Gareth Bezett

I drank Mello Yellow today. This is, apparently, a limited release. I can't remember well enough to judge the reproduction of the flavour, but I was happy just the same.

I had a drink with my wife and a friend at Mount St Bar at Vic Uni after work today. It was a fantastic day weather wise and, as it was the last working day of the month, I had been working all day.

My plans for the weekend are to write an essay and a sermon, to proof read two essays for my wife and to clean the kitchen floor.

Our intrepid yoof minister hosts Early Morning Prayer at St Mary's on Tuesday mornings. He promotes it to the yoof as "better than sleep". I tend to agree. Those of you who know me and my love of naps, long and short, will understand what a significant statement this is. I would much rather be praying on Tuesday mornings than sleeping in.

One of my goals in recent weeks has been to get better at starting the day with prayer. Tuesday mornings and Thursday morning devotions at the parish office have helped with this considerably. It is still not a habit. I still have to remember to stop and pray rather than check emails, drink tea, etc. I am, however, getting better.

Now that Wendy's has opened in Courtney Central, I seem to find my way there quite a few times a week. This may be connected in some way ith the fact I am revisiting belt holes that I thought I had left in the past, but it's hard to be sure.

Went to an evening service at another church. I enjoyed the vision-casting sermon. It was a bit more of the same: less programmes, more about "being church". That this theme is coming through consistantly from church leaders is encouraging. We are still a bit unclear about how this new focus will play out, but I don't think that's bad think just at the moment.

Did some more "up the front" stuff at church today leading the 10:30 service. I never trust people when they say that things went well. The Apostles' Creed reflection went well, but I thought that Christ the Judge (Sistine Chapel alter wall) was a bit to detailed for the screen. We planned the service to get all the distractions (notices and stuff) out of the way at the start so the sermon, prayer time and extended sung worship just sort of flowed. I was pleased.

Today i am working on a sermon and an essay. They are both "due" about the same time. My sermon is the first week of the Old Testmant Challenge 2: The Law of the First Step which is about the book of Joshua. The whole book is a bit long for just one sermon, but I've chosen the bits I want to focus on.

The essay is on Mark 1:1-20 and I've got my paragraph topics sorted too. The problem with working on things in advance of them being absolutely urgent is that I have very poor efficiency. Posting on my blog seems like a much better idea than actually writing my essay.

I don't know if this is just the "proper" thing to put on a vicar's headstone, but I like it.

This is a detail of the painting of the legend of St Eustace at Canterbury Cathedral. It depicts Eustace praying in the middle of the river after his sons are carried off by animals. This is an image that is part of an ongoing revelation that I am trying to come to terms with. Another part of this is Punch and Judy:

Anyone familiar with Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban will understand how these images are related, but it was the combination of a Punch image and the discussions about Canterbury at Synod that eventually brought the Eustace scene to mind. My initial interpretation of the meaning is not very positive, but it is something I will continue to pray about and discuss with my faith community.

I'm not used to getting this sort of message and it might be that I am way off, but I'm inclined to not accept coinsidence as an explanation for things so much these days. I'm told that God is speaking to us and if we don't hear it's becuase we don't listen.

At the invitation of Prison Fellowship NZ, I went to the Faith Based Unit at Rimutaka Prison today. It was far from easy, I would have been completely overwhelmed if I didn't have Mark from PFNZ with me. I can't imagine how someone would know what to do without help.

I meet a couple of the inmates and the staff that were around. I feel a lot better about the visit now I've had some time to reflect and I think I might be of some help as a mentor to the right person there. I expect the first few visits to be hard, but I can normally slot in to institutions successfully.

http://www.bezett.com/publish/apostles_creed_reflection.ppt

This is a Power Point presentation I have made for some reflection time in an upcoming service. Please copy, modfiy and use freely.

In the Nicene Creed, we say:

"We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church."

A New Zealand Prayer Book (ANZPB) says in the Catechism:

"It is one because it is one body, under one head, Jesus Christ. It is holy because the Holy Spirit dwells in its members and guides it in mission. It is catholic because it seeks to proclaim the whole faith to all people to the end of time. It is apostolic because it presents the faith of the apostles and is sent to carry Christ's mission to all the world."

For many, there is some tension between being one and being holy. The entirety of people professing to be Christian is enormously diverse. We have different practices and different beliefs in many areas, but what happens when those differences are in areas that some of us feel are fundamental, not inconsequential? This is exactly the situation that the Anglican Communion finds itself in today. Many, possibly the majority (at least of those in leadership), of Anglicans in North American feel that homosexuality is morally neutral or at least not a fundamental issue. For leaders in the "Global South" and other orthodox/conservative Anglicans, homosexuality is absolutely and possibly very wrong. Therefore the issue of consecrating homosexual bishops is an area of dispute.

The approach of +Rowan Williams and other moderates is to ask for restraint, asking North Americans to not do what they believe is right (or at least not wrong) in the interests of keeping fellowship and communion with the global Anglican church. This is something like what Paul recommends in 1 Cor 8 (if you believe that homosexuality is not an issue).

This is an approach that I support. However the flip side of this is that I cannot ask restraint of others and not exercise it myself. I might feel that blessing of same sex unions or lay presidency at the Eucharist are something the church in New Zealand should be doing, but we can't unilaterally start down these paths and object to others going down their preferred paths.

My overall feeling coming away from Synod and still after a little reflection is positive and hopeful. I feel that the energy and debate time went into areas that are genuinely important.

A motion expressing the diocese's desire to remain in the Anglican Communion and to support the work towards a covenent was passed (with helpful ammendments and long debate) with near consensus. This was moved in response to the request from +Rowan Williams for Anglican Primates to bring an indication of the mood of their provinces on the covenant the next Primate's meeting.

I was pleased to see two of our Archbishops in the flesh and was generally impressed with +Tom's chairmanship and leadership.

All is not yet lost.

Well, nothing yet to prove my preconceptions wrong. A room full of boring old white people. The presentation have the occasional interesting idea, but very little content that actually relates to real-world ministry. The vast majority of people are sitting looking bored and only a handful have spoken in any meaningful way.

The section on mission-shaped church, which looked hopeful initially, turned into another conversation on mission shaped church within the parish leadership just like we always do. Our table was "randomly" selected to give feedback on one question and I was the nominated to do the talking. What followed was an embarressed attempt to recap on the main points we covered.

Went to gen-i's business technology seminar today. Some some interesting stuff including software virtualisation and a preview of the "next wave" of microsoft technology. Missed out on the prize draw yet again.

This point was raised in a recent email conversation about churchy things. My correspondent wasn't asking about the history of the office, but more why they come to her church with their funny hats being all intimidating. I don't know the answer to that one, but I can give my public a quick run down on the history (because, having passed my first year early church history paper, I'm now an expert).

The early Christian communities around the Mediterranean had different models of leadership and organisation. Some had a collegial style of leadership by elders and/or priests (presbyters) and some had an overseer (bishop). So when some people say that the early church had bishops, they are correct and when others say that the early church didn't have bishops, they are correct too. However, during the 2nd Century the episcopal (bishopy) model became more prominent.

The result was that bishops were in charge of most sizable Christian communities and often of smaller or rural communities nearby. In addition, the bishops of important cities such as Rome and Alexandria began to have an important role in leading their regions. This is where the Pope and the Patriarchs come from.

Some denominations have seen bishops as a late Catholic addition to the Church. This is sort of true depending on your definition of late and if you concede that everyone was catholic to a greater or lesser extent in the beginning. This would also be true of church buildings, but not many Christians are prepared to give up their churches. Other denominations and independent churches reject any clerical leadership, but if you can tell the difference between their pastors and priests, you're doing better than I am.

Is there anything lamer than the "I can't think of anything to Blog" post? No, so I need to develop a point quickly.

Um... so, a point...

I really like the Berry Fruit Smoothie by Simply Squeezed.

I watched Drop Dead Gorgeous on TV last night. I was just watching for want of anything better to do when I started to notice that it had a great cast. The movie was great. Funny in unexpected ways. I recommend it.

So even since I saw Ghost World, I have been living under the illusion that Scarlett Johansson plays Donna in That 70s Show. The actress that plays that role is actually Laura Prepon. I think a movie reviewer might have led me astray.

I have uploaded the backlog of essays from my theological study to my essay and sermon notes page. Be kind, these are my first Uni essays ever.

I have finally used up the supplies I bought for the initial setup of this outreach. The good news is that the parish seems to be supportive and will assist with stocking the supplies. I hope to have the groups doing the work donate cash to cover the costs so the overall cost to the parish will be minimal.

Who says "Holy Christian Church" rather than "Holy [c/C]atholic Church"?!

I this a North American anti-Catholic thing?

What is it about me that makes me such a slow learner and allows me to trust things that Microsoft tells me? The cool, helpful controls and objects that are provided with VB 2005 Express for data access are giving me such grief that I am considering starting from scratch without them. I write web-based applications with VB Script and ADO and hand-write all my SQL statements and they seem reliable once I troubleshoot them, but with my VB app ("it will be good for me to use VB for a change" - yeah right) I get a form working nicely and then when I come back to it a week later, it's all flakey. I'm unclear on the relationship between the table adapters on the data source schema and the instance in the form's definition. Maybe there's something to look into there.

Why does someone have to die to be appreciated?

I've been listening to American V. I'm not sure I'd get it if I hadn't already had American IV and My Mother's Hymn Book. The Walk the Line soundtrack was also good fun.

My my blog is not co-operating. It will not publish. It is Blogger or my hosting FTP service?

This is the toilet that Stagecoach provides for bus drivers at Karori Park.

I have had a flick through the material for Synod. I was please to see an hour and a half set down for discussion of Mission Based Church particularly using Mission Shaped Church from the C of E as a key text.

There is also a motion on being in full communion with Canterbury which should be interesting.