For more than 90 years, Knapdale-Waikaka Presbyterian Church in Southland has placed a high priority on supporting local and overseas mission.
The parish instituted the Waikaka Missionary Support Group 50 years ago, and many in the parish are also supporters of the Waidale Missionary Trust, a large livestock trading scheme that supports over 40 New Zealand and overseas mission organisations through finance and prayer.
Church member Elinor Collins says that the Waikaka Missionary Support Group currently supports both financially and through prayer four SIM missionary families working in Africa. The families have chosen Christian education and medical ministries.
The church’s history of supporting missionaries dates back to the 1920s, when they supported missionary and local man Jack Nicholson in Nigeria.
The Support Group has supported two of the SIM missionary families for 20 years and the other two for around three years. “When [one missionary] retires we look for another to give our support to”, Elinor says.
The Knapdale-Waikaka Church has encouraged mission within its congregation and has helped several teams from the church’s youth group take mission trips to Fiji and Samoa, and recently helped Bruce Wilson, a Knapdale-Waikaka youth group leader, to travel to Uganda to build school classrooms with Breakfree Expeditions (in association with Tearfund). Bruce, an apprentice builder, was based for most of January 2010 in the village of Watoto.
To raise money towards the $7000 cost of the trip, Bruce, who’s 18, came up with unusual fundraising ideas, including a toilet-paper sale, and a Safari themed ball was organised by several of his youth group friends.
Bruce has attended Knapdale-Waikaka for the past year, and Elinor says he is part of the growth the church has seen during the past 15 months.
“For some years our church numbers were in decline, then quite recently we started to see youth come to us in increasing numbers, and some began to bring their friends from non-church homes, and one or two have even brought their parents. We presently have no permanent minister and have not used any programmes to attract youth.
“For about 14 years, 10 to 12 people, including the then-ministers, met together for prayer early every Tuesday morning. We prayed for God to revitalise our parish, and the Church as a whole, and we are convinced that the increase in numbers we are seeing is God’s answer to our prayers. Now on a Sunday morning, we have around 70 to 80 come to worship and one third of them are in their teens to early 20s. We now have 40 in our youth group. We are delighted when new, young faces turn up.”
Elinor says over the years the church’s style of worship has changed to some degree, but basically remains traditional. “We sing a mix of modern and older songs and we have a music group of about 12 people playing a variety of instruments. Two of our youth group have taken turns at preaching – one was very nervous and there was spontaneous applause when he finished! Quite often our young people take children’s talks and Bible readings at services.”
It is the traditional style of the church that, Elinor speculates, the youth are attracted to. “One of our young women who went to a large city to study was back on a visit and said that she doesn’t like the big churches because you don’t get to know everyone like at home.”
The youth group are friends, says Elinor, “who are very active; they play volleyball in Dunedin, go on three-day tramps, go to camps, rabbit shooting, to balls, the pool, play cricket, paint ball, have dessert and movie nights and they always take turns in reading a devotion and have a week-night study group.”
Knapdale-Waikaka is looking for a minister, and Elinor says, “we want someone to join us as we follow the terms of our mission statement: ‘God’s mission for the Knapdale-Waikaka Parish is to help people to know Jesus Christ in all His fullness’”.
By Angela Singer