NO we are NOT living in a secluded commune!

How embarrassing! After all the news coverage we got last week, my friends and family now think I live in a COMMUNE! Yes, a flipping’ “commune”! When I was a kid in school at Orewa, one of our teachers was a bushy-bearded hippie who lived in a Puhoi commune. We thought that was weird. It…

Read More

The Dreadlocked Barefooted Bishop of Wellington

Update: Watch the news on TV and read May 5 NZ Herald interview. Original: Some very exciting news. The papers are ablaze this weekend with the announcement that Justin Duckworth has been elected Bishop of Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city.  “The Anglican Church needs to be ”dusted off” and it believes a dreadlocked, barefooted priest is the man to do…

Read More

Finding your inner monk

You are never too young to be a monk. We have been enjoying this weekend with a bunch of young people (16 – 25) from around New Zealand who are part of the Order of St Stephen (OSS). Nice people. Mostly Anglicans, maybe all of them Anglicans, probably due to the re-launching of this monastic Order…

Read More

Covenant Making is not always evil

Yesterday I was at All Saints [Hataitai] Church to witness and participate in a covenant signing ceremony. But before you get all excited about that word “covenant“,  I should tell you that: 1. Yes, I know all about last week’s contract/covenant controversy at Mars Hill Seattle and agree that covenants can be abused to control people…

Read More

Pioneer Mission Leadership Training

Great news for training for Anglican ministry and ordination, especially young people working in pioneer urban situations. I have blogged about this a few times along the way because we have been supporting this process in a number of ways. Heres the news: CMS has been given the BIG THUMBS UP to train ordinands in…

Read More

Prophets of the New Order

Ngatiawa Community, a contemplative monastery of Urban Vision was featured last month in the Anglican publication Taonga. Justin Duckworth [pictured below] has a Youth For Christ past as well as a Baptist background but felt that the Baptists already had lots of good works going. The Anglicans, however, needed some encouragement. Thus the decision to…

Read More