Kia Ora and welcome to the Parish of St John.

 Our congregation is made up of ordinary people from all walks of life and backgrounds. We’re young and old in age, single, married, divorced and widowed, new Christians and mature ones.

• We understand your life problems – because we’ve all had our own problems and we care about you and your family.
• There is an unconditional welcome waiting for you and we trust you will enjoy worshipping God at our varied services – both contemporary and traditional.
• What can you expect? For some people going anywhere for the first time can be a bit of a nerve racking experience. We aren’t super spiritual beings, we’ve all had a first day somewhere and you’ll find us a friendly bunch. Welcomers will meet you at the door and don’t be afraid to tell them you are a new visitor.

After the 10 am service we enjoy a cup of tea or coffee in the lounge and you are invited to join us and meet other Church members. All Hymns and prayers are projected onto the big screen for easy reading.
St Johns Parish is fortunate to have two sister churches in Hairini and Pirongia. Services at these churches will be found on the Service Times page.

We are pleased that you have taken the time to visit our website and we would be delighted to welcome you to any of churches in the parish. We are richly blessed in having alternative buildings.

• If you would like Home Communion, please let Bev at our office know.

• Please visit our new Facebook Page

A message from Rev Murray Olsen

May 2012

(From Murrays Report to the AGM)

Dear All,

When I was a curate here in 1998 a direction of travel for the parish was set by way of setting six goal areas which would underpin how we functioned as a parish: Worship, Youth, Mission, Pastoral Care, Spiritual Growth & Outreach. We also created a Mission Statement and a Vision and these were:

“In the power of the Holy Spirit we seek to grow and be part of God’s transformation of the parish family & wider community“.

The Parish of St John’s  aim was “  to mobilise the shared ministry of all the baptised“.

For a number of reasons we have lost sight of these. One of them was that they were not adequately communicated to the wider congregation so they did not take ownership of them.

Now in 2012 we are going through that process again to establish a new vision and goals for the Parish, goals that will pave the way to 2017. These are important because ‘vision is seeing tomorrow so clearly as it shapes today’. This is backed by Proverbs 29 18 – “Where there is no vision the people perish: put he that keepeth the law, happy is he  “(KJV) or ” If people can’t see what God is going, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what He reveals, they are most blest ” (The Message)

All of you will be able to have an input into the process and you will continually be informed as the process progresses through all the stages.

We have already started this process. Firstly we had the Lenten programme of Study ( which was open to everyone) where the topic was mission, which generated conversation how the scriptures related to our situation. This was followed up with a vestry/lay ministers/clergy facilitated consultation day at St Saviour’s on 31 March which came up with these value statements for the Parish:

“We are a community created by God, loved by God and dependant upon God.

We are Christ centred and Christ in action“

The following  areas were identifiedas priorities for us to focus on and discuss further:

• Prayer
• Listening to God
• Listening to the Community and building relationships with it
• Learning how to step out in faith with confidence
• Developing and ebncouraging each others God given gifts

But we are not going to stop there, as there are a number of steps to go through before we can translate all these values into a vision and goals. These steps are outined below. All along the process there must be two questions in our mind: “What does God want our parish to look like?” and Where does God want our parish to be in 2017?”

The Steps

1. Over the next few Sundays our services are going to focus on the values that came out of the planning dayt. We are going to cover such topics as worship, Christian growth, mission and ministry
2. On Saturday 9 June there will be a Day of Prayer for the whole parish. PArishioners can come and go as they like. THe focus will be on listening to God . It is important that all take part in it.
3. The results from step 2 will be collated.
4. Vestry will meet on the morning of Saturday 23 June and use  the collated results to develop a Vision and the ministry and mission goals.
5. There will be a PArish meeting to finalise the outcomes of step4 after the service on Sunday July 1
6. There will be a Special General Meeting to adopt the newly created Vision and Ministry and Mission Goals on Sunday 22 July
7. Action. The Vision and Mission and Ministry Goals will form the basis of the whole of our parish life until 2017.

Let us all be committed to the process so that, in the words of  ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ – “God who made thee mighty, make the mightier yet”

Blessings

Murray

“Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths you are there” Psalm 139:7-8

St Saviours, Pirongia

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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