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Outgoing Moderator energised by mission-challenge

By Amanda Wells

Garry Marquand is relentlessly positive about his time as Moderator.

Despite the challenges facing the Church, he says, “basically, without exception, it’s been enjoyable and I’ve found it energising".

While the Church has called for the Moderator to be a mission leader, he sees this as about being a catalyst and “not some guru or a messiah”.

“Sometimes I’ve been in the right place at the right time to confirm thinking for key leaders. I’ve tried to provoke further thought and to challenge people.”

Garry says while no Moderator deliberately seeks out the office, he didn’t feel reluctant to be appointed. “I had a sense of God saying, ‘this is the time for you to be in this position’.”

His tenure has marked several changes to the way in which the role of the Moderator is carried out. The Moderator now sets the agenda for visits to presbyteries rather than presbyteries planning the schedule, which is a change Garry says has been well received and has proved worthwhile. Another change was renewed emphasis on the Moderator’s role as mission leader. “I agree with that absolutely.”

Garry says he’s managed to keep a reasonably balanced life during his time as Moderator, partly because “I’m the type of person who can say ‘no’ to things”. He has continued to oversee preaching and leadership in the two churches of his parish, Fairfield Presbyterian in Hamilton , though other support has been provided. “The hardest thing has been missing some key parish events: both celebrations and difficult pastoral times.” Garry says he intends resuming parish ministry, “but I’ve always served in the presbytery context as well”.

Highlights of his two years as Moderator include his recent visit to the World Council of Churches meeting in Brazil , which meant mixing with its “amazing diversity” of members. “I think the Western church needs to be listening a lot more closely to the Third World . We are too proud; we need to open ourselves to what God is doing in the Third World .”

Garry says another stand-out event was Connect, the annual gathering of youth leaders, which was full of energy and enthusiasm. Young people should be playing a crucial role in the Church’s decision-making, he says. “We need to let them form our life; they have a critical place in the formation of our life for the future.”

He says the strength of being Presbyterian and being a denomination is that together we can do things that we cannot accomplish individually, especially smaller congregations. “Every church context is caught up in bigger contexts. The Church needs to be able to address these larger issues.”

He says that there is a subtle shift occurring in every grouping in the Church: a realisation that the future has to be centred around mission. “And it’s about also seeing that together we’ve got to grapple with that. The intensity of our other divisions will wane somewhat. I think that realignment is actually happening. It’s a slow process.”

Rather than focusing on the terms we use, such as “mission”, change in the way we do things needs to happen first, he says. “People are changing their terminology to use the word but not actually changing anything else. But it’s about starting with those who are outside and allowing them to determine what we do in the inside.” People need to let go of the concept of control, he says. “This is not my church or anyone else’s; it belongs to the Lord.”

One thing that has surprised him is the lack of a sense of urgency within our churches. “There’s little understanding of just how urgent the need for change is. We are losing faith communities; that’s what it means when we lose members because of our aging congregations. We’ve got to be a lot more concerned, even angry, about the situation.”

The attitude that “she’ll be right” can cripple change, he says. “If we were running a business experiencing this sort of decline, the sense of urgency would be extraordinary.”

He says the future will involve being brave enough to grow in new ways using evangelism, which is a term that many of our people find difficult. “But if we’re going to turn the church around and move to a place of growth rather than decline, it’s going to involve engaging with people and helping them in their faith journey. The people of New Zealand , and especially the younger generation, are increasingly willing to talk about spiritual issues. We have yet to learn to capitalise on that.”

One key strategy for the future is creating different congregations that serve different groups of people, whether cultures or generations. Costs are kept low because infrastructure, such as buildings, already exists. “We need to get in the business of planting new congregations.”

He’s passionate about leadership in the church and says that this issue is perhaps the most critical for our future. “We need to learn how to identify and release new mission leaders in order to build congregations with robust health.

“A lot of our key leaders are tired. They have been wonderful, faithful and loyal servants for many years, but in a very changed world they are struggling to know where their church should go next. But I believe they can have real confidence in the young emerging leaders of our Church.”