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

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 make hard decisions, yet we also need to nurture and give oxygen to those things that are healthy, life-giving and surprising. We have amazing, gifted and creative people in the Church and they need to be valued and celebrated," said Luxford.

Source: Voxy

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

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 loan from the Hawke's Bay Regional Council (HBRC)

The Trust is approaching individuals and looking at crowd-sourcing to fund the rest of its $2.7m budget.

It expressed interest in funding from the Provincial Growth Fund, which recently announced a $68m boost for the Hawke's Bay region.

But since the project was not about job creation, it did not progress to a funding application.

Project manager Chris Lambourne said the funding should be secured by December. "It's just a matter of getting signatures on cheques."

The Trust is looking at various sites, weighing up the pros and cons including the potential multimillion-dollar costs.

Three two-hectare sites were being considered for the solar farm, with some lease options available.

Lambourne said about 4000 panels would be installed. "Once the go button has been pushed, it should take about six months to install."

Profit was not the goal, which was why the project sought most of its funding through grants.

"Solar panels still have to pay their way, but it's about giving those profits to the community with cheaper power," Lambourne said.

The "pilot programme" could be extended to other suburbs if it proved successful.

"It's really about targeting health issues, which flows on to things like school attendance and employment."

"There will be great long-term benefits … we're talking about a 30-year timeframe."

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

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 the drinking age should to be increased to 20 and effective government policies that reduce the availability of alcohol are needed.

Council by-laws that address alcohol consumption are also important. Continue reading

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, but were approached by parish council clerk John Willis and told to leave last month.

Willis said while the council understood the programme did not include any religious content, it believed tai chi conflicted with the church's teachings and threatened the church's spiritual wellbeing. Continue reading

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 Islands SSEC missionaries to serve with the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu.

Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu Moderator Kalarongo Ova earlier said the church was happy about the agreement they signed.

"I and my small delegate were invited and happy to be here. We are happy to formally have an agreement of Solomon Islands SSEC missionaries to serve in Vanuatu.

The South Seas Evangelical Church is an evangelical, Pentecostal church in the Solomon Islands. In total, 17% of the population of the Solomon Islands adheres to the church, making it the third most common religious affiliation in the country behind the Anglican Church of Melanesia and the Roman Catholic Church.

The SSEC is particularly popular on Malaita, the most populous island, where 47% of its members live; there are also smaller populations are on Guadalcanal, Honiara, Makira, and other provinces.

Source

• Solomon Star
• Wikipedia
• Image: ssecorgs

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 institution of church and its formality, "They still have a sense of the unknown, the mystery, the wonder of life. They may still have a sense there may well be a God, or not know what it is but a power greater than us."

He says he understands the public's scepticism of religion and its leaders because of inappropriate conduct and behaviour across denominations.

"There is no excuse, every leader who preaches the Bible needs to adhere to the Bible."

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Sunlive.co.nz

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 of authority and the episcopacy", the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a press release.

The bishops said the last topic is a direct response to Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint, in which he invited other Christian leaders to help the Pope think about the ministerial role of the bishop of Rome.

"We now have the opportunity to reflect together on what it means to be the Church, Christ's body in and for the world," said a joint chair of the dialogue, the Rev. Cynthia Campbell of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

"I know that this will be an opportunity for spiritual growth for the participants, and we pray for the Church as a whole."

The agreement on baptism between the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Christian Reformed Church in North America, the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ was the result of six years of study and consultation by scholars during the Catholic-Reformed dialogue that began in 1965.

It marked the first time the Catholic Church in the United States has ever signed such an agreement, although Catholic bishops' conferences elsewhere in the world have done so.

The five denominations agreed to recognise each other's baptisms when water and the Trinitarian formula of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" are used.

In 1993 the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity called for ecumenical agreements about baptism, so that "the various Churches and ecclesial Communities arrive as closely as possible at an agreement about its significance and valid celebration".

Sources:

Catholic News Service

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (study on the Church)

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (agreement on baptism)

Image: Journey into the Son

Andrew is the mission leader of St Columba Presbyterian Church in Botany Downs.

Born in Fairlie, he studied at the University of Otago and the Presbyterian Theological Hall. After completing his training in 1984, he ministered at St Andrews in Invercargill until 1990, when he shifted to Glenfield-Albany, and Glenfield Presbyterian Church in 1993. From 1999 he has ministered at St Columba Presbyterian Church, Pakuranga, which in 2002 was renamed St Columba Presbyterian Church at Botany after its relocation to Botany Downs.

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