E NEWS 21 FEBRUARY 2025
Morena e hoa ma. Another beautiful day in the capital. Looking forward to this evening where our Hutt Valley Cluster group will gather at the Cunningham’s for a shared meal. We are expecting about 15 people. If your Cluster group has yet to meet this year then you have March and April to do so before I take my Sabbatical leave from May through to the end of July. The Southern Cluster group will be hosted by the Kirby’s on Saturday 11th April at their home in Churton Park. A notice closer to the time will be released with all the details.
I will have had 3 evening meetings this week after our cluster meeting tonight. Wednesday night we had the Finance and Facilities Meeting Group (FFMG), last night I had the meeting of the Board of Governors for Queen Margaret College that went from 5.30pm to 9pm a very long night. But all important business. Tomorrow my day off I am flying to Auckland and using my annual leave day on Sunday morning to preach at the Commissioning service of a former supervisee who then went on to attend Pt. Chevalier Co-op Parish where I was formerly minister. I encouraged her to become a Lay Preacher which she did and basically handed over the reigns to her to hold the Parish together when I left to take up this call here at SAOTT. I led her through the process of applying to become a Local Ordained Ministry candidate within the PCANZ to which she was successful. So on Sunday she will be commissioned as a L.O.M. intern to be based at Pt. Chevalier Homestead Community Church and I have been invited to preach. It is an honour and a privilege especially to see the seeds which I helped plant continue to grow to fruition.. She is of retirement age and when I encouraged her to consider L.O.M. she laughed a bit like Sarah when she was told she would become pregnant beyond childbearing age. She was National Manager for some really high profile organisations and even managed to squeeze in a year’s study at Rhema Bible College in Samoa. Many L.O.M. candidates and ministers and some N.O.M. Nationally Ordained Ministry Candidates have reached retirement age when they feel the call to serve within the PCANZ and because we do not have a retirement age it is very encouraging to see people of all ages take up the call.
As I am writing this E News I have just read of the death of Rev Brian Williscroft at Otago Community Hospice on the 12th of February this year. I did my Summer Training under Brian Williscroft at St. Andrew’s Levin now called Levin Uniting Church. I did 10 weeks of training and during that time I had 10 “death” related events from memorials, scattering of ashes and funerals one of which I had to conduct when Brian was on holiday. I made it my goal to visit every parish family during those 10 weeks which I managed to achieve. It put me in good stead for my future ministries, Pastoral care and oversight I believe has been one of my strengths in ministry. Brian was an excellent mentor. RIL
Next Thursday at 11.30am (only 5 minutes) some of us from SAOTT will be at Parliament presenting our oral submission for Te Tiriti Principles Bill. I’m sure you will be with us in solidarity.
Next Saturday I will be a year away from drawing the pension 1st March. I could have been born in a leap year which means I would have had only 16 birthdays. I will be celebrating with a family BBQ on Saturday.
I hope that many of you will be planning to attend our Fund-raising Concert next Sunday at our church at 3pm. Our artists are Joshua and Oscar Han on the piano. If you haven’t managed to buy your ticket online yet at www.humanitix.co.nz there will also be door sales, $30 waged and $25 unwaged. See the poster at the bottom of this E News.
I hope this beautiful weather holds out for this weekend, Rev Mervyn and Lesley Aitken will be leading our Sunday service. Hei konei ra. Fei
You can view the full E-News here: https://mailchi.mp/6b3b6f2e0d0c/this-weeks-newsletter-from-st-andrews-on-the-terrace-10133269
