Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Mission Studies

ANZAMS 2003 : Towards a Theology of Mission for a Reformed Church in New Zealand

John Roxborogh, Abstract.

In 2002 I prepared a paper for the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand which sought to express a theology of mission for a Reformed Church in Aotearoa New Zealand today. The results are still being digested by the church, but this paper will reflect on the story of the process as well what I found myself trying to say and why through the the statement itself.

Discussion will be invited on how the statementmight be changed in relation to other Christian traditions, its strengths and weaknesses in terms of imagery and connectedness to the Aotearoa New Zealand context, and ways it might be critiqued in the light of the understanding of mission of people at the conference. The statement itself is "open source code" which may be a theological statement in itself!

The current version of the statement is as follows:

A Theology of Mission for the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. 

The Church is about worship and about mission and about being a sign of the presence and the coming of the Kingdom of God. We seek to be a worshipping community that nurtures faith, a faithful community that stimulates mission, and a missionary community that is rooted in worship. In music and word, poetry and movement, art and action, we come just as we are as we also strive to offer the best that we can be. In home and community, workplace and church, we serve others through being true to ourselves, and by claiming God’s promise to do more than we can ask or think.  

The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, as part of the Church Catholic, and the Reformed family of Christian churches, exists to call people to worship God, to follow Jesus Christ, and to make him known. We recognise the authority of the Word of God over the church and the world, and our responsibility to discern, obey and proclaim that Word. We bear witness to the grace of God in Jesus Christ and to the gift and gifts of the Holy Spirit. We are thankful for the goodness of creation and acknowledge our responsibility to respect its integrity and to share its gifts. 

In this land of beauty and uncertainty, of living covenants and broken promises, of renewed hope and slow justice, of open spaces and shifting values, we would see Jesus, and ask that he teach us to pray. We want to live lives that make it more easy and not more difficult for others to believe in God. Not for ourselves only do we seek to build communities that make it possible to live the Christian life. We want to seek and to share truth, to encourage faithfulness, to facilitate a sense of wonder, to stir curiosity for the things of God and of creation, and never to lose our respect for wisdom. We acknowledge our inability to be all things to all people, but we aim to be a safe place for lovers and children, for the elderly and the awkward, for the hurt and the handicapped, for the different and the simple, for friends and the friendless, for those who have found success, and those for whom there is no place to rest. Without one another we are incomplete in Christ. 

We recognise our responsibility to respect the cultures of our heritage, to affirm what is good, and to challenge all that makes people less than human. We confess that we see justice in different ways, and perceive paths to peace through different routes. We struggle with the burden of discernment through prayer, study and debate. We acknowledge the pain of change and the cost of renewal.  

In every age the Scriptures speak with fresh relevance. We join the prayers of the Psalms with the passions and anxieties of our lives. We share the wanderings, faith and failures of the people of Israel. We respect the profundity and example of Paul. We hear Jesus’ promises in the beatitudes, his challenge in the Sermon on the Mount and his humour and seriousness in the parables. In communion we share memories of his life, death and rising again. Like the first disciples we worship even as some of us have doubts, and also like the first disciples we accept his call to go, to baptise and to teach. We recognise Jesus’ authority and claim the promise of his presence. We pray that the Spirit of the Lord, which came upon him, may also be upon us, to bring good news to the poor, liberty to captives, sight to the blind, and to inspire words and deeds which say that the time has come when the Lord will save his people. 

The men and women who brought us to New Zealand also shape us. We recall with nostalgia and respect heroes of conviction, the struggles of ordinary life and stories of costly faith. May we learn from their failings as from their success, and imitate their faith not their foolishness. May we too take risks to find pearls of great price. Help us also to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and our neighbour as ourselves. 

In identifying old and new challenges of mission in our time, we affirm our particular desire: 

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