Tuesday, October 25th, 2005
This last Sunday morning I wagged school (CSC Reunion) to attend church at North Invercargill Presbyterian, the church that employed me as a youth worker in 1984 and 1985. It was also the place where Ennis and I were married in 1985.
But of course it was nothing like the old days! Lots of families were away on holiday. The children and teenagers I worked with twenty years ago are all grown up, many overseas. There’s a new hall big enough to host a game of badminton. An excellent move long overdue.
It was good to have the invitation to share about the Seeds of Hope and Vision for Mission initiatives in Queensland. It was a reminder that I’m part of a missional network that includes a strong intercessory base. Maybe I should make more of that prayer support base.
The youth hall was still there - looking smaller than ever. This was the room where we held the newspaper night - filling the room up to knee height with crumpled newspaper. This was the room where we held our mock wedding. And the room where we held our discos. Not to mention indoor soccer and hockey games. I couldn’t resist taking a snapshot…

Tags: NZ, Presbyterian, Youth Ministry
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Wednesday, September 28th, 2005
I joined up with Wikipedia yesterday to add a bit of detail to the entry for the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. There was next to nothing entered there, apart from a list of the two Presbyterian breakaway movements in New Zealand who had got sick of the liberal theology of the main denomination.
Interestingly the two other editors for this page so far are Richard Davis (Kiwirad), a former colleague in the PCANZ national office in Wellington, now living in Dunedin, and Stephen (Blarney the Rinosaur), born in Gore, NZ and now living in Victoria, Australia.
Tags: Internet, NZ, Presbyterian, Wikipedia
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Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
Mo Mansill, my successor as National Youth Ministry Coordinator in the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, has published the results of research into the current state of youth ministry there. It’s in Spanz, the national NZ Presbyterian magazine.
The four main issues drawn out by Mo are:
1. The drop-off - or rather drop-out - from the church as young people get older.
2. The number of youth leaders serving in the Presbyterian Church � but also the number who are isolated.
3. The gender imbalance in our youth ministries.
4. The diversity of material we are feeding our young people � and the amount of people that are inventing and reinventing resource material.
Tags: NZ, Presbyterian, Youth Ministry
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