All Saints Day

Chalk Windows

If you have any clear windows in your church, you can use liquid chalk markers to write on them.  Invite people to write the names of those who are the saints of your community, or whose lives exemplify the beatitudes.  It can be a way to surround ourselves with the cloud of witnesses.  (These will wipe off very easily with a damp cloth).

Remembering

If part of your tradition is to remember those who have died during the year on All Saints/All Souls you could:

• invite people to light a candle, perhaps to honour the light of faith that shone in them if your congregation isn’t so comfortable with the practice of lighting candles as prayer.  Votive candles or tealights can be placed in containers of sand on a table.  Large baking dishes can work.  For a free-standing option, try a sand-filled bird bath or large planter (once full of sand these can be very heavy – consider using a light space filler - like polystyrene, but kinder for the environment!) to fill two thirds of the planter before adding sand).
• provide people with small cards to write (or draw for prereaders) names of those they wish to remember.  Gather them in baskets, in a similar way to the offertory, and pray a prayer of remembrance and thanksgiving over them.

The courage to live eternally

“If Easter is when Christianity celebrates the resurrection of Christ, All Saints’ is when Christianity celebrates the resurrection of the rest of us. The focus of Easter is the victory of Jesus over death and the grave. The focus of All Saints’ is resurrection and life eternal for the rest of us.
I think it can be an act of courage to believe in eternal life and to strive to live lives consistent with this belief. It takes courage to live as though our lives matter eternally — even if they seem to us very ordinary, even frustrating and disappointing. It takes courage to believe that our lives matter beyond this lifetime, or even the earthly memory of it, when so much of what we do seems trivial and even pointless. It takes courage to choose to do the good and just thing in terms of eternity, rather than what is easiest, even when it will cost us something in the short-term and nobody will much notice or care anyway”
Reverend Dean Snyder.  
Read the rest here

Gospel Conversations

All Saints' Day! One of the great feasts of the Church. We hear Jesus in Luke's Gospel describing what the "blessed" ones are in God's Kingdom, and it's not what anyone hearing it for the first time would ever have expected! Join Alec, Jenny and Lisa as they overcome some technical glitches (you'll notice that our team magically rearrange themselves at one point on the screen) to talk over with Michael some life-changing ideas.

Easter and All Saints

If you had special decorations, like an Alleluia banner, in your church for Easter, today is a great day to bring them back out.  Drawing on the Rev. Dean Snyder’s perspective, if Easter celebrates Christ’s resurrection, then All Saints is when we celebrate the resurrection of the rest of us. 
For more info, see here

Te Pouhere Sunday

Today's story helps us to understand the part we play in a three tikanga Anglican church.

What is Te Pouhere? 

Gospel Conversations

Te Pouhere Sunday is the second Sunday after Pentecost, and is the day on which this Church celebrates it's Constitution / Te Pouhere, which establishes the three Tikanga (cultural streams) of this Church in this Province of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia. The Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia has three beautiful cultural strands or ways of doing things -- Maori, Pakeha and Pasifika. This relationship came into place in 1992, and the word Te Pouhere means constitution -- which, in te reo, also means a hitching post for a waka. There is one post (Christ) with three waka tied up to it. You can read more about Te Pouhere Sunday in this article from St Michael's Anglican Church

​The Archbishops are calling the church to pray for reconciliation and thanksgiving as we celebrate the diversity of our church on Te Pouhere Sunday. The full prayer can be found here.

Resources

These links are shared from the anglican.org.nz
Click below for some resources:

• Te Pouhere Sunday Resources 

• Te Pouhere Sunday Resources 

• Te Pouhere Sunday Sermon 
• Prayer of thanks for A New Zealand Prayer Book - He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa ANZPB-HKMOA Thanks Prayer 
• Rev Bosco Peter's blog
• Sermon from St Anne's Wilton (search for Te Pouhere on the page, and you will find it)

Children's Talk

How did you find it to do the games when there was just one person in each team?  (Hopefully they will say it was really hard!).  I wonder what it was that made it easier?  Well, I noticed that the person found it easier when there was a team and they had people to help share the load and stop them from feeling too tired.  It made me think of when we see people in a waka (canoe). They each have a paddle to help. Show them a picture of a boat/waka. 

Today is Te Pouhere Sunday which is the celebration of the three strands that make up our Anglican church in Aotearoa New Zealand. The three strands are tikanga Maori, tikanga pakeha and tikanga pasifika. Just like the games we played today, these 3 strands make up one really strong strand which is our church and the culture of these three strands is woven together in a rich tapestry to make our church.  We celebrate our differences but also that we come together to share the gospel in so many ways.

Use the piece of wool as an illustration – show the kids a single strand and get one of them to try and break it. Then show them the braided one and do the same…hopefully it will be too hard. Chat more about how three strands are stronger and how lucky we are in the Anglican Church to have three cultures to draw on and complement each other. 

Prayers

We can finish our prayers by saying the following sentences in any of the languages honoured by Te Pouhere Sunday: ​

Tikanga Pakeha: English
God of love
Grant our prayer

Tikanga Pasifika:
Tongan'Eiki 'alo'ofa e (God of Love)
Tali 'emu lotu (Grant our Prayer)

Tikanga Maori: Te Reo
Peace be with you! 
Kia tau te rangimarie! 
​
Tikanga Pasifika: Samoan
Think of something to be thankful for, and respond in with this phrase for 'Thank you very much!'
Faafetai lava

Bishop Kelvin Wright, the Rev’d Jan Clark and the Rev’d Claire Brown join Michael to talk about the significance of Te Pouhere Sunday to the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia.

Woven Crosses

A craft using a paper plate to weave a cross
Using black, red and white thread to make our three Tikanga cross.  Show them our three tikanga cross and explain the symbolism of the weaving and the thread left (perhaps ask them if they have seen it anywhere recently. Hopefully someone will recognise it from behind the choir!).

Games

Tug of war: We will play tug of war first using just one person on each team, slowly adding in people. 
Pass the balloon: we will lie on our backs and use our feet to pass the balloons along – same principal of using just one person first and then adding in others.

Reflection

Te Pouhere Sunday reminds us that we are woven together as one beautiful church, and that all our diversity, experience, culture and wisdom makes us stronger together. As we join back together as a church this Sunday, fully embracing Level 1, we are reminded that we too are woven back together in all our experiences of Lockdown and faith. We bring our stories, experiences, worship, prayers, faithfulness and trust in God together, to share as one body.

​Blessing

God of the southern seas and these islands through baptism you have given us an inheritance into one family, give us grace to walk together in the unity of Christ Jesus; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen