Vicar's Letter - 23 June 2022

​Kia ora All Saints Whānau
 
Happy Matariki weekend to you all! This is the first year that we are as a nation celebrating Matariki, Māori New Year, which heralds a time of remembrance, joy and peace. It signals a time for communities to come together and celebrate.

This Matariki we as a parish are gathering on Friday 24th June 2pm for a time of reviving and cleaning our building and land, a way of us each connecting with one another and caring for the resources and land we are privileged to have access to. A time of great joy and celebration together as we spend time with one another. This will be followed by a feast of Fish and Chips from 5-7pm as we spend time eating and fellowshipping together. Young and old together as whānau. We know that there is so much that happens over shared experiences and food so make sure you don’t miss out and pop down to All Saints tomorrow (Friday 24th June) there will be something for everyone to participate in.

This coming Sunday is Central Gathering Sunday and we are launching into our new sermon series call “a kingdom of” where we will explore together who was Jesus talking to on that mountain he gave that great sermon from! What is this kingdom he’s speaking of? We will be looking at the scripture from Matthew 5: 1-12, we will read this same passage each week as we go through this series was a way of building upon it each time.

As a short reflection for us this Matariki, as we consider the greatness of our God and the depth of the personal relationship we have through Jesus, one thing we have been wrestling with our Missional Huddles over the last few sessions is what does a rhythm of rest and work in Christ look like and how does this affect the way operate in life and ministry. Consider John 15:1-8 We are called to remain in him and he in us, there we will bear much fruit. As we remain him we will bear much fruit. Consider the semi circle (image attached), we often operate out of a place of needing to rest from our work. But Jesus says remain in me come close, let me work on you, let go of some things while we spend some time together. This of course will be different for us all, walking, hiking, sailing, reading, listening to music. From that place lets go to work, from that place lets see fruitfulness and when the time and season comes again lets come close to the gardener again, lets let some things go, cut away the stuff we don’t need and we go again. What does resting or sabbath with Christ look like for you? Weekly, Quarterly, annually? How about we put the big rocks in of remaining in him first and then we operate out of that place and see the fruitfulness of Christ in our lives and community!!  







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​If you want to know more about the semi circle shape click the link below.

https://youtu.be/s0PQ10l95bk
 
Check out the rest of our newsletter for things that are coming up in the near future and ways that you can continue to get involved.

ngā mihi nui

Guy 

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