Opening an op shop was exactly what a group of Pregnancy Help volunteers decided they needed to fund their service for pregnant women and their families. That was fifty years ago. 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 Read more
The Rev Rose Luxford of Oamaru, 30 September, was elected moderator designate at the Presbyterian General Assembly. For the first time the Assembly gathered online. Among the challenges Luxford identified are aging, shrinking congregations, and increased compliance issues for churches run largely by volunteers. “Our Church needs to be realistic about how things are, and Read more
Survivor groups are not hopeful that the Royal Commission into the Abuse in Care will bring around change in churches. 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 Read more
Work on a multi-million dollar mega solar farm to power 400 low-income households in one of Hawke’s Bay’s poorest suburbs could begin as soon as December, the developer says. Power to the People, a charitable trust formed through St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Hastings, hopes to set up a solar farm in Flaxmere with a Read more
The Presbyterian Church has made a public statement condemning New Zealand’s binge-drinking culture and calling for effective government policies to combat it. Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, the Right Rev Andrew Norton, says the church isn’t against alcohol and the community must play a role in providing alcohol-free activities for young people. But he says Read more
A tai chi class made up of elderly women and arthritis sufferers has been booted out of a church hall over fears they are a threat to the church’s “spiritual wellbeing”. The group’s leader said the 20 women had been practising tai chi in the Central Southland Presbyterian Parish hall without issue for five years, Read more
The Presbyterian church of Vanuatu and the South Seas Evangelical Church (SSEC) of Solomon Islands has formally agreed for the Solomon Islands Missionaries to serve in Vanuatu. The formal agreement was signed during the celebration of the 50th Golden Jubilee of SSEC in Ambu, Malaita. Following the agreement, SSEC’s Bishop Mathias Lima commissioned 10 Solomon Read more
Baby boomers do not lack in spirituality, according to Right Reverend Ray Coster, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in New Zealand. He says they just expressed it in different ways. He said while baby boomers and their children were the ones most likely not to belong to a church because they struggled with the Read more
Representatives of the Catholic Church and four Protestant churches in the United States have begun to discuss the Church’s mission and identity after formally agreeing to recognise each other’s baptisms. The discussion will include “unity and diversity in the Church, and the origins and current interpretations of ministry and ordination, and the nature and role Read more
The Rev Andrew Norton of Auckland will be the next leader of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. Andrew has been elected Moderator Designate and will take up the role of Moderator in late 2014. The result of the election was announced at General Assembly 2012 in Rotorua on Sunday 7 October. Andrew is Read more