Kia ora All Saints

Guy here this week. Last weekend, we had the joy of joining 500+ other ministry leaders and their families from around the Wellington Diocese for our annual Diocesan ministry leaders family camp. We have included an article in our newsletter giving a rundown of how it all went, as well as Bishop Justin's message around communion.

The camp's theme was rebuilding the ruins, drawing from Isaiah 58. Aside from being incredibly busy Mc'ing the event in the main stage area, I found myself in awe of what God has been doing amongst us here at All Saints, as we heard from Roshan Allpress, the principal of Laidlaw Theological College on Friday night talk about the way the church particularly the Anglican church has renewed itself through new and innovative ways throughout the ages, how the new (not so new) missional communities are popping up here and there to create spaces where people are praying and discipling as well as creating spaces for those who don't know Christ to engage. As we heard from others around the Diocese about what God is doing in their context and the simplicity with which it looks and operates, I was excited by not only the things that are happening here but also the people who we have amongst us who are already or are on the verge of trying new, nimble, innovative things for the Lord.

The Lord has always been renewing the church. It swells up, and then it disperses. God is continuing to rebuild our church today, and he is using you and me to do it. Let us be prepared to be part of that renewal as we seek to see God move amongst us in our parish worship context, in our workplaces, neighborhoods, families, and much more.

This is a quick reminder that we have our AGM this Sunday. There will be a combined service at 10 a.m. and lunch following, during which we will present our finances and discuss a few other things.

I look forward to gathering with you all again this week for worship.

Much love to you all,

Kia ora All Saints

Many of us have been digesting the Lent study together, Restoring the Story: The Good News of Atonement, which has been a rich time of discipleship for many of us. We noticed the other day that the Lent study lacked any reference to the New Testament scripture in Romans 3 about Jesus as the Atoning sacrifice, which is so rich and beautiful and full of goodness. Pull it up and take a look here.

This is such a beautiful portrait of just how far God went for us, and this harks back to Leviticus and the way the high priest would make a sacrifice in the temple to atone for the people's sins (all those things we shove in the way of our relationship with God). What is beautiful and what we unpacked in a group this week is that Jesus becomes the Great High Priest (you hear this often in our communion liturgy), he becomes the sacrifice (he is the lamb who was slain), and he becomes the place where the atonement can be found (it's in Jesus that we find freedom from sin). How rich and beautiful!

I marvel at the depth of God's love for each one of us and the lengths he will go to! Take my life, God! Take it all!!

This weekend we have our combined 10am service, a large portion of our parish is at the annual diocesan Ministry Leaders Family Camp, pray for us as we gather there with 500 others from around the diocese to worship, pray, learn, and connect.

A reminder that we are gathering on the 30th for our annual AGM (approving finances) and a shared lunch.

Parish Council met on Wednesday this week for the second time this year, focusing on budget preparation and possible responses to increasing access to AEDs. We rebuilt our core culture foundations as we do every year, around things such as trust, communication and conflict, commitment to our team, accountability, and focused results. It was a really fruitful time; continue to pray for your Parish Council; they are a group that is deeply committed to God's kingdom coming, lives being transformed, and leading our community well through stewarding and governance.

Much love to you all,

Kia ora All Saints

Guy here this week. We are now well and truly into our season of Lent here at All Saints for 2025. I love what Kath from Silverstream brought on Sunday about using this time as preparation and training as we walk towards the cross.

It's timely. We are in this season as I have been feeling a prompting to look at preparing some resources and ways to participate and develop spiritual formation, particularly spiritual disciplines. Funnily enough, the world has morphed and we now call them spiritual practices; maybe discipline is too harsh of a word. As I was in Christchurch this past week with other clergy from around the country I found myself in conversation about a particular resource that focuses on Spiritual disciplines (SD), the conversation turned towards identifying that the SD are like warming up and training for the "game", but that it seems that we have turned these into the "game" itself, raising the question of, when are we going to play the game?. I found it fascinating that we so easily take something that is there to challenge and train us for the "game" and turn it into a self-satisfying exercise that we use to just continue to build ourselves up. Formation and SD are there to prepare us for the "game," the work of the kingdom, not to be the end game itself; they are also there to challenge and strengthen us, not just puff us up and satisfy us to no end.

As we journey together this Lent, let us be prepared to be challenged and strengthened as we enter the "game." As Kath talked about, giving, prayer, and fasting are all ways of expressing and reflecting the kingdom not only in our own lives but also to those around us.

If you are asking how to get into the "game" or what the "game" is, don't feel ashamed. Reach out and ask. I would love to have that chat with you. If you are asking what spiritual disciplines are, or that sounds harsh or hard, don't feel shame. Reach out. I would love to have that chat with you.

Christ seeks a relationship with us void of the things that seek to keep us apart. Let us look deep this Lent and seek to train and prepare ourselves alongside one another as we walk towards being Easter people.

Make sure you check out all that's happening in the parish's life over the next few weeks. I'm mainly pointing out the announcement of our new Youth team and our two combined services on the 23rd and 30th of March.


Much love to you all

Kia ora All Saints Whānau,

​I don’t know about you, but a highlight of my week this week was our Shrove Tuesday “Pancake Party” at All Saints. We have done this several years in a row now and it always brings such joy to my heart to see all the people that turn up. This year there were several faces that I have seen join us for other events, like the parish picnic. There were also so many people from our local community; our neighbours, school families, and friends. What a great opportunity things like this are for us to be able to open our doors and serve our community!

At one point in the evening some friends of mine asked me, “why pancakes?”. And that conversation naturally led to us talking about Lent. Later that night as I was reflecting on the evening, I thought about the fact that when I was growing up in church, despite us ALWAYS having a pancake dinner (it was an Anglican church after all!) the whole event seemed to mostly just mark an opportunity for our church family to get together and talk about what we were giving up for Lent. While the spiritual discipline of fasting or abstaining from something for the 40 days of Lent is a beautiful and valid way of reflecting on our desperate need for God, it’s not something that we regularly focus on or talk a lot about in our family. I’m not really sure why, or at what point that drifted away in my life. And as my mind went down this path, my first thought was that I was missing an opportunity with my own kids and I felt a bit guilty about it. Gosh – my kids have not one but two priests as parents and they aren’t even in a practice of giving things up for Lent?!

But then I felt the catch in my spirit that I often feel when God is trying to show me something. And I thought about the conversations I have with my kids that my parents never had with me – not because they missed an opportunity, but because the world I’m raising my children in is so vastly different than the world where I grew up in the 1980s and 90s in the “Bible Belt’ of America. My kids come home from school and say things like “Mum, why do so many people not believe in God?”. They feel fear and sadness at issues like climate change. They see people on the bus or the street that are very clearly finding life tough. Now every one of us saw hard things as kids and wrestled with the state of the world at some point in our life. And this newest generation isn’t the first to experience these things. But the difference is, they’re growing up in a world where most of their friends don’t know God like they do, don’t know the hope of the gospel. As much as I think it would do them good to give up sugar for Lent, they don’t need that in order to know the truth about how desperate this world is for Jesus. They live that every day – we all do.

Watching people pour into the doors for pancakes on Tuesday and then experience joy, community, and love was such a beautiful picture of God’s Kingdom. It was exactly what we are meant to be doing as a church - open our doors to those around us and love them like Jesus loves them. May our church always feel like a refuge and a place of joy and hope for this broken world.

Nga Mihi,

Summer