The Five Marks of Mission

It’s amazing how often the Bible is panned as “an old book” or “old fairy tales” by writers of comments on websites. Actually it’s a whole series of books written over a period of nearly a thousand years, in many styles, by many people, for many reasons.

Some of it is history (but not in the way schools teach it), some is symbolic story-telling, some of it is poetry (some is even love poetry, and one chunk is quite risqué) some of it is rules and recommendations, some of it is spoken stories that got written down in a bit of a hurry when the leaders of faith-communities (sort of like church congregations) realized that the eye-witnesses of events were dying out. Much of it is written in weird styles, appropriate to their day – or sometimes deliberately weird even then – to help the people who saw themselves as God’s people, help them in their journeys through life and death.

The people who see themselves as the People of God – people privileged to be somehow connected to this God we can’t see – found inspiration and instruction in this vast collection, and eventually collected it together and called it by one name, “bible.” Then they called it “holy” because, well, it was so special to them (to us). But “bible” roughly means “library” so really it covers a vast range of experience. And then we all come along and interpret it in an enormous range of ways, and places and times, and we admit sometimes we do that really badly. But sometimes we don’t, and these writings inspire great acts and lives of courage or humility or dedication. And on the whole we just hope (and yes, pray) that it just inspires us to be a little more like the people we should be.

There’s that strange, unprovable thing again. Some people thought the early Christians were drunk because they prayed in weird ways, moving their lips but making no sound, or moving their lips and making weird sounds. And so on.

Anglican Christians, perhaps because of that Celtic influence (see the article below) are often a bit restrained when praying, frequently following a book (or one of many) that has been formed by the experience of countless Christians over the centuries before us.

But that sort of prayer, all formal and structured, is only one way in which we communicate with the God who we believe (that word again) hears us. We can swing from the rafters with the best of them sometimes – sometimes (in a few places) we even swing smoke that rises to the rafters to remind us that prayers sort of spread out through the universe like the beat of a butterfly’s wing … yet we believe, too that they don’t just reverberate around a hollow universe, but somewhere out there and even right here a remarkable, loving, creating, hope-bringing God hears and responds to us (not always in the way we want, though!).

Anglican Christian Faith: three words, so much hidden within our whakapapa, our kaupapa, our kōrero. Anglican? It just means “of England,” really. Which is probably not what we really want to convey, though the first missionaries came from that neck of the woods. The Scots and Americans prefer “episcopal,” which is not much better as it means, sort of, “bishoppy.” It is supposed to say something distinctive about us but to get the meaning of either “Anglican” or “Episcopal” we have to dig quite deep.

Perhaps “Anglican” these days can just be taken to mean that we have a way of doing things that is deeply grounded in our Celtic past, though now of course we acknowledge and incorporate the great taonga that Māoritanga has gifted us too. But yeah, our way of doing faith is deeply earthed in that part of the world that was inhabited by Angles: our whakapapa amongst the Angles, the Picts, the various Celts gave us a quite distinctive, sometimes rather reflective, rather ordered way of doing things, including worship and even governance, and we’ve often held on to it.

Christian? We say it so easily after two thousand years of calling ourselves that. Originally it was a nickname … like “All Blacks” or “Silver Ferns.” Perhaps it’s almost like a franchise name like, well, “Highlanders” or “Southern Steel,” I guess. “Christ” meant “anointed one,” and the early followers of Jesus of Nazareth believed he was the anointed King of his followers. Usually they preferred the word “Lord,” and by saying “Jesus is Lord” they were saying he was equal to God and therefore bigger than Caesar. By saying “king” or “anointed one” they were making clear he was serious stuff, especially in the context of the brutal dictators of the Roman Empire. It was a pretty big deal, and brave of those first followers to wear that nickname. The proof of the pudding was in the eating, and their experience of Jesus before and after he was killed, and they believed resurrected, seemed to them – and us – to prove the pudding.

And faith? It’s a complicated word. Faith, belief, knowledge … they’re all subtly different, but “faith” was a key word to those early, risk-taking followers of Jesus. One of them called faith “the assurance of things hoped for.” Believing in the unseen, the unprovable, but sometimes longed-for meanings to life beyond what we know. Believing them so much that we sort of do know them, but perhaps through the knowledge of the heart, rather than the brain? Which doesn’t mean brains aren’t useful in this business, but that sometimes we have to take a leap into the unprovable first.

We kind of like it when people join us on that strange, unprovable journey. We call this: Living out the Life of Jesus Christ

Each of the Christian denominations has its own history and flavour, and that affects the way we manage and see ourselves. Since ancient times the Christian community has had big gatherings, like a parliament, which make binding decisions on the people it oversees. At one stage it was all bishops and important people like that, but in the last few hundred years, since our break from the Roman Catholic community, we decided to give ordinary clergy and those who aren’t clergy a say in the running of the church. So every year they gather at a parliament-sort-of-thing called a “synod,” which just means “gathering,” to make rules and policies and some public statements that express our beliefs about the way we and society should be going. We don’t wave big sticks any more, like we used to try to, but we do like to be as best we can a responsible and visible part of the wider community.

What all this means is that change can be a bit slow in our church community, but we try to get there in the end. It means that big egos can’t dominate, and that new ideas take time – sometimes seemingly endless time – to become reality. It means that, like an ocean liner, we take a long time to change, and sometimes we have to correct the changes, and that takes time too. But it means too that we wrestle with issues at a deep level, and that when we do eventually formulate a policy on any issue (some big ones have been changing attitudes to gender and sexuality, the environment, the big-picture ways we manage our properties and assets) we lock it in securely.

As it happens we’re also in some matters locked into Acts of Parliament, and that makes matters even more complicated. Basically, though, “synod,” or “synodical,” as a model of church leadership just makes sure we don’t blow too much with the wind, yet that we can co-operate and adjust in a changing world where it seems appropriate to us to do so.

Of course we happen to believe that there is a God guiding us in all these complex processes. Sometimes that’s quite hard to believe, when as individuals we don’t agree with outcomes. But that’s part of the deal with being part of a big and mixed up family.

The Anglican Church in Otago and Southland is made up of two main entities: The Diocese of Dunedin and the Dunedin Diocesan Trust Board.

The Diocese of Dunedin is a registered charity CC31504 whose charitable purpose is: Proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Teaching, baptising and nurturing believers within Eucharistic communities of faith. Responding to human needs by loving service. Seeking to transform unjust structures of society, caring for God’s creation, and establishing the values of the Kingdom. It operates within the religious activities sector (education / training / research, health, community development, social services, arts / culture / heritage) with its beneficiaries being religious groups i.e., children / young people, older people, General public, Family / whanau). It was formally constituted in January 1869 (previously coming under the Diocese of Christchurch).

The Diocese of Dunedin structure includes 26 Parishes/  Deaneries and 6 Local Churches in the Otago and Southland provinces, as well as social service agencies in Dunedin and Invercargill, residential homes for older people, a psychogeriatric hospital, a girls’ secondary school and a university hall of residence. The Diocese of Dunedin operates under the Canons of the General Synod te Hinota Whanui (Anglican Church in NZ), specifically under Title F Canon IX Charities Act Requirements (see Rules document).

No parishes have status as individual charities (they are all covered by the Diocese of Dunedin charitable status): Parishes operate within the wider church structures i.e. having their own governance structures (Vestries) with an annual general meeting to appoint officers. They are governed by the Diocese of Dunedin Standing Orders, Standing Resolutions and Statutes of the Synod of the Diocese of Dunedin, in particular Statute 3: The Parishes, Regional Deaneries and Local Churches Amendment Statute 2019. The Synod also has a Standing Committee (The Diocese of Dunedin Diocesan Council) which meets regularly in between formal Synods, and a Diocese of Dunedin Trusts Board (comprised of Diocesan Council elected members) which oversees all appointments to the Boards of Diocesan entities (see below).

Parishes/Deaneries and Local Churches maintain their own accounts, although some use the Diocese of Dunedin Administration Office accounting services, and all church faith communities supply annual accounts for the consolidated Charities return. The Diocesan Office also provides payroll services for Clergy and other staff employed throughout the parishes.

The Diocese is currently configured into 5 Archdeaconries (Geographical areas) with overall oversight by the Bishop of Dunedin: Dunedin City (including South Otago); Oamaru and East Otago; Central Otago; Rural Southland and; Invercargill. Each Archdeaconry is led by an Archdeacon, usually an existing senior clergy or lay leader in a parish or deanery. (see https://www.calledsouth.org.nz/churches/ for more information).

The following Diocesan Entities are under the Diocese of Dunedin control and are regulated by Statute 17 “The Diocesan Institutions Statute”. They have their own separate Trust Deeds/Rules and charities numbers, with Trustees being appointed via the Diocese of Dunedin Trusts Board (Diocesan Council) for three-year terms:

The following Diocesan Organisations are independent entities that are controlled by their own Statutes, Deeds, Rules and/or under other arrangements. Some or all of their members are appointed by the Diocese of Dunedin Trusts Board (Diocesan Council). They also report to Synod each year.  Please note: Selwyn College – Te Maru Pūmanawa incorporated with the NZ Companies Business Office as a Charitable Trust on 30 March 2022 (incorporation number 50099251, NZ Business Number 9429050461837): it is currently controlled by Statute 19. Anglican Family Care (originally Anglican – Methodist Family Care Centre) was incorporated in 1978 and the deed varied in 2004 to reflect the current identity. It is governed by Board of up to 8 people appointed by the Diocese in its sole discretion for terms of two years, with the Bishop of Dunedin being an ex-officio member of the Board, and a Director (General Manager) with speaking rights at meetings.  St Hilda’s Collegiate School is governed in part by the Board of Trustees and in part by the St Hilda’s Collegiate School Incorporated Society. The school has a direct affiliation with the Diocese of Dunedin, deriving its Special Character from its close association with the Anglican Church as outlined in the 1979 Integration Agreement with the Minister of Education, the Rules of the St Hilda’s Collegiate School Incorporated Society and Statute 20, The St Hilda’s Collegiate School Statute. Leslie Groves Society of St John’s Roslyn is under the control of St John’s Roslyn Parish (Diocese of Dunedin) who appoints their Board and voluntarily submits a report to Synod. North Otago Anglican Homes (NOAH) Trustees are appointed by the Vestries of St Lukes-Maheno and Waitaki-North Oamaru. See page 9 for a full description of Trustee appointment processes and also: https://www.calledsouth.org.nz/organisations/.

The Dunedin Diocesan Trust Board (DDTB), registered charity number CC362214, has two main roles:

1. Firstly, it manages two investment funds (the Income Fund and the Growth Fund) as trustee for diocesan institutions, e.g. social services, residential and community based services, educational institutions and so on. These bodies deposit funds with it. The total funds under management in the two Funds is currently over $41.3 million dollars.
2. The second major responsibility of the Board is the legal ownership of all Diocesan properties: it acts a trustee for all Diocesan institutions including local churches and parishes, who are the beneficial owners, i.e. they make use of these resources for their mission and ministry. In this capacity, the Board arranges insurance of properties under the terms of Statute 9, The Insurance Board Statute 1939. It has also taken a leadership role in the assessment of properties for seismic stability.

The Board meets monthly, as does its subcommittee known as the Investment Committee. The Investment Committee monitors current investments to ensure the best returns possible and that they meet ethical business standards. This Board is incorporated according to the Canons of the General Synod te Hinota Whanui (Anglican Church in NZ) and is controlled by the Dunedin Diocesan Trust Board Amendment Statute 2022.

Summary of Trustee Appointments made through the Diocese of Dunedin Trusts Board (Diocesan Council) and Dunedin Diocesan Trust Board (DDTB):