Moderator Sees New Place For Ministry

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31092, 22 June 1966, Page 14

Moderator Sees New Place For Ministry

“We have now advanced to a new position in which the ministry of the Church, although continuous must be seen in a different light,” said the Rt. Rev. J. M. Bates, Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly at a liturgical welcome at Knox Church last evening.

"We must appropriate fully what has been given to us by Biblical scholars,” said Mr Bates.

“Up to now the ministers have never really seriously tried to bring members of the congregation fully into the picture. I believe we have been much too timid.

“The work of the church should be made and done by the whole church. Any line of thinking which seeks to depress the line of God in the

ministry needs to be carefully looked at. “We have waited too long to see how the Bible should be understood and how it should be used in the church. “In every other field we judge things by what happens. We judge a doctor by i the results his medicine gives. This is a practical and scientific attitude and it can also Jbe used in the church. Christianity is a matter of doing the things in the Bible and noting the results. “The Bible is not so much a textbook as a history book, or better still a story book. It is a book of experience. We ourselves are part of the story, if we keep close to the centre of the story, Jesus Christ.

“If we put our trust in Him then we shall have a church as God intended it, and in this church the minister has a very special place.

“If this is the nature of the Bible then we must use it. We need ministers who are skilled in reading the story and who will introduce the people to the attitude of God.” In a welcome speech the Moderator of the Christchurch Presbytery, the Rev. T. G. Campbell, said he hoped Mr Bates would continue in the position in which the church had placed him. The lessons were read by former moderators of the Christchurch Presbytery, Mr C. C. Wilson and the Rev. D. G. Shaw. The Knox Church choir sang the anthem “O Lift Thine Eyes” by Mendelssohn.