PASTORAL LETTER AUGUST 1999

"On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, `If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." - John 7:37

Our Parish Annual Meeting takes place this month. It is certainly an occasion and opportunity to acknowledge again God's great goodness and faithfulness to us as a people during the last twelve months. This we do with joy and gratitude. As we read the Annual Reports in due time, we can rejoice in the continued provision of our financial needs, the provision leaders and people to sustain youth and children's ministries as well as the whole range of other programmes - from housegroups, women's groups, social events, Alpha, fledgling community outreach, counselling, as well as our commitment to mission and ministry beyond the congregation in New Zealand and overseas. However, Annual Meetings do not simply look to the past in thanksgiving, but they should look to the future in anticipation. We are on the brink of the new millennium and the 21st century beckons us. What will it mean to be a congregation geared to the present and the future - rather than chained to the past?

1. VISION: Can I remind you of the outcome of our Session Retreat last year which was a Vision statement setting out our Mission and our Objectives? "Our MISSION is to worship and serve God, and to help others to discover the truth, the love, and the salvation of God." Our OBJECTIVES are :
   • To develop our strengths as a Bible-based church family, where the Bible is our ultimate standard and guide.
   • To be a church that is welcoming, friendly, joyful, and encourages people from all backgrounds and cultures to make personal commitments to Jesus Christ.
   • To reach out and meet the needs of the people in our community.
   • To encourage and support one another as we grow in Christian maturity, and seek to be salt and light in our community, our country, and throughout the world.
   • To regularly review our progress, and change where necessary to meet the relevant needs of our congregation and community, while holding true to our fundamental beliefs.
   The purpose of such statements of our mission and our objectives is to provide a focus for our thinking, planning and energies. They should always be in front of us. Everything should serve to bring them to fruition and fulfilment. In fact they should be before, and serve as the guidelines and directives for, the leaders of every group, organisation, ministry or committee which is part of our church family. All this relates well to the outcome of the recent extra General Assembly which stated afresh "that the development of healthy congregations is the first priority for the ordering of our church life, and, that a key strategy in that is the developing of structures that support congregations".

2. AFFIRMATION OF UNITY: It is generally agreed that one of the features of the PCANZ in recent years has been not only diversity but division. The recent extra General Assembly received an Overture from South Auckland which asked the Assembly to recognise the need for unity at the same time as faithfulness to its standards and to affirm the statement at the heart of the Overture. After a prolonged debate, it was overwhelmingly carried - not even needing a count. This is what it says:

   We affirm that

   1. Our faith is in one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit; in Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord, and in the Word of God contained the Old and New Testaments.
   2. Our church is a confessional church - with a foundation for belief and teaching in the Scriptures and Subordinate Standards.
   3. Within a rich diversity of understanding, that the Scriptures provide boundaries for both belief and behaviour, and encourages the highest standards for faith and holiness.
   4. While the church is free to interact with the Word of God in a wide variety of ways, we are people under the guidance and authority of God contained in the Scriptures which requires our heartfelt obedience.
   5. We seek the highest standards of biblical scholarship in understanding the meaning of the Bible for today's culture, as we also seek to be faithful to the original meaning of Scripture.
   6. We seek to live out the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit, not looking to the past or to the values of the world, but to the future that we are called to by God.
   7. We require our leaders to be an example in their teaching and to live by the standards that the Scriptures call for.
   8. Our unity as a church is based on the Word of God and the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit:
      • in our common experience of salvation
      • in our holding to biblical faith
      • in our servanthood to each other and the world
      • in our making the gospel relevant to our own cultures
      • in being completely open to the work of the Holy Spirit
      • in personal living and relationships that are holy
      • in struggling with injustice and issues of contemporary life
      • in our unity with all churches and ministries in the wider Body of Christ
      • in our mission to take the gospel to the world.
   This a startling and quite comprehensive statement about our unity given the recent controversies engulfing our wider church. Since this has been passed by the Assembly, it will require a 60% vote to get it changed.

3. COMMON DISCIPLESHIP: Thus we need to set the past with its controversies and uncertainties behind us. We need to gear ourselves up for relevant mission and service to congregation, community, nation and world. We need to commit ourselves afresh to the Lord - and to one another - for service in this place. I appreciate that many have been holding themselves aloof from formalising their membership with us until the situation within the PCANZ was resolved. I suggest that has clearly happened as a result of the work of the Commission on Diversity, the opinion of the Book of Order and Judicial Committee regarding the status quo, and in the decisions of the General Assembly 1999. Whether you have come from another Presbyterian parish or from a congregation of another Christian tradition, I urge you to take your place fully with us here in active membership. Your relationship is primarily with Greyfriars rather than with the PCANZ. In fact if you went to live elsewhere, you would have to be admitted again to membership in another Presbyterian congregation, or any other congregation. All congregations or denominations have rules to oversee their life together. For instance, one of ours is that only active members can serve the congregation as elders. Quite apart from that, it is an important spiritual principle. Otherwise, it is easy to regard oneself as a perpetual visitor, and not really involved, and easier still to regard oneself as not being responsible or accountable, and thus easier to drift away. Let us then consolidate ourselves as a people of God, in love, faith and commitment, to serve as true disciples of Christ here in the 21st century. God bless you all.

Yours very sincerely,

J O EVANS