The three Bible readings we had today talk of God’s
faithfulness to his people down through the ages.
In first Samuel after a miraculous victory over the
philistines, Samuel erects a stone pillar that he called ‘Ebenezer’ which means,
“thus far God has helped us.” acknowledging that Israel’s continued survival
was and is and will be because of God’s faithful love and grace. All who passed
the stone and remembered it would remember ‘thus far God has helped us’.
In the reading from Luke chapter 1 John the Baptist’s father
Zechariah gives thanks and points to the fulfilment of God’s promise to save
his people and that John the Baptist
would be the herald of that new age. In this advent season we focus on the
coming of Jesus as the fulfilment of God’s help and faithful love throughout
Israel’s history and we look and await for his second coming to bring that to
completion. We’ve been working our way
through Luke chapter 7 this past month and in the way the crowd responded to
Jesus rising of the widow’s son at Nain we hear an echo of Ebenezer… “God has
come to help his people”… In Jesus God has come to save his people.
Then the third reading was from the day of Pentecost, the
birthday of the Church and the promise of the presence of the Holy Spirit for
all who repented and were baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of sins. A promise that was not just for that time and that place
but of God’s ongoing faithfulness and presence and help off into the future,
not just for you, but for your children and your children’s children, not just
for those gathered but for those far off. A promise of God’s on going presence
and help… It means we as a church two thousand very odd years later can equally
acknowledge our ‘Ebenezer’ thus far God has helped us’ and look to the future
trusting God for the Spirit’s on-going presence, leading guidance and help.
We have a couple of stones in the garden out the front of
the church. The one that I call the Narnia garden, it’s like the lamp post
wilderness in CS Lewis’ wonderful books. They are not massive majestic mounds
of marble, or proud prominent pillars
they are just simple rocks, probably put there for decorative purposes… but
when I drive past them I am reminded of ‘Ebenezer’ of God’s faithfulness and
presence of the fact that ‘Thus far God
has helped us.’
We also want to acknowledge people who have been pillars in
this congregation. Our three elders who are retiring today and those who hold
that wonderful title of elder Emeritus Retired eleders) in our midst and say thank you for your
faithful service and for faithfully being prepared to give, to care and to lead
trusting in God’s faithfulness living out the hope we have that thus far God
has helped us.
I don’t know Miles and Anne and Owen, if you know but you’ve
been involved in church leadership in historically what has been one of the
hardest times for the church in the western world. Leonrad sweet calls it being the church in the perfect storm... It’s been a time of
unprecedented change. Technological change, population change, societal change,
cultural change: We are living more and more in a post-Christendom world, a
country where Ian Grant says most new Zealanders have forgotten which
denomination their grandparents were staying away from. A post Christian world,
where the Christian worldview and faith are no longer in the centre of western
thought, rather we are being pushed to the fringe, some would even say the
lunatic fringe. On a more practical scale the explosion of multiculturalism,
with its wonderful benefits but great challenges as well. Auckland now is one
of the top ten most culturally diverse cities in the world. The world is
literally our neighbourhood. We live in
a post forty age, and no that’s not a dig at your advancing age, rather the
reality that the forty hour week and the single income is not enough for people
to survive, the church used to be held together by volunteer work mainly by
women who didn’t work, but now we are faced with on-going work pressures and
limited time, the need for longer hours and two income families, even seniors
work long into their retirement. We are
dealing with a consumer age, those who want to go to church are prepared to
travel to get what they want, you just
have to look at the mega churches that have sprung up at all the motorway
onramps. We live in a post institutional time, did you know more people run
than ever before but athletics clubs find it hard to keep going. More people
are into spiritual things but institutional religion is not as popular. I could
go on…
It would be easy as
Leonard sweet says to simply ‘hunker in the bunker and try and ride this storm
of change out, but the challenge for the church is to unfurl the sails and see
where the wind of the spirit will take us… and you’ve managed to keep the place
here going open to the wind of the spirit and yes growing, there is new growth
there is greening and growth tips, new mission buds pregnant with possibility new
generations replacing the old, new people replacing those who leave, in our
continually more and more mobile world. It is time for you to serve in God’s
ongoing mission in different ways.
Over the past few months the parish council have been
working on a five year plan for the Church, its part of the on-going process of
looking to the future that we’ve been doing for quite a while now. But as we’ve been working on it I’ve sort of
being seeing it emerge in the shape of a Celtic-cross like you might see on a
hill or a coastline, acting as an Ebenezer... to remind of of God's ongoing help. The one behind me (see right is in Oihi Bay in Northland, it is the Marsden cross and marks the spot where the gospel was first preached by a missionay in New Zealand (although Maori had heard responded and shared the gospel befoe then). The plan looks to the future and says
thus far (into the future) God has helped’. It’s been a bit of a hard process
actually looking five years into the future… But I want to share with you where
we are up to… as part of inviting to you to come and join us making steps and
planning and working our way forward.
At the centre of it all is our vision statement. What we
believe God is calling us to be which is … “ a vibrant, authentic, sustainable
community, growing as followers of Jesus and inspiring others to join us on
that journey.”: That we are a Christ like community, growing in that Christ
likeness and growing as people respond to Christ.
How we put that into
action is expressed in our mission statement that at St Peter’s we… worship
God, support each other and reach out in love.
The could say that gives our vision some wheel. Then we’ve been looking
at how that works in reality what are core and important areas that we need to
work at to see that vision become a reality through that mission… and we
identified eight significant areas and we’ve established an objective for each
of these areas. Which I’ve divided into
four quadrants like the four arms of a cross… but they are all interconnected. Being in the sahpe of a cross also reminds of the cruciform shape of the Christian life... it calls us to be prepepared for sacrifical living in response to Christs sacrifice for us.
Two have to do with readying us for mission… Christian
education and leadership. (click for words) Our objective in five years when it comes to
Christian education is that an effective age appropriate small group is
available for every person in the St Peter’s Community… We want to build on the
short term and occasional small groups that are run at St peter’s we want to
see our children ministry grow and we are aware of the priority that youth
ministry is becoming. (click for words) In
leadership our objective is the development of leadership in all areas be a
priority and we have in place processes for identifying, training and mentoring
new leaders and providing training opportunities for, and reviews of existing
leadership…
We need to continually be renewed for mission so we see
prayer and worship as important.(click for words) The objective in prayer is that Prayer be a
vibrant part of St Peter’s life reflected in a variety of practises. We can
often forget that a vibrant prayer life is foundational for the church. (click
for words) Our objective for worship is very similar that worship is a vibrant
part of St Peter’s life reflected in a variety of different styles. And as we’ve begun to set goals for each of
these objectives one that has come up for worship is that in five years’ time
we will have established a second worship service… Either here or somewhere
else.
The third arm is relationships, pastoral care and
community outreach. For pastoral care our objective is that pastoral care is
extended to all, by both lay people and the minister so that everyone receives
appropriate pastoral care. And community outreach is that we build on
strengthen and expand existing community contacts by listening , helping to
meet needs and building bridges that can bring others to faith. Once again as
we’ve looked at goals to meet these objectives we are hoping to have a men’s
ministry established that will provide for the husbands and partners of our
mainly music and playgroup families and our won men’s needs. A first step is simply to arrange to go
together to a super rugby game in the New Year. That actually helps address a
perceived need as In the Herald recently
it reported on research into men in New Zealand that said men find it hard to
have places to make new friendships and are likely to be isolated and cut off
in the community.
Finally we have resourcing for our mission… the two areas of
finance and property. For property that ‘through a diversity of income streams
that the finances are able to resource the ongoing mission of St Peter’s’ full
credit to our finance team that they have been good at looking at different
ways to fund our mission. With property that St Peter’s property continues to
meet the needs of the mission of St Peter’s and that tenants at St Peter’s
reflect St Peter’s mission. So often
congregations can simply continue to maintain a building rather than the
finances and property be seen as being there for the mission of the
congregation.
The parish Council is planning to have a retreat day in the
new year to invite people to come and be part of taking the steps to meets
those objectives of continuing to look to the future trusting in our Ebenezer
that so far God is our help… to faithful move forward trusting the God who has
been with us in the past and is with us today…
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