St Serf's News and Events

Rector’s Letter August 2011

Rector’s Letter
Dear Friends,
As many of you know Robert and I are looking forward to a two month sabbatical starting at the beginning of September; an opportunity to visit the wider Church in a diversity of settings. We start off in Moscow but, with only two days there, it will be a matter of visiting the cathedrals in the Kremlin but not really connecting with the people of the Church. Still, it will be interesting to get some flavour of a Church that refused to be crushed by the ferocity of Bolshevik and then Stalinist persecution. We travel on by train to Beijing via Mongolia and hope to have contact with the growing Church in that city during our five day stay. Language may well be a difficulty in communication but the music of praise is the same in all languages. Flying on to Hong Kong we will meet again with the Revd Bill Robertson who was a ministry student on placement with us in the ABI Group. He now serves as chaplain to the Bishop’s School in Hong Kong. I will be interested to hear about the place of an Anglican school in Hong Kong society, having recently visited the St James School in Kolkata. Onward then to Melbourne and hostel accommodation beside the Anglican Cathedral there and a chance to look at the diversity of Anglicanism in the Commonwealth of Australia.

Our main destination is New Zealand and I have to admit that the Rugby World Cup extravaganza comes into it, though we could only afford tickets to one match. However, we will be making contact with our church friends in Wellington and Southland; Anglican in the first, Presbyterian and Anglican in the second. I spent two years in New Zealand in my early twenties so it always has a feeling of coming home about it. Twelve years ago I was in Canterbury and Southland looking at local collaborative ministry and I learned much that helped in the setting up of the ABI Group of Churches. I also experienced the healing ministry in the Cathedral at Dunedin, a form of ministry and service sensitive to Anglican order and, let’s admit it, reserve. This too became part of our ABI churches ministry.

I hope to have much to share when I return in November and meanwhile I leave you in the safe hands of the Revd Maureen Stirzaker supported by the Revd Jean Cook. I am grateful to them both.

Yours in Christ
Val Nellist