Bishops’ News: August 2021
‘…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus’ (Phil 1:6)
Over the recent weekends at our Diocesan Training Days in Wellington and Palmerston North, we have all been humble learners together, exploring what it means to be part of the Missio Dei in each of our contexts. As we gathered together to worship, pray, and learn, we were struck once again by the variety of expressions and needs, longings and anxieties that are represented across our Movement.
As our government looks ahead at what re-opening our borders might look like, it’s easy to think that our horizons might broaden again from being the ‘hermit nation’ that some have called us.
But let’s remember that God has called you, and me, to be exactly where we are at this time, for the people that are around us.
We are the people who have been called to our neighbourhoods. Not anyone else! We know our neighbours; we pray for them. We offer ourselves to God to be good news for our neighbours and to love them as we love ourselves.
We all have to choose to grow in knowing and living this love. Sometimes we can think that other people have it all together and we are the ones still trying to figure out what living our lives for and with Jesus means. Instead, let our whole lives be shaped by that choice to continuously learn.
Last month both of us began the first part of a three-phase journey towards the Lambeth Conference; the gathering of all Bishops across our Anglican Communion. This first part consists of monthly Zoom conversations with a group of other Bishops that we will journey with for the next 6 months. Together we dwell on scripture, and a different aspect of the 5 Marks of Mission. You can read some reflections from the first month here.
Each participant is seeking to humbly learn with each other what it means for us to be God’s church for God’s world, particularly in light of the dual challenges of COVID-19 and climate change. We hear stories from their neighbours; we in turn share stories of our neighbours.
At the beginning of the year our own House of Bishops called people to prioritise turning to God in prayer, and turning to the world in transformational presence. There’s no more powerful place to do this than to commit to regular rhythms of prayer in our neighbourhoods, for our neighbourhoods. We combine the local and global for and with God in that way that shapes our special Anglican ecclesiology. In the name of Jesus let’s stake the spiritual claim to those places and people we are called most closely to love.
In Christ
+Justin and +Ellie
