Welcome
New St Johns Anglican Church , Arawata St Old St Johns Anglican Church Arawata St
Kia Ora and welcome to the Parish of St John.
Happy New Year to our readers!
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 Murray
February 2012
Dear All,
I hope you had a joyous Christmas and a well earned rest over the New Year.
Christmas in the St John’s Parish was a wonderful experience for me, but it was also busy – what with children’s services, the Clergy Bash, Midnight Mass and Christmas Day services. I would like to thank everyone who helped me to make all the Christmas services so special.
Our main focus in 2012 will be mission. The first step is to find out what God is saying about mission. For, to quote Archbishop Rowan Williams, “It is not the church of God that has a mission, its the God of mission that has a church”. The problem is the Anglican Church has lost this focus on mission. Yes, we have been sponsoring various overseas mission agencies for many years, but we have lost our way in terms of local mission. This is because we have relied on people coming to the church for baptisms, confirmations and weddings. Our mission was based on come, come to us, come to our services. We have lost the sense of going into our communityes and sharing the love of God. To quote Rowan Williams again: “God is at work in the world to redeem creation and God invites us to participate in this mission. God is not interested in getting more and more people into the instituitional church. Instead, the church is to be God’s hands and feet in accomplishing God’s mission”.
We are going to start our focus on mission with a series of studies over Lent entitled “Gods Mission and Ours” where we will be finding out what God says about mission. So please commit yourselves to coming to these studies so each of us can take part in God’s mission in our community. There is some information about these studies in the church magazine. Finally, as we enter into New Year, let us reflect on the words of the famous prayer “God Knows”. The poem published in 1908 by Minnie Louise, was part of a collection titled The Desert. It caught the public attention and popular imagination, when Queen Elizabeth handed a copy to her husband King George VI and he quoted it in his 1939 Christmas broadcast to the British Empire.
“God Knows
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ” Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown”:
And he replied:
” Go out into the darkness and oput your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way”
So I went forth and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.”
Let us do this in 2012, the year of mission.
Blessings
Murray
” Love…. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” 1 Cor. 13: 4-7
St Saviours at Pirongia
St Pauls at Hairini
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