Today we celebrate Waitangi Day, a very important day in the history of our nation – and in the present and future also.  A lot of the recent discussion around Waitangi Day has been about whether we should get a holiday when it falls on a weekend … but there are more important issues!

It’s a great pleasure to welcome Keith Newman to speak at our services today, along with his wife, artist Paula Novak.  I have recently read Keith’s book “BIBLE & TREATY: Missionaries Among The Maori – A New Perspective”.  I found it fascinating!  Not to mention inspiring, enlightening, and encouraging.  I’m really looking forward to hearing what Keith has to share with us today, on a subject that is so significant for us as we seek to understand our past, and what it means for our present and our future.

If you are not at Night Church this evening, you may be interested to listen to Keith being interviewed at about 8.30pm on NewsTalk ZB.  He’ll be doing a phone interview from KBC.

It can be hard coming back from holidays!  The thought of getting back into another year of routines and regularity can seem somewhat unappealing when you’ve just got into relaxed vacation mode.  As I started back at work this week, I read something which got me reflecting once again on the monumental significance of Christmas, which we have so recently celebrated, and what it means for us as we move into another year of worship and mission together …    

 It is often said at Christmas that Jesus is born into every family and every heart. But these “births” must not make us forget the primordial, massive fact that Jesus was born of Mary among a people that at the time were dominated by the greatest empire of the age. If we forget that fact, the birth of Jesus becomes an abstraction, a symbol, a cipher. Apart from its historical coordinates the event loses its meaning. To the eyes of Christians the incarnation is the irruption of God into human history: anincarnation into littleness and service in the midst of overbearing power exercised by the mighty of this world; an irruption that smells of the stable.    

(Gustavo Gutierrez)

 Holidays are great, and it’s good and important to be renewed and refreshed and revitalised.  But our calling is to keep on going with our Saviour into the routine and regular aspects of our lives, and to be the incarnation of His love in humble service.

I read these words this week …

When people tell me they are Christians, my first response is a question, “Really? Already?” It seems to me that it’s a lifelong endeavour to try to live the life of a Christian.

 Food for thought! Certainly, “becoming like Jesus” – having His character, His nature formed in us – IS an endeavour we will be engaged in our whole lives, and I’m sure none of us would say we are anywhere near having “arrived” yet. But SETTING OUT on that journey is REALLY IMPORTANT … making the choice that this is the direction you want to head in, and opening your life to the Spirit of God to allow and invite Him to begin to transform you into a “new creation” – this is of immense significance. And at that point, it is appropriate to call yourself a Christian, a “Christ-one” … a person who has made the choice to BEGIN to follow.

 The biblical sign of making that beginning is BAPTISM. This morning we are celebrating with Jenny as she publicly proclaims her personal faith in Jesus by being baptised. By being baptised, she is not saying: “I am Super-Christian! I’ve got this Christian thing all sorted.” Rather, she is saying, “I am beginning. I have decided to be a follower of Jesus, and to put my trust in Him … the journey has begun.”

This has been a very sad week in our nation.  It has felt like there’s been a shadow over the whole country.  The name Pike River will go down in our collective memory alongside such names as Cave Creek and Mt. Erebus.  It makes you realise that we are a small country (in a good way), as everyone feels and shares in the grief to some extent. 

Today, as we begin Advent, we light the Candle of Hope.  It is good to be reminded that because of the coming of Jesus – Immanuel, GOD WITH US – there is hope, even in the midst of grief, whether that grief is personal or national.

 But also today, it is important that we stand with those whose grief is the deepest – that we pray for them, and acknowledge their pain and heartache.  As a church community today, our prayers, our thoughts, our love and our support are with the people of the West Coast.

It was good to meet together with our brothers and sisters in Christ at St. Mary’s last Sunday morning. I’ve had heaps of people say to me: “We must do that again!” I agree!

One of the really good things about sharing in such a service is that you recognise people you’ve seen in other contexts in the local community, and you realise that this person is a follower of Jesus too.

 There is also often a special sense of “God’s pleasure” evident on such occasions – and I certainly sensed this last Sunday. Psalm 133 says: How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! … For there the Lord bestows His blessing.

 We have a combined service with St Mary’s Anglican Church scheduled for Sunday October 31^st. We’ll also be combining our children’s ministry programmes with them on that day. There are a couple of reasons for this.

 Firstly, that date is, of course, Hallowe’en, and so that evening we have our very popular “Hallowe’en Alternative” for the children and families of our community. There is a lot of preparation and setting up that goes into this event, and it will be really helpful to be able to do some of that setting up on the Saturday rather than having to keep all of our premises “free” for our services on the Sunday morning.

 Secondly, St Mary’s have a special guest speaker on that morning, and invited us to join them to hear him. His name is Nigel Juckes, and he leads New Wine SouthAfrica, an organisation committed to spreading renewal among churches of alldenominations. The church where he is the minister has been described as “one of the healthiest churches” you will find, and Nigel is an internationally respected church leader and speaker. He has a passion for the local church and believes it is aninstrument in God’s hand to reach His world. So … he should be worth hearing!

 And thirdly, of course, it’s a good thing for God’s people to gather together to worship Him!

Christchurch Earthquake Report (from the Baptist Union):

In general, Baptist Churches and communities seem to be doing okay. There seem to be three groups:

Churches with badly damaged buildings (Oxford Terrace, Beckenham, Linwood’s hall)

Church communities where many people have had homes and businesses damaged, including houses condemned (Kaiapoi, St Albans, Parklands, Papanui, Breezes Rd, Halswell, and the farming community at Darfield).

 Churches with little or no damage to their buildings and in communities where the major damage is to chimneys, roofing tiles and hot water cylinders.

 Kaiapoi has been hosting a team of 28 from Te Puke Baptist this week, living marae style in the church complex. As well as doing community work and repairs, some of the team have been leading a large children’s holiday programme.

 Beckenham are thankful for their big hall, where they can meet for services.

 Linwood had the engineer in this week, but there is uncertainty over the outcome.

The organ pipes at Oxford  Terrace have been removed but the organ keyboard is still in place. The continuing aftershocks are widening cracks in the building. The engineers’ report could take three months, and the final decision about the future of the building rests with the City Council. The church is meeting in the Christchurch East School hall at present, but there is uncertainty about whether this arrangement can continue.

I thought I’d share with you some words I read this week, which made quite an impact on me. They were written by Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jewish woman, in her diary – “An Interrupted Life: The Journal of a Young Jewish Woman, 1941-1943″. Etty died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz on November 30th, 1943.

  We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies…. The things that have to be done must be done, and for the rest we must not allow ourselves to become infested with thousands of petty fears and worries, so many motions of no confidence in God. Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world. …

  I shall wait patiently until the words have grown inside me, the words that proclaim how good and beautiful it is to live in Your world, oh God, despite everything we human beings do to one another.

    Christchurch has been very much in the forefront of the news this week, and our thoughts and prayers have been with the people of that city and the surrounding area.

    A couple of things for you to consider in relation to the Canterbury earthquake …

    First of all, the Baptist Union has established a fund to be distributed to and through the Baptist churches of the region. It will be used both to help churches which have suffered significant property damage, and also to assist people who are part of or linked with Baptist churches and who are in real need. If you’d like to make a contribution to this fund, you can place it in our offering, appropriatelylabelled, over the next couple of weeks.

    Secondly, you may be thinking seriously about whether you are ready for a civildefence emergency if one occurred here in Wellington. Members of Karori CivilDefence have prepared a series of leaflets to help us make sure we are ready. The first of these is included as an insert in this newsletter. Others will follow over coming weeks.

In our morning services recently, we’ve looked at the theme of discipleship inMatthew’s gospel, asking what we can learn from Matthew’s account of the good news that can help us to be followers of Jesus, and to be the Church of Jesus, here in Wellington in 2010.Today, we are going to continue with that theme, but “change books”.  In ourservices this morning, we’ll look at Mark’s gospel, and specifically at Mark’s account of Jesus calling the first disciples – again, asking what we can learn about following Him in our context.  Then, over the next few weeks, I want to look at some “discipleship basics” – Communion, believers’ baptism, and church membership/partnership.  These are things that are central aspects of our church life, and it’s good every once in a while to pause and reflect on their significance and importance. Following that, we’ll come back to Mark’s gospel again, and think some more about the practical challenges of living as disciples of Jesus.