"We didn't want it to look like a church [and we] didn't want it to feel like an old church.

We wanted it to be a place and a space that the community can come into and be a part of no matter who you are."

Before the earthquakes the Majestic Church was located in the heritage art deco building Majestic House on Manchester St.

It was a cinema until 1970 before being turned into a nightclub and then a base for the church in 1978.

The cost of purchasing the 10.500 square metre site for $10 million was funded by the church's insurance payout.

Development cost a further $8.9 million.

The church complex includes a sport and recreation area, a commercial kitchen, a coffee machine, a large church auditorium, and sound and video editing studios.

"We're quite proud of the fact that we have repurposed some buildings that could've been pulled down and ... we love the look of the old and new together. To us, it speaks to humanity that nobody's perfect," Hanssen said.

There are mementos such as old church pews, carpet and candlesticks from other Canterbury churches lost in the quakes scattered throughout the complex.

Who are the Majestic Church?
On their website, the Majestic Church says:
"We believe God has a purpose for each and every life and that this purpose is never fully realised alone, but rather in the context of community and relationship.

At Majestic, we endeavour to provide such an environment where each person can discover and develop their life's purpose."

The Majestic Church opened in Christchurch in 1962. It has 800 members.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• majestic.org.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: facebook.com

She says they are just serving the needs of their own congregations rather than reaching out to the community and taking risks.

"Jesus didn't hang out with those who had it all together," she says.

Te Paa Daniel, who is an Anglican theologian, was being interviewed on TVNZ's Seven Sharp last Friday.

Power always protects itself and the church is reluctant to open itself up to interrogation she said.

When asked whom she was talking about, Te Paa Daniel pointed to "those people who relish being leaders". In her church, The Anglican Church, it was the bishops and archbishops and senior priests.

"But every church has its own hierarchy," she said.

On the same programme, Reverend Charles Waldegrave said there is a widespread "club' culture in the churches that make it more difficult for other people to come in.

The conservative forces are into just protecting the group, he said.

"Unfortunately, when you look at church budgets, they are much more committed to the internal preservation than they are to the mission."

As a wrap-up, Seven Sharp host Hillary Barry said, "I just want to point out there are some church groups doing some great stuff in the community."

She said the Salvation Army, the Anglican. Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic and Baptist churches all have significant social outreaches.

Te Paa Daniel was the first indigenous Anglican laywoman appointed to lead an Anglican theological college in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

She served for three years as a lecturer and was then appointed Ahorangi or Dean of Te Rau Kahikatea at St. John's Theological College in Auckland for 22 years from 1992 until 2013.

Source

• tvnz.co.nz
• anglicantaonga.org.nz
• Image: c28blog.blogspot.co.nz

"To reinstate a very damaged building, so people can say 'we like the outside of it', seems to me somewhat misdirected.

"I wonder what an empty cathedral would be an icon of."

The retiring Anglican bishop of Christchurch New Zealand, Victoria Matthews put these question last year in an interview on National Radio's Checkpoint programme.

Matthews asked tough moral and theological questions that few in the secular world ever had to confront until earthquakes changed everything in Christchurch, according to an editorial in the Christchurch Press.

She asked how a church should serve its public, what its buildings are for and what its priorities should be.

In announcing her resignation Matthews said, "I'm not retiring and I'm not in ill health, I am merely following where my Saviour is leading me, wherever that may be."

The cathedral debate has been so dominant that Matthews' emphasis on community work and social justice has often been overlooked.

She said in 2008 that "it's all too easy in the First World to live in isolated splendour and I would like every Anglican to be deeply aware that they are brothers and sisters to people living in extraordinarily bad circumstances in other parts of the world".

A multimillion-dollar youth hub to address a rise in Christchurch youth homelessness and mental health issues is on the cards after years of battling to get the project off the ground.

Anglican Care, the Anglican Church's social service agency, stepped in to help last year and bought the old bowling club site on Salisbury St in central Christchurch for $4 million.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• anglicannews.org
• stuff.co.nz
• radionz.co.nz
• Image: josephjohnson/stuff.co.nz

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a hotel room in Perth working on my six-weekly (or so) column for NZ Catholic, the newspaper I worked at for five years until 2010. It was not long after my friend James Bergin had given a stellar performance on national television talking about the election of Pope Francis, and I'd also been observing the work of a group of young Catholics in Australia also being asked to comment on the conclave, the papal election, the choice of Pope Francis and so on.

And so I wrote this column:

Did anyone else catch James Bergin on Q&A a few weeks back, talking about the election of Pope Francis?

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, James Bergin is a good friend of mine and someone I work with on a regular basis on Church projects, so I am biased. But I thought he did an outstanding job when being interrogated by a woman who would now be considered one of New Zealand's leading interviewers.

Internationally, this phenomenon of young Catholic professionals speaking about the Church in the media is taking off. My first observation of this effort was during World Youth Day in Sydney, when a small group of young Catholics were part of the Sky News coverage of the event. Rather than having professional reporters trying to explain something they knew nothing about, young Catholics were part of the massive crowds, shared their experiences and, when necessary, explained what was happening during Mass or the Stations of the Cross. Continue reading

Sources

• Gavin Abraham in The Catholic Soapbox
• See also Pat McCarthy in CathNews NZ Pacific
• Image: Planet Blog

Gavin Abraham, a journalist for more than a dozen years, has spent most of the last six years working in Catholic media.