Bishops’ Pastoral Letter - 27th March 2020

Dear family,

We greet you in the name of the risen Jesus, the Jesus who enters locked rooms and speaks words of peace to his friends! We say again, peace be with you.

We add our voices to those of our broader community and national leaders in reinforcing that we must follow the directives from the Ministry of Health very clearly. Acting responsibly in this way during the lockdown period is critical to loving our neighbours and ensuring that we all do our part to stop the spread of the virus and care for the vulnerable.

We want to say a huge thank you to you for the creativity and compassion that followed our call to connect with our neighbourhoods before the lockdown began. This week’s edition of Movement shares some of those good news stories and we encourage you to keep sending them into us. From people who have opened their homes to take in extra people who are in need of support and shelter (sometimes complete strangers!), to the Victoria University of Wellington Chaplaincy team who helped coordinate and move all students who couldn’t return home into a designated hall, the households of God have been busy!

As we have been connecting and listening to our family, we have been struck by two things. The first is that there is a huge disparity in the on the ground experience between areas of different socio-economic reality. In some of our neighbourhoods the awareness of need has been heart-breaking, as has been the obvious disparity of understanding and reacting to the Ministry of Health directives. We are so thankful for all the people of God who said yes to Jesus and are working hard now, more than ever, to can be agents of God’s mercy and goodness in these neighbourhoods. As one family of God we want to work together to live out the lines of our liturgy that proclaims:

Blessed be Christ the Prince of Peace: Who breaks down the walls that divide.

The peace of Christ be always with you: Praise to Christ who unites us in peace.

The second is that we can have confidence that our friend Jesus will continue to guide, renew and strengthen his church. So many of you have dug deeply into small group discipleship and have also found creative ways to stay connected and serve others. There is now a LevinAnglican FM radio station! Island Bay parish supported the Village in the Park rest home to set up digital devices so that they can connect to services. And many of you are working very hard to maintain critical services through local food banks and fruit and vege-coops, the need for which we hear has already increased dramatically.

This Sunday we will again be live streaming a service through Movement Online, coming to you this time from Whanganui! We will continue to use Movement Online to share our family stories, speak faith, hope and love to each other and to guide us in intercession for those in greatest need.

For now, may our Lord Jesus Christ be with you as you adjust to this new season and may God continually bless you with peace.

+Justin and +Eleanor