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Celebrating Achievements
The Presbyterian Church, said Maua Sola at last Assembly, is 'a humble church'. It has outstanding people who are too rarely recognised or affirmed by our wider movement. We still hold our breath whether David Tua, member of Mangere Pacific Islanders Church, Auckland, might become the first New Zealand Presbyterian world heavyweight title holder. Linda Vagana, of North Shore Pacific Islanders Church, is an exemplary member of the New Zealand women's netball team. An expatriate Pacific Island Presbyterian, David Solomona, plays for Paremata in the National Rugby League. And Beatrice Faumuina, who worships at Newton Pacific Islanders Church, Auckland, has just won a second Commonwealth Games discus gold medal for New Zealand.
The recent elections have seen a number of Presbyterians elected to Parliament. While National list MPs Arthur Anae, a member of Newton Pacific Islanders Church in Auckland, and Eric Roy, from Te Tipua in Central Southland, have lost their place in Parliament due to the poor polling of the National Party, two other Presbyterians have been returned and a new member elected. Winnie Laban, well-known in the Wellington Pacific Island community, was returned in Mana, and Philip Field, a member of Mangere Pacific Islanders Church, returned in Mangere. Don Brash, former Governor of the Reserve Bank and son of one-time Presbyterian Moderator and World Council of Churches' associate general secretary Alan Brash, enters Parliament as a high-ranking National Party list MP.
In a church where we have sometimes been more noted for suspicion rather than support of one another, we have not always been good at recognising or celebrating achievements. We tend to be better at giving raspberries than roses. But this month has seen several stunning corporate achievements, too, which our movement should acknowledge and celebrate.
After years of negotiating, Mangere Pacific Islanders Church have been able to purchase 5 acres of vacant land adjoining their church site, originally designated for a Catholic school. Costing $675,000, generous giving by their three Pacific Island congregations has enabled them to pay it off in eighteen months, and on 4 August they celebrated becoming debt-free. They have just received a substantial government grant and plan to begin utilising the extensive property by building a combined Samoan, Cook Island and Niuean pre-school catering professionally for 120 children.
On 5-7 July, Hornby Presbyterian Community Church, west Christchurch, opened its new auditorium and community complex. Brilliantly utilising and building upon its existing facilities, it incorporates a 500-seat auditorium, foyer, restaurant, meeting rooms and office block. In a largely working class area, the church has skimped and saved for a considerable time, and, using many of its members' skills during construction, completed the entire project for under $600,000. The complex has a warm, relational ambience, beautifully expressing and enhancing the congregation's twenty-year heritage of charismatic renewal and community service. It was thrilling, at the opening, to hear Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton, and representatives of the Christchurch City Council and TrustBank community trust, singing the praises of community-minded churches like this.
On 4 August, St. Columba celebrated the opening of their magnificent new facility in Botany Downs, eastern Auckland. Sited directly over the road from the new Botany Downs shopping centre, the congregation deserve recognition for their faith in seizing a brief window of opportunity to purchase expensive but strategically-situated land in the centre of New Zealand's newest and largest suburban development. They were assisted by the generous purchase price offered by mall operators Westfield for their existing church next to the Pakuranga shopping centre. But in a bold faith move, spectacularly reversing a recent history of division and demoralisation, the congregation raised half a million dollars in eight weeks to build the freshly-styled complex, comprising a 500-seat auditorium, foyer, meeting rooms, pre-school, youth facilities and ground-floor car park.
Corporate achievements like this do not materialise out of thin air. Two other organisations, among others, have contributed to these achievements. One is the Presbyterian Savings and Development Society. Founded in 1971, reporting to the General Assembly but independent of Church control, it has resourced church development though a time when our national movement was slow to release finance or focus resources for such purposes. The vision of far-sighted Presbyterian businessmen like Alan Baker, who died last September, and ministers like Sam McCay, it has made an enormous contribution to refurbishing existing church facilities and supporting new local church development. By 1991, it was supplying over half the loan finance for Presbyterian church buildings, and by the time of its thirtieth anniversary last year it had provided more than $21 million for 380 church projects throughout New Zealand.
It is also appropriate to pay tribute to the contribution made by the national board of Presbyterian Renewal Ministries through the decade 1986 to 1996, whose strategy at that time focussed on the renewal of local congregations. Led by a capable team including two people now deceased - Ray Taylor (chairman) and Rosemary Wallace (Renewal News editor) - and including such notable local church leaders as Peter Willsman, Jim Wallace, Murray Talbot and Wayne Matheson (national advisers), PRM's intentional strategy then is bearing fruit now in the emergence of significant community-oriented charismatic regional churches throughout the country. Faith communities like Hornby and St. Columba are becoming flagship churches of the Presbyterian movement.