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I spent most of last week at Baptist Hui related things including a day with some other like minded Baptist pastors at Little River; a day with other chaplains in the Baptist movement and then 3 days at the Hui itself at Rangiora Baptist Church. I thought I’d share a few of my reflections. Feel free to ask me (or Rachelle, Fern or Steph) for more thoughts.Take careHelen

Standing in Awe of the Poor“Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” Father Gregory Boyle. All of us in the Vision Team have been deeply moved and impacted by the people we are journeying with here in Bangladesh and meeting along the way. In many respects, we have been in awe of them. The Baptist workers who organised our…

I was touched this week by some of the tributes that were given at Gordon Dewar’s funeral, particularly those of his children and grandchildren. I also loved the sense of mystery and trust in God conveyed by this hymn by John Parker, which was also shared at Gordon’s funeral: God holds the key of all unknown,And I am glad;If other hands should hold the key,Or if He trusted it to me,I might be sad. What if tomorrow’s cares were hereWithout its rest?I’d rather…

Mātauranga Māori at Church Ilam has made an effort to include some waiata in the song selections, pounamu was gifted to Hamid and Mohammed and we are slowly getting less clumsy at the Māori version of the benediction. Increasing numbers of organisations and companies are rebranding to have a te reo name and incorporate a relevant whakataukī/proverb to be politically correct. Mātauranga Māori is beautiful and should be prominent in our society. But sometimes the effort to include it is only at…

Deconstruction and Reconstruction Many of us, during our life time will go through periods of deconstruction and reconstruction around areas of our faith. For some this can be caused by a time of suffering when it seems that the God is absent or not acting in the way we have expected; for some our childhood faith and family were pretty dysfunctional and we need to explore faith without the toxicity; for some faith or faith rules don’t fit how we…

On a recent children’s ministry zoom call, the discussion turned to ‘signs of Spring’- in other words, areas where we are seeing God’s Spirit at work, bringing life and growth. I recently attended a children’s ministry block course in Auckland, on the topic of faith formation in children.  We stayed at the Friary, a Franciscan monastery in Hillsborough.  One morning I took a walk through the garden and enjoyed discovering some ‘signs of Spring’ and slowing down to watch some…

Weaving Memories and Building Ties  I sat with two of my brothers recently and went through some boxes of old photos from my parents’ estate. My Mum and Dad both passed away some years ago and we are getting ready to create a digital library of snaps and stories for the coming generations. Camera tech was pretty naf back in the day and a lot of the old black and white and colour images are blurry and faded. We found some ‘goodies’ however…

Expect the Unexpected I spent multiple hours earlier this week navigating random glitches on Indian Immigrations online e-visa application form.  After several fails it finally accepted my details and payment.  I breathed a sigh of relief and went off for a stress-relieving walk around Halswell Quarry. The grazing ewes and newborn lambs looked pretty calm and content and the wind on my face was soothing. A few hours later I received an email telling me I had 24hrs to send…

A discussion with my flatmate:Me: I could just drop out at the end of this year Alex: Mon you wouldn’t be dropping out you would be graduating!Me: Oh yeah…  I am currently in the final semester of my undergraduate degree at UC and I am working out the plan for the next year. I have an exciting, awful, annoying, deliberating worm inside my head that decides to speak up when I have assignments I should be focussed on instead… I am tossing and turning…

“The preaching of Peter and Paul and all the witnesses of the Risen Jesus says that two basic things are demanded of us. First: we must acknowledge our own share in what the cross is and represents; we must learn to see ourselves as caught up in a world where the innocent are scapegoated and killed and where we are all unwilling, to a greater or lesser degree, to face unwelcome truths about ourselves. We must learn to see that…

I had an adventure this week, travelling on a small plane to Blenheim.  There were just six of us on board, and the roar of the engine meant that it wasn’t possible to speak to one another.  It was a clear afternoon.  I sat back, zoned out and watched the ground disappear from under me.  The Canterbury plains became a haphazard patchwork of small squares, and I could see where the braided rivers touched the sea.  It reminded me of…

Hello lovely Ilamites,I’ve been working here in our office at 51 Ilam road today and thinking about what to write for the musing this week. As I think back over these last few weeks at Ilam I wanted to write a musing in praise of all our volunteers. As a church we have heaps of opportunities for people to volunteer – most churches would crash in a heaps without them and Ilam Baptist is no exception. There are heaps of…