Anglican Studies Coordinator Rev Heidi Nayak shares her reflections on the recent Intergenerational Community block weekend.

On 21-23 April, a small group of Anglican Studies students made the journey to Pahiatua Marae for our Intergenerational Community block weekend paper taught by Diana Langdon and Lorna Gray.

Due to students from Waiapu Diocese being unable to enrol because of the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, we were a smaller group but that meant that we were able to build deeper bonds as a learning community.

It was a humbling experience being welcomed onto Pahiatua Marae and hearing from the tangata whenua about the whakapapa represented in the whakairo and tukutuku in the wharenui, including both Māori and Pākehā tūpuna. Being in such a place of reconciliation was part of the learning experience – and it just so happened that we spent just about all our time indoors due to the unforgiving weather! We could only watch as the paddock outside filled with water, the cows in it escaped and had to be shooed back in again!

Through the expert teaching of Diana Langdon, we were able to reflect on what it means for our local church communities to be intergenerational – so that instead of separating out the generations into siloes, we can learn from and support one another. We learnt about the stages of faith development over the course of a lifetime, different ways of experiencing church and many other topics besides. We heard from Lorna Gray about developments in youth ministry and about the different expressions of church across the three Anglican Tīkanga. We were able to build upon the current practice in our particular mission units as we thought through how to apply what we had learnt in our own particular context. We came away with lots of new ideas!

We joined the local St. Peter’s congregation in Pahiatua on Sunday morning and our students contributed to leading the service. We spent time fellowshipping with the congregation before having lunch with Rev. Wendy Scott, one of the founders of our regional Anglican Studies programme.

To finish our weekend, Gendy Thomson took our students through a huddle session, which helped us to discern what God wanted us to take away from the weekend and how we could act on that in a concrete way. It was a genuinely transformative exercise. From next semester, huddles will be a core part of the Anglican Studies programme.

The Wellington Regional Anglican Studies programme offers theological education that’s designed to fit around life commitments. We believe in theological education as discipleship, not simply as an academic exercise. Our programme is flexible, designed to fit around life commitments. The Diploma is flexible, having no set time to complete, and participants can just take individual papers that interest them.

Next semester we’ll be offering Doing Theology (taught via a block weekend from 28-30 July at St. Michael’s Church & Marae in Palmerston North, and then online) and Being Church (on Zoom on Mondays at 7pm from September to November). New students are always welcome, and you can enrol anytime throughout the year. Got questions? Contact us at anglicanstudies@anglicanmovement.nz