Kia ora koutou,
I trust that this first week of Lent has allowed you space to begin to reflect on this special season as we consider our discipleship in Christ and God’s manifest gifts of grace in our lives. Perhaps you’ve made some time to prioritise prayer in your daily routine, or taken up a Lenten study with others in a group or in personal time. However you may have engaged I pray that this is a time of blessing for you.
On Sunday I had the pleasure of joining with the community at St Matthew’s School, Hastings with the Parish of Greater Hastings for a service to mark the celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the school. It was particularly good to see a number of people who had made long journeys to return to the school to join the celebration, including the founders of the school, past staff and students and previous board members as well. It was a great celebratory time and good to see the life of the school celebrated in the parish with good heart. Congratulations to the Parish and School for this significant milestone.
The Rev'd Alister Hendery, Priest Associate at St Matthew's Church and former School's Board of Trustees Chair, prays a blessing as the tree is planted
For more pictures please check out Bishop Andrew's Facebook page
The early part of this week included time spent with the Chaplains for Hato Hone St John at the biennial in-person professional development days, this year hosted in Kirikiriroa. Chaplaincy in a multicultural context was the focus for the training and we had some excellent input over 2 days looking at a variety of lenses through which we may experience multicultural contexts in ministry. Included in the sessions was an entire day spent at Turangawaewae Marae in Ngaruawahia. Immersed in the tikanga and mātauranga of Tainui we turned our attention to healing and wholeness in Te Ao Māori engaging with whakapapa and whakapono to grow in our understanding of effective Chaplaincy in Hato Hone St John. The topics of the sessions which we were privileged to share in were very closely aligned to our work in Waiapu with the 5 priorities in our strategic plan. It is encouraging to see this synergy across different parts of our life with the wider church. We have a number of clergy in Waiapu who are actively involved with Hato Hone St John as Chaplains and I’m very encouraged by their willingness to serve in this important ministry to support those in one arm of our emergency services, healthcare and education.
The Bishop’s Leadership Team met yesterday in person as we do every six weeks, with online meetings each fortnight. The progress in implementing various aspects of the strategic plan is going well with all that we had hoped to be achieved by the end of February completed. There is still much work to be done and you will continue to see this rolled out and described and shared in the comms from the team.
Today I’m spending some time with Archbishop Don and a group from Waiapu and Te Pihopatanga to further our work together and catch up on projects we have been working on with one another. I’m looking forward to the meeting and time to share together around our common mission and ministry in our Church.
Chrism Mass services will be included in our conversation, as they were when I met with Bishop Ngarahu last week. Please understand that given the changes happening in Te Manawa o Te Wheke and our desire to attempt to build a practice of shared services that we need a bit more time for planning of appropriate opportunities for the Chrism Mass services. I hope to have the details available for you early next week.
This weekend Raewyn and I are heading to Auckland to join the Pakeha Bishops and Spouses for a retreat at Vaughan Park Retreat Centre. We’ve met once before as a group in this way following our time together at Lambeth Conference in 2022 and will look to make this a regular feature of the life of Tikanga Pakeha Bishops.
Have a good weekend ahead.
+Andrew
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