Discovered this from Bosco Peters on http://www.liturgy.co.nz/resources/badge.html

"Worship, I contend, is essential in the church's mission - whatever your denomination. Parish and other Christian community mission statements regularly highlight this centrality. Worship, liturgy, especially the Eucharist is understood by most to be "the source and summit of the Christian life" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 11). St Ignatius Loyola understood "The human person is created to praise, reverence, and serve God" (The Principle and Foundation).

Sometimes, however, and most surprisingly, worship does not feature in significant church and denominational mission statements. . . I would argue there has been a loss of the pivotal place of worship and liturgy, Along with this loss of worship's primacy has been the loss of the unifying power of common prayer, of common worship.

In the (even recent) past a variety of interpretations could be held around common spiritual practice. WORSHIP FIRST is a call to restore the central and unifying aspect of our Christian life and mission - whatever our denomination."

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Some similar concerns of mine are on http://roxborogh.com/mission.htm

John

Telephone Evangelism: I have just been trying to contact a retired Anglican church leader. Various numbers and no English accents (it used to be you could sort out the Presbyterians and the Anglicans just by accent).

A retreat house answerphone repeated a cell phone number as if announcing a hymn from Ancient and Modern. "Please ring cell phone number xyz, pause, number xyz."

A diocesan answerphone declared in authoritative tones "Please make your choice carefully after the tone." I felt my eternal life depended on a correct answer and fully expected to hear "press 2 for heaven, press 3, number 3, for hell."

It was a relief to get a helpful person with a neutral kiwi accent - and not to wind up in the wrong place.

Here goes with another reactivation! There are a number of other blogs I would like to link to, and some things to say and share.

I am now retired from the School of Ministry, renamed the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership, but chuffed to see how the transition to an internship model of theological education has taken shape. http://www.knoxcentre.ac.nz/ My succesor Jason Goroncy http://www.blogger.com/profile/13581661 will be starting next year and I feel that the teaching of Presbyterianism can be fun will be in good hands.

In August Jenny and I attended the 12th International Association for Mission Studies conference in Balatonfüred Hungary before visiting family in Oxford, catching a few days in Paris (Versailles and Chartres) a visit to Sissinghurst gardens in Kent, and a wedding of the daughter of Malaysia friends in All Souls Langham Place in London.

We are currently completing the renovation of our holiday "crib" on the Otago Peninsular. Jenny is hard at work - and I am meant to be marking papers.

New Zealand, like the States, is in the midst of an election. It will be interesting to see if Labour can pull off another term in office, but the McCain Obama show is a bit more exciting.

John

John and Jenny Roxborogh : Study Leave 2006

John will be on study leave from the School of Ministry until mid-December. From mid September he and Jenny will be based at Westminster College, Cambridge, one of the training centres for the United Reformed Church in the UK.

On the way over John will be visiting the Centre for the Study of Asian Christianity at Trinity College in Singapore discussing Archives for Mission and plans for consultations in Budapest in 2008 and Edinburgh in 2010. He will have 10 days at Seminari Theology Malaysia where he will be teaching a course on History and Mission in Southeast Asian Christianity, be leading a one-day library and archives workshop, and giving a seminar on Presbyterian Polity. He stays with friends in the south of Thailand before going to the 3^rd European Missiology Conference in Paris, 23-28 August and spending a couple of weeks trying to do something about his French at the Alliance Française.

Jenny and John meet up at Heathrow on the 10^th of September, have a week with daughter Rachel, son in law Grant, and the grandsons in Oxford before going to Cambridge where John will be working on leadership materials for training elders and a text book for his courses on Presbyterianism. We hope to sometime get back up to Scotland where we lived from 1975 to 1978, and also track down some of Jenny's ancestral sites in Ireland. Jenny returns via Melbourne and John via Dallas Texas.

We have both had significant adventures with our health in the last few years, and would value prayer for that, for the planning of archives ministry and for teaching courses in Malaysia, that they will inspire and equip people to catch a vision for this task. The Southeast Asian Christianity course in particular is extremely full on and John is concerned how he will manage it right through the day for 4 days on end from 16 to 19 August. Pray for us both settling into a new environment in Cambridge, for productive research, and for writing material that will be relevant and helpful, not to mention a good spiritual home in our absence from Leith!

Archives are about life and identity as Christians in different times and places, and are needed for developing resources which enable people to tell their own stories and empower the church in mission. The story of Christianity in Southeast Asia is one of "Faith without borders" (see the website http://roxborogh.com/sea ) but it is also one which needs more local scholarship. The missiology conference in Paris (in English, French and Spanish!) will help address the mission of the church in secularised and multi-religious Europe and is something I believe we can continue to learn from.

Remember also the School of Ministry and students in their field placements, doing clinical pastoral education, and awaiting news about first parishes. While we are away General Assembly will be meeting and decisions made which are likely to greatly affect the operation of the School of Ministry. We need confidence in God and in one another as these issues are processed.

John

Hi, I first set this up in 2003, and am reactivating it in September 2006. Jenny and I have just arrived in UK where we will be based at Westminster College, Cambridge until December when we return to New Zealand.

John has just had a month in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and France. We are now catching up with family in Oxford before heading for Cambridge.

John

Hi I am John Roxborogh, http://roxborogh.com shared with my sisterinlaw author, Tania Roxborogh. I am a Presbyterian minister interested in archives, mission, southeast Asia, church history and lay training, computers and taming a Canon G3 digital camera.