Napier Baptist

!!WARNING, LONG POST - I THINK AND HOPE IT'S WORTH READING!!

Have just flicked through the latest copy the NZ Baptist and 2 articles stuck out to me. The first one is by Charles Hewlett. Charles is the director of Ministry Training at Carey Baptist College. He is an amazingly caring person whilst at the same time being an amazingly wise and profound person. It's always a thrill to have a chat to Charles or to hear from him. In his article Charles talks about his role as the Chairman on the Borad of Trustees of his son's special school for children with extreme physical and intellectual disabilities (of which his son is a pupil). In his article he relays a touching meeting he had with the school principal and deputy principal who stopped during the meeting only to look out the window at the disabled children and say "Don't they just look so beautiful" Charles said "it brought tears to my eyes. These women (the DP and the Principal) didn't see the frames of wheelchairs. They didn't focus on the white stick that Ricky was carrying. They didn't hear the excited screams of my James as he walked along. They weren't put off by the uncontrolled arm waving, or the contorted expressions on their faces. Rather these women looked out the window and saw boys and girls that they knew personally. They looked and saw people with personality and potential. They knew about the children's struggles and pain and appreciated all their small achievements. They saw the boys' and girls' naive innocence, their sense of humour, and their enjoyment of life and they valued it." He goes on to say "As a pastor (his role before Carey) I would look at people and think "What can they do and how can they contribute? We have our formula all worked out on how our church can grow and we look for and value the people who have the skills to help us achieve it. It s easy to invest our time with those who will give a good return on our investment. We like our services to look good and to run smoothly and therefore we can easily value people who look good and can do and present things well. As I write these comments I have just returned from the special school's break-up and prize giving. It it probably the closest thing I know to heaven on earth. Oh, the world would look and think what a shambles. The people there look funny and their bodies are broken, twisted. They dribble, they rock, they jump up and down, they yell out when they get excited, and they wander up the front at the wrong times...But the love, the joy, the compassion, the acceptance, the depth, the closeness, the unity is just unbelievable. People looking after other's needs before their own, people slowing down to help. No one is judged for what they look like, OR FOR WHAT THEY ARE ABLE TO DO - OR NOT (emphasis mine). People are valued and appreciated for who they are. May this be true of our churches also. May we appreciate that worth goes way beyond what we can do and what we look like. May we look hard for the beauty within people and then take genuine interest in their lives and what happens to them during the week. Let us be people who ask the question, "How can I help you?" rather than, "How can they help us?" And when they contribute in their very small way, value it significantly!"

Wow! Thanks Charles!

The other article that struck me was in the Readers Forum and is a report on the latest Baptist Assembly we had in November (which I attended). In it Roger Driver-Burgess commented on how outstnding the Assembly was, especially the sermons by Paul Windsor and George Wieland on Acts 17 and Acts 15 and implications for mission from which the whole assembly split into groups to discuss these texts and how they might impact how we perceive mission for the local church. In these groups there was much talk about how our local mission isn't cutting it and how we need to rethink our mission as churches. We came up with sentences that spoke about how we might think of mission in new and fresh ways for 21st century New Zealand. This was encouraging to many people to sense a fresh breeze blowing into our movement of churches. But the author said he was startled from overhearing one of our long term missionaries say that she was so angry she had to walk out! When he asked her what the problem was 'she explained that she had heard us agreeing that, as a movement, we were failing to reach our fellow kiwis with the gospel; and our response was to talk about it? Why weren't we repenting with tears?! We had seen there was a problem with strategy - she saw that there was a problem with sin. Our immediate response was to respond with our head - she was amazed at our heartlessness. She is right.' He says 'in Cindy's words I immediately knew myself.' Having been at this assembly, and this was my highlight of the assembly (even if I wondered where all these sentences, phrases and words we came up with might end up?), this article has impacted me. In Roger's description of Cindy's comments 'I immediately knew myself.'