The shop's 50th anniversary this week was marked with volunteers old and new from Levin's Uniting Church getting together to celebrate and reflect on their achievements for pregnant women and their families.

In the beginning

Founding member Marie Vaney says volunteers who started the op shop came from the town's Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian and Anglican churches.

"At the time Levin had a healthy religious climate so church members were approached to help set it up to offer an alternative for young families.

"We received training from Massey University to learn about non-judgemental telephone communications. We'd help with transport to and from appointments and on occasion we'd do a little bit of cleaning for them."

Vaney says that, when volunteers were helping young mums and their babies, others in the households they were living in often needed help too.

"There was so much people needed - like clothing, furniture and other items, so we decided that what we needed was an op shop - and two years later, in October 1974, it was formed."

She says the op shop was initially called the One Two Three Shop. Then other businesses started "popping up" with similar names, so the volunteers decided to change it to the Opportunity Shop.

Vaney, the op shop committee's first secretary, helped with the shop for almost 20 years until 1995 when she moved to Wellington with her family. After retiring nine years ago, she went back to Levin and is volunteering at the op shop again.

"It's the people that brought me back. It's a nice welcoming place where we help without judgement."

Treasurer Margaret Burnell is another long-standing volunteer - she started helping many years ago.

"I came here in 1991, was put in the treasurer role and here I am still. I think it's good to have something to get you out of the house and get on with it."

Yvonne Leyland, the shop manager for 12 years, says the anniversary celebration highlighted an important milestone.

"I think its incredible. In this day and age, there is a big need for more volunteers and I feel very blessed that we have, and have had, so many wonderful people helping us" she says.

• The New Zealand Herald

I don't think they know much about ideology nor give much time to studying it. But they do know what is humanly best for the poorest.

They do know what God wants and the Gospel calls for, namely ‘love of neighbour'.

They do what Jesus, who once walked this earth in person and now lives on in his risen presence, taught his followers to do.

‘Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, shelter the homeless, look after the weakest, protect Mother Earth, and follow me by taking an option for the poor and the neglected.'

They have accepted that such hospitality and outreach sits at the heart of the gospel for our time.

Ideology

I have spent much of my life studying various ideologies, some a lot closer to the gospel teachings than others. Ideology can often be the fall-back
position of those unwilling to open their hearts to further expansion.

While corporate capitalism (think the US, UK, Australia and NZ) is about as far away from the teachings of Jesus as you can imagine, state socialism
isn't much better.

Just look at Russia and China, to mention only two giant players. Both corporate capitalism and state socialism rely on materialism and its bastard off-spring, consumerism, as their primary goal.

Its siblings are greed and status, their principal driving forces. The more one accumulates the better one is perceived to be. Both systems fail the gospel test - they fail to take account of how greed corrupts the soul and materialism cannot ever fill the heart.

In New Zealand, we see the effects of corporate capitalism every day.

To take one huge example. We hear about the ‘housing crisis' which is very real and has wealthy speculators to thank for much of its development.

Forty years ago there was no ‘housing crisis' per se.

Getting a first home was manageable for most steady workers who were paid enough to get a house and pay a mortgage. Now tens of thousands in this country cannot afford a place to either buy or rent a suitable home.

This has led to a huge growth in poverty levels, inadequate warm and safe homes, growing homelessness and the associated lower standards of
living (food, adequate healthcare, stable education) that accompany rising poverty levels.

A couple of other measuring sticks. There are many houses in affluent suburbs with only one of two occupants bigger than that some medieval
English castles.

We also see on our roads vehicles, nearly all of them bigger by half than the ones our parents drove. One suspects they are seen mostly as signs of status by their owners.

Who cares about the earth warming when we can drive these huge vehicles, block up our highways and look prosperous? Bigger, flasher, more expansive is the name of the corporate capitalist game.

Ideologically bound

The thing about ideology is that it can enslave people within its parameters and not allow them in any way to think ‘outside the square'.

The co-founder of the Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, saw this through learned and sometimes bitter experience as she moved from dappling with communism, through radical feminism and socialism - and found them all ideologies which short-changed her.

After studying the Gospels through the eyes of the poor and living with them for decades, she came to see that while all ideologies fall short of
delivering on their promises, the practice of personalism - recognising the divine spark of God's presence in everyone and honouring them for that - was closest to the teachings of Jesus.

He did not judge people rather their actions. He had friends among both rich and poor.

Remember, he was buried in the wealthy man Nathanael's tomb. But he mainly identified with the poor whom he saw were closest to God in their living and more open to his message.

Dorothy always sought to blow the embers of those divine sparks into life through friendship and meeting the primary needs of the poor. And through creating small supportive communities among them.

She even argued every parish should have a house of hospitality for the homeless and the needy. And why not is as valid a valid question today as it was in
her time.

Synodality

As the institutional Church in the developed world continues to shrink in both size and influence, we could do well to learn from such experiences as the New Brighton Anglicans (and there are some other parish communities around the country who do similar outreach as well) to help add some vibrancy and life to what appear to many to be tired old Catholic structures.

New Brighton offers a model of what a synodal church might look a bit like - localised but linked to the centre, outreaching, guided but not dominated
by its minister, living a gospel fuelled with compassion, justice, inclusivity, openness and holding a special sensitivity towards the poor, neglected,
isolated and abandoned.

It's not perfect model but it is a good start!

A synodal church will not change doctrines but will broaden our vision as to how we go about our business of witnessing to Christ in our time. And our time may be shorter than we think.

With the world becoming more crowded and forced migration exploding, the planet heating up and more species becoming extinct daily, the so-called free-market economic system betraying the vast majority of the world's peoples, Pope Francis has warned that time may be short to take the radical steps necessary to
prevent a catastrophe of even greater proportion injustice developing inour lifetime.

Conclusion

That should set us all thinking. We all have a part to play in saving our planet for future generations and developing the Church to meet the needs of our time.

If we believe the teachings of Jesus are the way forward as did Dorothy Day in the Great Depression, World War II and the 1960s - 70s, then there is no time to waste in our generation of uncertainty, rising inequality, war and the climate crisis.

As the prophet Emmanual Charle McCarthy teaches, "Christ is Risen does not mean Jesus lives on in history as Lenin lives on in his revolution.

"Jesus does not live on because people have faith in him and proclaim his teaching. The reverse is true.

"People have faith in him and proclaim his teaching because he lives."

If we truly believe Christ is Risen and lives on in our lives, we have no option but to become involved working to improve things on our planet, in our country and our local communities. And that means social justice for all.

• Father Jim Consedine was ordained in 1969. He has been a member of the Catholic Worker in Christchurch for 20 years and writes on peace and justice issues.

The Vatican has announced Waller - currently the parish priest and vicar general of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham - will replace Msgr Keith Newton.

Newton is retiring after serving over 13 years as the Ordinary of the ecclesiastical structure for former Anglicans.

Newton says the Vatican's announcement is "momentous" given that Waller, who is a celibate, will become the first bishop Ordinary of the Ordinariate.

As someone who was already married as an Anglican clergyman before entering the Church through the Ordinariate, Newton was not allowed episcopal consecration.

Choosing the bishop

In keeping with the Anglican emphasis on consultation and in accordance with the Anglicanorum coetibus, members of the Ordinariate's governing council (made up of Ordinariate priests) chose Waller as one of three people they recommended to the Holy See.

"Although we're full Roman Catholics, our ordinariate allows us to preserve something of our Anglican patrimony within the universal church" Newton says.

"As a priest however, I've also been one of very few bishops' conference members not in episcopal orders.

"The Holy See has wanted us to be governed by a bishop to clarify our ecclesiastical status within the Catholic Church."

Pope Benedict XVI established the ordinariate in 2009.

The personal ordinariates function as Catholic dioceses with Anglican traditions. They celebrate the Mass, divine office, sacraments and other liturgies in traditional English according to the liturgical books approved by Pope Francis.

Benedict originally conceived these ordinariates as a permanent, pastoral response to whole congregations from the Anglican tradition asking to enter the Catholic Church with their traditions intact.

In 2019, Pope Francis expanded the ordinariates' missionary mandate to invite all Protestant Christians into full Catholic communion.

They would enliven the faith of Catholics who had weakened or fallen away from the practice of the faith, he said.

General acceptance

Newton said while the UK's Catholic bishops "generally accepted" him as the UK ordinariate's shepherd, he noted it had been difficult for other prelates to accept the first "overlapping Western jurisdiction" within their church.

Unlike a typical diocese of the Latin Church which has immediate jurisdiction within a set territorial boundary, a personal ordinariate's jurisdiction can extend over its Catholic members nationwide or across national boundaries.

Source

• UCA News
• National Catholic Register

The Rev. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, visited the James Smith Cree Nation and heard stories shared by residential school survivors.

"It was the church that permitted it," said Welby. "Building hell and putting children into it and staffing it. I am more sorry than I could ever, ever begin to express." Continue reading

But this year's Petertide has been marred by what many have interpreted as an attack on the future of the Anglican priesthood itself.

As Britain's national church prepared to gather for its General Synod, which begins Friday (July 9), one of its most senior clerics submitted a paper for discussion arguing that the future lies not with clergy in the pulpit, but with worshipping communities led by laypeople.

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell — second-only in the hierarchy to the archbishop of Canterbury — first floated his ideas last year in a report from a "Vision and Strategy" (pdf) committee that Cottrell heads. But its publication last month, just before the laity, bishops and other clergy attended the Synod sessions online, has caused an outcry.

Cottrell's latest reflections include not only a proposal for 10,000 lay-led communities within the next decade but a focus on young people: It urges a doubling of the number of children attending church and what he calls "active young disciples" by 2030.

The Church of England, he maintains, has to become a "church of missionary disciples," to "become younger and more diverse," and to become a church "where a mixed ecology is the norm" — referring to a mix of digital and lay-led services.

Cottrell's plan does not include dismantling the ancient parish system, but his criticism of it — calling it ineffective "in the networks of contemporary life" — has caused fear that this will signal a major change in the way the church is structured, leading to church closures and cuts to clergy numbers.

It also points to the growing influence of American-style evangelism in historically more staid Anglicanism.

The parish system is part of the warp and weft of England, especially in rural life.

England's more than 16,000 Anglican churches still dominate the country's landscape, and the vicar and his role in village life pepper English culture and art, from the works of Jane Austen to the crime novels of Agatha Christie.

But attendance at those churches has been in decline for many years.

Despite being the established church to which every citizen theoretically belongs, only an estimated 750,000 people out of an English population of 56 million attend regularly.

An internal church report, Perspectives on People, Money and Buildings, published earlier this year, showed that church attendance has declined 40% in 30 years and warned that stipendiary clergy positions — filled by priests and deacons supported by the church — would have to be pruned.

In Chelmsford — Cottrell's diocese before moving to York — 61 stipendiary posts are being cut by the end of this year.

The biggest financial issue for the Church of England, however, maybe its buildings.

Three-quarters of its churches are officially listed as historic and demand costly maintenance.

Some of those costs are covered by tourism and charitable grants, but the greatest burden falls on the church and each parish's membership.

If lay-led communities meeting in people's houses are the future, many fear that more of these treasures will be closed.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which led to churches being locked, collections not taken and services moved online, caused an 8.1% fall in the church's income as of November 2020.

But one of the most vocal Anglican priests, the Rev Marcus Walker, vicar of London's oldest parish church, the 900-year-old St. Bartholomew the Great, has warned that the bishop's plan envisages the death of the parish and argues that "this must be fought."

In Walker's view, the parish system has survived hundreds of years precisely because it works so well.

"The parish system works because the parish is local. It responds to local needs," he says.

What has particularly alarmed Walker and his fellow priests is that publication of Cottrell's paper coincided with another given at a conference on church planting supported by Cottrell and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, which goes much further in its critique of parishes.

Critics believe this second paper lifts the lid on the thinking of an increasingly influential evangelical strand of Anglicanism.

Canon John McGinley, a priest in the Diocese of Leicester and a leader in New Wine, a church planting and renewal organization that is part of an evangelical surge in the Church of England, argued at a recent conference that lay-led communities release the church "from key limiting factors," such as buildings and clergy pay and training.

He envisages a new Anglican lay structure based on groups of 20-30 people meeting in people's homes.

Archbishop Welby told the same audience at Multiply X 2021 that church planting would be a new discipline for Anglicans.

"We are not meant to leave Jesus inside the church when we go out, and pick him up again when we come back in the following Sunday but to go with him," said Welby.

Anglicanism has always performed a balancing act between a sacramental approach that puts the Eucharist at the centre of the life of a worshipping community, requiring a priest to celebrate the sacrament — and an evangelical idea of the church focused more on Scripture and lay leadership.

The Rev Andrew Lightbown, rector of Winslow, Buckinghamshire, said: "Within the reformed Catholic tradition of the Church of England we are a sacramental church. And it is also incredibly important that at the end of every service people are blessed and sent out to do God's work. You don't do that with a lay-led church. This plan could be rolling back hundreds of years of theology and changing the Church of England."

Lightbown also pointed out that a lay-led group of 20 would not have the same inclusiveness and sense of service to the whole community.

"The parish church is not limited to the worshipping community. It is there for everyone. Will these new lay-led groups carry out baptisms, weddings and funerals?"

The Rev Barnaby Perkins, of St. Peter and Paul in West Clandon, southwest of London, offers another difficult question in Cottrell's proposal: Will lay people be diligent keepers of the faith? "There has been a change in the way the hierarchy views the clergy, but there is a need for them to teach the faith and order the life of the church," he said.

Source

• Catherine Pepinster is an author at Religion News Service
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

A spokesperson for the Network of Survivors of Abuse in Faith-Based Institutions, Liz Tonks, told RNZ that "victim-survivors were not hopeful because their experiences of churches is they have not been able to trust them in the past."

"They've known for a long time, they have never taken action.

"Survivors have been negotiating with them and telling them they need redress for decades and decades and they know the age of some of the survivors and they are likely to die without it if it's not given to them, so they have had plenty of chance to stand up and take action," she said.

Tonks told RNZ that the churches have not changed and suggests they are not likely to.

"It's irrefutable now. They say they are listening, they say they are learning. We think there is enough evidence that suggests they should have learnt by now."

Similarly, the newly formed survivor group in New Zealand, SNAP, is calling on churches to ‘own the truth'.

Spokesperson Christopher Longhurst, also a professional church theologian, accuses churches of a lack of action and is calling on the Royal Commission not to take church witnesses at face value.

"We hope that for example in assessing church protocols and church documents submitted to the hearing that the commission looks for signs of concrete action has (sic) taken place. For the application of what has been promised because we know from our experience that what the churches are promising, has promised, has not been delivered."

"Despite what the church are (sic) saying about listening to us and being compassionate, constantly time and time again members of our network have evidence to show the contrary, so we simply hope the Royal Commission will not take what these witnesses will present at face value", Longhurst told RNZ.

This week the Abuse in Care Royal Commission began the second part of a two week hearing into faith-based redress.

It follows, in late 2020, the Commission receiving shared personal testimonies and survivor experiences of being abused while in church care.

During this two week hearing, a select group of leaders from the Anglican, Catholic and Presbyterian Churches and the Salvation Army, will appear in front of the Commission.

According to David Cohen writing on RNZ, the $78 million Royal Commission is the most expensive royal commission in New Zealand's history.

"To date, it (the $78 million) has mainly been a cash cow for the policy analysts, the consultants, the career-enhancing secondees and others among its 197 employees, rather than for anybody who actually suffered abuse in any of these old places between 1950 and 1999", writes Cohen.

Sources

• RNZ
• RNZ
• Tekupenga

Weather forced the event indoors, but spirits were not dampened as David Midland and Salvation Army Brass Band led the rousing mid-winter carols in the drier surrounds of the beautiful St. Aidan's Church. Continue reading

On a short visit to Isfahan during the holiday, Iran announced inter-city travel restrictions so Bushra and Nada were separated from relatives and had to find temporary accommodation.

15-year-old Nada told TVNZ that they were unable to go out: "and it's pretty dangerous, and this coronavirus is kind of getting out of hand, and we're running out of money.

We're unable to afford a place to stay at soon, and we're unable to afford warmth, food."

St Hilda's Anglican Church is in Island Bay Wellington.

Cutts recognised her in the TVNZ item.

He felt called to help Bushra, and through a series of providential connections —Hamed, a travel agent; and Sahra, Bushra's elder daughter—he created a Givealittle page for her.

However, Givealittle takes a month to pay out crowd funders, and Bushra's need was much more immediate than that.

Cutts approached the leadership of St Hilda's, asking them to underwrite the page so that the travellers could come home as soon as possible.

Through the church's Barnabas Fund, for people who need emergency relief, the church was able to help. The Givealittle page was created on Monday, April 13.

"By about 1 am that night—I was staying up late looking at it—people had given a thousand dollars," Jonathan says.

Jonathan used social media connections to help promote the Givealittle page.

Donations reached more than $8000 in just two days.

Three days after the Givealittle page was started, Bushra and Nada left Tehran on Qatar Airways, the only carrier still operating out of the country.

Through the kindness of strangers, they arrived in Auckland, after a layover in Qatar.

They were quarantined in a hotel in Auckland until May 2.

Source

• tvnz.co.nz
• movementonline.org.nz. Shanti Mathias
• Image: screenshot tvnz.co.nz

Around 140 people responded to the call of Bishop of Wellington Justin Duckworth and Bishop Eleanor Sanderson to join the Anglo-Catholic Hui between 15-17 August, and to focus on ‘high church' resources for building up the church's mission. Read more

The taster involves attending the Anglican Studies weekend at Hiruharama/Jerusalem on the Whanganui River from Friday 31 August to Sunday 2 September. Continue reading

Anxiety about the quality of those who aspire to become clergy is rooted in the series of child sex abuse scandals that have emerged from Anglicanism's mother church over the past 20 years.

In testimony given last March to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse — the public body set up to investigate abuse in many organizations, including churches — Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner said his diocese could use psychological testing of ordinands to assess whether they are suitable.

He said the testing is "something we will be starting later this year."

Last week, Julian Hubbard, director of the Church of England's Ministry Division, said in a statement, "This has been given added focus by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and the requirement to provide greater assurance on the effectiveness of the selection process. So we are examining its potential as a means to identify candidates who might pose a risk to others."

"But this is not only about safeguarding," Hubbard added.

"It is vital to use all means available to find people with the right skills and aptitudes for this unique, but very challenging, calling."

The Church of England currently uses a variety of assessment methods for prospective ordinands, including lengthy interviews, written exercises, questionnaires, group discussions and detailed references.

But Leslie Francis, a canon professor of religions and education at Warwick University and an expert on psychological profiling of clergy, said more intensive testing can help spot pathologies such as narcissism.

"Both introversion and extroversion can reflect the divine image," said Francis, "but it is also very wise for the church to consider pathologies."

In the book "Let Us Prey: The Plague of Narcissist Pastors and What We Can Do about It," researchers R. Glenn Ball and Darrell Puls estimate, based on their 2015 study, that about a third of ministers in one mainline Protestant denomination in Canada showed signs of a narcissistic personality.

Narcissists often come to apprehend God as a rival, not a loving presence, and eventually may see themselves as God. Continue reading

• Image: RNS

He disagrees with the recent decision made by the Anglican Synod to give bishops the freedom to allow the blessing of same-sex couples in their dioceses.

The motion allows only for blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples who have been married elsewhere.

The proposal also gives each diocese's bishop and clergy immunity from complaint if they refused to conduct blessings of same-sex couples.

Behan is chair of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans New Zealand (FCANZ), an evangelical conservative group within the church, that opposes same-sex blessings.

A statement on the FCANZ website greeted the synod vote with "deep sadness."

"We are ready to support people and parishes that cannot remain within this changed Anglican structure.

"We will work together nationally and internationally to provide fellowship and support as we look towards new ways and structures of ministering the unchanging good news of Jesus," it stated.

FCANZ is governed by a Trust Board located in Christchurch.

It is unclear how many members it has. The FACNZ website reported that a total of nearly 500 Anglicans attended two conferences in Auckland and Christchurch to launch the organisation in 2016.

FCANZ is the New Zealand arm of a Global Movement known as the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA).

FCA is closely associated with Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCOM).

It is a coalition of Anglican bishops, archbishops and lay people from around the world.

They come mainly from churches in the southern hemisphere - Africa, Asia, Australia, South America - but also enjoy the support of unhappy conservative evangelicals from the US, Canada and England.

According to a Guardian report, gay clergy and same-sex unions are the main issues for FCA.

However, members are also unhappy with the west's failure to proselytise to non-Christians.

FCO claims to represent around half of the world's 77 million Anglicans.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• theguardian.com
• anglicandownunder.blogspot.co.nz
• fcanz.org
• Image: newshub.co.nz

But it still won't marry homosexual couples in church.

The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia's vote lets ministers bless gay couples in same-sex civil marriages or civil unions.

The vote happened at the church's biannual synod in New Plymouth this week.

The vote lets bishops either grant or deny priests in their diocese permission to bless gay couples in committed relationships.

In New Zealand, the Anglican Church comprises three wings: Maori, Polynesian and Pakeha.

The three wings have debated the issue for 50 years.

Polynesians reject gay relationships

The Polynesian group opposed the motion to allow Anglicans' blessing of same-sex relationships.

It says Pacific islands will never accept it and abstained from voting.

It abstained so that it wouldn't restrict the Pakeha and Maori wings.

The motion passed finally by a large margin.

To allow Polynesian and other conservative churches to opt out of the changes, they will not form part of official liturgy.

Instead there are no written blessings. Ministers will deliver them informally.

Despite the compromise, two prominent conservatives resigned their posts.

Rev Jay Behan, a member of the ruling synod and Rev Al Drye both quit after the vote passed..

They said, "We leave with no anger or bitterness in our hearts and we wish you the best as you seek to serve the Lord Jesus Christ."

Another conservative group, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans New Zealand also dissented.

As a result of the vote's outcome, it says it believes that the General Synod acted in a way that left biblical authority behind.

It says it's ready to welcome other conservatives opposed to the decision.

Support came from Very Rev Ian Render, who is dean of Waiapu Cathedral, gay and and married.

He says, "I would like, in this late stage of my stipended ministry life, to feel as though I - and everyone else like me - finally will have a place to stand in this church."

Source:

• Newshub
• Christian Today
• Image: Newshub

The primates and general secretaries of the Anglican Church in Australia, the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea, the Anglican Church of Melanesia, and the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand, and Polynesia made the commitments in a communiqué following their recent regional meeting in Fiji.

As part of its commitment to tackling climate change, the church leaders:

• Encourage investment into sustainable energy as a valid option for investment funds
• Encourage their various trust boards "to consider restructuring their investments to maximise returns from such innovative ideas
• Ask Anglican schools in the region's four provinces to integrate "climate change topics into the current curricula."

On gender-based violence they:

• Welcomed the work of The House of Sarah - an initiative of the Diocese of Polynesia, which works to end violence against women and children
• Encouraged and supported the zero tolerance for violence policy as promoted by the House of Sarah
• Encouraged all provinces to adopt and implement the Anglican Consultative Council's (ACC) Safe Church Charter
• Committed themselves to review and respond to the guidelines coming from the International Safe Church Commission,

This is the second time in two years that the Anglican leaders in the Oceania region have met in this way.

They will meet again in Melanesia next year, and in Papua New Guinea in 2020.

They were joined at this year's meeting by an Anglican Communion delegation led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

Source

• anglicannews.org
• Image: anglicannews.org

He and his wife Jenny have been living in Whanganui for three weeks, in the St Peter's vicarage in Koromiko Rd. They are currently sharing the four-bedroom house with a young family.

They'll stay there until they know where else God is calling them to live.

The Wellington Anglican Diocese extends from Ohakune to Wellington and across to the Wairarapa.

Continue reading

Although some synod members consider the moves as being controversial and threatening to the fundamentals of the Church of England, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York both backed the proposals for an Anglican-Methodist reunion.

The move was backed by 290 synod members, with 59 voting against it and 24 abstaining.

If the Methodist Church agrees, priests and presbyters will be able to minister in other's churches. The opportunity to reunite will be considered at the Methodist Conference later this year.

If approved, the new relationship of the two churches "being in communion" could end a 200 year-old schism between them.

The Bishop of Coventry says the proposals "work towards healing a tragic division in the Church of England that John Wesley fought hard to avoid and brought such anguish to his brother - a tear in the fabric of our church".

He says the next phase of unification will help end "the scandal of the body of Christ being divided".

Rev Gareth Powell, who is the secretary of the Methodist Conference, said both churches "have an all too easy acceptance of the scandal of disunity.

"Complacency in the face of our disunity hinders not only mission, but impairs our witness to Christ, our ability to live in the image of God, and be effective channels of the Holy Spirit".

Two matters are of particular concern in relation to reuniting the two churches.

One is whether Methodist presbyters would have to be re-ordained to provide a unified and public catholic witness. The synod report proposes the Anglican Church recognise Methodist ministers' holy orders.

The other issue is about how churches should be led.

Anglican churches operate under an episcopal model with bishops seen as following on from the apostles, as the Church's leaders. As bishops consecrate more bishops and ordain new clergy, the "apostolic succession" continues.

Methodists do not accept the idea of "apostolic succession" in the Anglican sense.

If the churches were to reunite, an Anglican bishop would take part in ordaining new Methodist ministers, enabling them to enter the "apostolic succession".

The Methodist Conference says it is willing to receive the episcopate as long as partner churches acknowledge that the Methodist Church "has been and is part of the one holy catholic and apostolic church", Ruth Gee, former president of the Methodist conference says.

Source:

• The Tablet
• Christian Today
• Image: Church Times

More than 1000 people attended the ordination of Father Henry Bull as the new suffragan bishop of the Anglican Church in the Northern Division.

He was ordained on Sunday (10 December) under a large corrugated iron roof, held up by scaffolding because the journey to Holy Trinity Cathedral in Suva would have been too difficult for his supporters.

Anglican Taonga, the official news service of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, put it this way: "Around those parts, many folk are subsistence farmers - and for them, a long and complicated trip to Suva, on the far side of Fiji's other main island, Viti Levu, for an ordination in Holy Trinity Cathedral was possible in theory, maybe - but so too, is flying to the moon."

Henry Bull was born and raised on the remote coast of Vanua Levu. And his ministry radiates from the Church of The Holy Cross in Dreketi - which he helped build.

"I wanted the people to know that the real church is not the buildings - but they themselves, the living stones," he told Anglican Taonga.

Archbishop Winston Halapua, the Bishop of Polynesia, said that the idea that Episcopal ordinations have to be done in cathedrals "is what has trapped us in the past."

He said: "What we have seen today is that where the people are - that's like a cathedral. This is eye-opening for the diocese."

Archbishop Philip Richardson, the senior bishop of the New Zealand dioceses, commented: "One of the great characteristics of Anglican leadership is a sense of being incarnated in community - being really embedded and immersed in community."

Source

• ANS
• Anglican Taonga
• Fiji Times
• Image: Anglican Taonga