As part of the St Paul’s skill sharing initiative I decided to make use of Julie Abbott’s offer to do some research into English ancestry. While my mother’s continental ancestry is quite well documented, the family didn’t know that much about the English connection. That comes in the figure of William Lawton. Unfortunately, William Lawton…

Sometimes we never really think about what just seems natural to us. For me that happened about the symmetry in nature.My daughter asked me one of those child’s questions: “Why do we have two ears?” I explained to her that with two ears we can distinguish the direction a sound came from. “Is that why…

Recently a friend from St John’s College days died in Fiji. We were invited to watch the funeral service on-line. We did not do it live, and later on only watched the highlights. The full funeral service was 4 ½ hours long. I think such a long funeral service would normally not be accepted in…

One of the biggest criticisms of the church reformer Martin Luther is his attitude towards Jews. Some of his later writings were clearly anti-Semitic and quite vicious. However, he did not always have that attitude. Initially, he felt that Jews may even be his allies in their knowledge of the Scriptures. In any case, he…

The Diocese of Christchurch has employed a safeguarding officer this year to bring “safeguarding practices” up to speed. As a result, we as a parish were encouraged to adopt policies and procedures that reflect what is required of a charitable organisation in today’s world. While the Diocese provided some of the templates for this, Ruth…

Our 1-year-old son doesn’t really talk, but he does make various noises that we, as his parents, have learned to understand, particularly because he also uses quite expressive hand signals. Bi-lingual children normally start to talk significantly later than those growing up with only one language. That’s why we enjoy his communication style at the…

In recent years the number of Anglicans has steadily declined in New Zealand. In contrast, the number of Catholics has slowly grown. That is partly due to immigration: more people from dominantly Catholic countries arrive in New Zealand than from dominantly Anglican countries (such as some parts of Africa).With its worldwide coherence and clear rules…

This week, in a brief moment of quiet, I looked through a book on New Zealand Heritage buildings, which I had bought from Dove Bookshop. I noticed that there were quite a few churches among the heritage buildings. That is not unique to New Zealand. In Europe, North and South America, and the Middle East…

Government requirements have not substantially changed regarding church services, except that the limit for gatherings is now 100 people, rather than 50. However, there have been several changes made to the way the government guidelines are to be implemented in the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch. This is in part due to a letter from the…

From the Middle Ages onwards in some churches there have been rented pews. These gave the family who owned the title to particular pews sole access to the pews in the Church, certainly during service times. This allowed the wealthy and office holders to sit in the most prestigious places, enjoying the service and their…