’s 80th birthday and viewed a set of slides she’d put together on her life.

One shot was of her and two of her family on their favourite rock at a remote waterfall. She told us that she went back after 50 years to re-live that moment. The access was much more difficult than she remembered and, while the waterfall was still there, it wasn’t as impressive as it had seemed in memory. Worst of all, the sunny slope where three teens used to meet and share their intimacies was completely covered by a huge overgrown log that had jammed itself in the rocks.

People in small congregations know well that once the decision is made for Local Shared Ministry instead of the luxury of a paid minister, nothing will be exactly the same again. To try to revisit or recapture the past can be a discouraging and pointless exercise.

Variety Bash 2011

Variety – the fun way to help Kiwi kids – is coming to Northland. A whole bunch of madcap crews will drive an assortment of old vehicles from Bay of Plenty to Bay of Islands in seven days. There will be competitive driving – of a sort!, a lot of waterfighting, and plenty of shaking of cans for donations. Along their uproarious route, Bashers will present cheques to children and children’s organisations.

For their dinner/overnight stop at Omapere on 9th March, 160 Bashers are going to participate in our new Murder Mystery Death in the Bay. This will be the largest show we’ve ever managed. And they’ll probably sit down to dinner in a different mood than most of the rather sedate church groups who’ve enjoyed Death by Cooperation.

Some Bash “characters” are lined up as suspects and the show promises to be a riotous event for all concerned. After half a century leading public worship and other rather formal affairs, I’m finding there’s a totally different feel about taking up the role of entertainer as Det Chief Supt Holmes and making people cudgel their brains or laugh their heads off.

It’s going to be a fun way for Bev and me to say Thank You to the Bashers who do so much to help Kiwi kids.


NOTE: Since 1989 Variety Club has distributed $12 million to children’s charities in New Zealand.

Goodbye, Iris Gray

We've just heard that Iris has died in Melbourne in her 90th year. Respected and loved by our Paihia congregation for ten years, she was recently persuaded that she should return to Australia to be closer to her family. It wasn't an easy move, but she settled in quickly and didn't look back.

A private person, she neverthless held very firm views on many matters but never gave offence in offering them. She played a full role in our church's life, as she had in other congregations. She left at least one church because she disagreed strongly with their beliefs but, somehow, our diverse viewpoints were not as powerful as the warmth of our fellowship and she just stayed.

She declined to play our organ or to sing a solo but she loved our congregational singing. Some of us discovered that, while having three small children in the mid-1950s, she was professional organist and soloist with Auckland's Civic Theatre and later head-hunted to go to the State Theatre in Melbourne. Here she performed for the movies eighteen times a week until TV brought about the end of that cinema. She was one of only two women in the world who performed in this way. The family remained in Australia and she came back to NZ only for her last years.

Iris gave pleasure to countless thousands during her professional life at the great Wurlitzers. And in her later years among us she brought charm and inspiration to our little congregation in an insignificant corner of the world. Under the spotlight or in the pew, you were true to yourself and to your faith. We salute you.

Iris's own interesting account of her professional life is on http://www.civictheatre.co.nz/

We were blessed indeed...

When we were thinking about our last worship roster, we found that one of our regulars had obtained work involving weekends and another was taking a few months’ “time out”, There was some panic for a moment. Then Heather held up her hand.
Heather is one of our “godwits” – a retiree who visits us for about half of each year from Scotland where she’s a long-time member and elder in her local church but never led worship. Today she took her first service. She shared a little of her distinctive church tradition with us, she gave us some strong hymns of worship – and, of course, a metrical psalm – and she confided her delight that the lectionary for today led her into some meditation on three of the Beatitudes.
These were, she said, not so much challenges for our future life as expressions of our present life in Christ. We were invited to relate them to our experience and simply embrace them. Trusting in God, sorrowing over the world’s shortcomings and producing right relationships were all relevant themes for us.
It was a thoughtful and worshipful service. Of course, Heather brings a lifetime of experience of worship under other leaders. She has a sense of what is or is not appropriate. But more than that, her relaxed and confident style was a comfort to those of us who were having butterflies on her behalf - we didn’t need to bother. A good congregation of locals and a couple of visitors lingered for an hour after she left for Russell. All commented favourably on what her first service had left us.
This is what Local Shared Ministry is all about. Members of the congregation take responsibility for the work. It’s not a matter of “helping the minister” as one of our UK visitors seemed to describe it to me this morning. The issue is that if there is to be a congregation here it will be because we who turn up on Sundays will see to it. Nobody owes us a service; nobody has to create theology for us; nobody needs to daily check that we haven’t gone off the rails; certainly nobody has to send us some funds to keep the show going.
The mission is ours, and we will do it.

He mahi na Uetahi, e hokia - The work is Uetahi's and he will do it (he can be relied on to complete it).

The Yellow Sea and the Mangroves

There was a sea of yellow mud between us and Russell yesterday. Flash floods in the hills always bring down some mud but in twenty hours we had 250mm of rain and the run-off fouled the whole of the inner Bay. I have never seen it as extensive as that.

Even if it weren’t for all the discharge from septic tanks and farmland around the Bay there would always be some colouring of the sea after such a deluge. In time past, the mangroves would have filtered and greatly reduced the run-off and gently separated the contending forces of sea and land. These days, the mangroves are overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the problem.

I have suggested that the church in the north is rather like the mangroves – standing between two different spheres and trying to moderate their interaction. Sometimes, it, too, gets overwhelmed by circumstances or the sheer size of the task.

Well, I know that the view outside my window will turn from yellow-brown to blue over the coming hours and days. The winds will bring brighter days and the tides will eventually flush the suspended mud from the sea. I have to believe that the same cleansing actions of the Spirit will be active in regularly refreshing the life of the church.

"Freedom" Camping?

I’m on both sides of the mobile home park debate.

As an on and off caravanner of half a century I have many times wanted to find a cheap, secure overnight site for a few hours. It is expensive and frustrating to have to pay $40 for a parking place for an overnight sleep-stop of just a few hours. But as a ratepayer in a tourist centre, I am well aware of the problem for local communities and businesses when choice public land on our beaches and forests is turned into private campgrounds.

Given the horrific mess created by some “freedom” campers I am now deciding that it should be banned. I suggest that the Department of Conservation, in cooperation with District Councils and the camping industry should be given a mandate to devise a complete chain of minimal facilities on enclosed sites involving -
• Overnight stops available from not before 8pm and to be vacated by 10am
• Cold water showers, toilets and dump stations but no other facilities.
• Security camera coverage, where possible.
• A country-wide standard fee of about $8 for two people, only available by self-booking.
• A consistent marketing image throughout the country.

Such sites could be adjacent to existing holiday parks and camp sites or created on completely separate premises. There should be no requirement for residential supervision. Some existing operators might find this concept a useful extension to their present service. Access to fully equipped facilities, where available, should be only by way of additional entry fees.

On Teamwork

I am just about the shut down the computer. In ten minutes we leave for Whangarei Base Hospital where am to have a “half-knee” replacement.

Last time I was impressed by the sense of teamwork in the theatre block, from receptionist through to the last nurse who counted the bits and pieces afterwards. Each person had a specific job to do yet they worked together to complement and support each other.

Apparently, though, there has been an exception. A survey last year reported that one in ten operations in this country hosts some kind of mistake, many involving the wrong operation or the wrong part of the body.

The solution, it was suggested, was for more of the theatre team members to take responsibility for the whole drama and to challenge the surgeons if a mistake seemed to be likely to be made.

Since I’ve already had one knee done, I guess I run no risk of coming out with the wrong knee operation today: “Hullo, the saw has jammed on a piece of titanium; what’s that doing in here?”

But it gives me confidence that my overall welfare in the next three or so days is in many hands and, generally, they are taking responsibility to work together towards a common goal.

That’s how Local Shared Ministry works in the small church.

More on leaders

Some time ago I reported the loss, in a storm, of the central stem in our young kauri tree. I made the point that the tree’s chances of growing normally were greatly reduced.

I also wondered if the tree would compensate by allowing one or more of the adjacent stems to take the central place. So it might have been a metaphor for Local Shared Ministry, where a small team of lay volunteers give a lead instead of an ordained and stipended minister.

Today I checked the tree again and found that a bright green single stem is reclaiming the central position. The surrounding stems from the season before last are still in position but the new stem is already sprouting new sub stems.

All of which may be great news for our little Kauri which seems likely to resume its normal shape. But is not a good metaphor for Local Shared Ministry. It is a reminder that there are always some members of a Local Shared Ministry congregation who would like the single central paid expert to return and prevail over the efforts of a team of volunteers.

It’s not easy being a young Kauri in a challenging storm. Nor a Lay Ministry Team.