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Relationship with CCANZ

Since 1995 World Student Christian Federation Asia-Pacific (parent body to SCMs) and Christian Conference of Asia (parent body to National Councils of Churches) have agreed to be in partnership.

These co operations are formalised at meetings called CWPs (CCA-WSCF Joint Programme). New Zealand's CWP concluded that SCM and CCANZ are "natural allies" as we are both part of the ecumenical movement. The full report from CWP Aotearoa is below.

Joint projects so far have included exchanging observers for annual national conferences of both bodies. SCM and the Ecumenical Youth Programme of CCANZ co-operate to run the bi-annual Live-in Theological Experience. (more)

REPORT FROM THE CCA-WSCF JOINT PROGRAMME (CWP)

CWP AOTEAROA

A CONSULTATION INVOLVING 
CONFERENCE OF CHURCHES IN AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND (CCANZ) AND 
STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT AOTEAROA (SCMA)

HELD AT THE COMMUNITY OF THE SACRED NAME RETREAT CENTRE, CORNER TUAM AND BARBADOES STREETS,CHRISTCHURCH

MAY 2ND – 4TH 1997

After many months of planning and having already been postponed once, CWP in Aotearoa was held over the weekend on May 2 nd –4 th at the Community of the Sacred Name Retreat Centre in Christchurch. The consultation involved participants from both CCANZ and SCMA, with approximately equal numbers of representatives from each organisation in attendance. People who attended all or part of the consultation were:

Jemma Allen                             (SCM Waikato)

Arana Casey                            (SCM Canterbury/Committee)

Amanda Clarke                        (SCM Otago)

Jan Cormack                            (CCANZ, Christchurch)

Martin Dickson                         (SCM Staff)

Anna Gilkison                           (CCANZ, Dunedin/SCM)

Bruce Hansen                           (CCANZ, Christchurch)

Kiersten Larson                          (SCM Victoria)

Andrew Livingston                     (CCANZ, Wellington)

Mary McLaughlin                       (SCM Otago)

Rebecca Oliver                         (SCM Auckland)

Briege Rendell                          (CCANZ, Hawkes Bay)

Matthew Roberts                        (CCANZ, Wellington/Committee)

Dean Stanton                            (CCANZ, Christchurch)

Michael Stopforth                      (CCANZ, Christchurch)

Michael Wallace                        (CCANZ, Dunedin/SCM/Committee)

Lois Warburton                        (CCANZ, Christchurch/SCM)

Also, we were delighted to have Chris Ledger from CCA in attendance. Chris is also very involved with SCM in Australia and WSCF Asia-Pacific so was the ideal person, having knowledge of both organisations, to be part of the consultation.

People began arriving at the Retreat Centre from about 4:30pm onwards, and the consultation commenced with dinner at 6:30pm. We were very privileged to have David Bryant and Ellen Murray from SCM Canterbury to prepare all our meals, wash the dishes, run errands and make cups of tea. The after dinner programme was primarily facilitated by Arana who welcomed everyone and went through a few housekeeping matters before involving people in a “ getting to know each other” game. Ground rules for the weekend were then set before a short talk from Chris Ledger about what CWP is, how it came into being and possible expectations that CCA and WSCF might have of our CWP weekend.

The group then shared what some of their expectations and understandings of what the purpose of the consultation was. The main ideas were: building the relationship between SCMA and CCANZ- getting to know other ecumenical people; working out what we can do together- we can’t compete with each other when there are limited resources; working on ways of developing strategies to strengthen ministry with students; strengthening the ecumenical movement- young people in churches but also ecumenical movements not necessarily just the institutional church; strategies for forming stronger links with churches; and developing an openness to the ecumenical community we are striving for.

Saturday morning began with devotions led by Jemma and Amanda, and a Bible study focusing on Jesus youth (Luke 2:41) facilitated by Michael. The study lead to some interesting points regarding the role of young people in faith communities, and interactions between elders and youth. A workshop on Youth Reality was facilitated by Kiersten gave to encourage consultation participants to really think about the challenges that face young people at the end of the 1990’s, and how these challenges may affect their ability to participate fully in ecumenical communities. We split into smaller groups and Kiersten gave us two questions to try and find an answer to- what is a young person, and what is maturity/immaturity? Over morning tea, we were asked to cut articles that were relevant to young people out of newspapers as an exercise to make ourselves aware of current issues involving young people in our communities.

Following the Youth Reality session, a session focussing specifically on Youth Ministry was facilitated by Matthew. The forum began with a thought provoking slide show of youth images and accompanying compilation of modern music. Following this artistic display, the group offered some thoughts about youth ministry: we must get out there and do something or it won’t happen; we need to focus the ministry though because we can’t do it all; a narrow view of youth will lead to a limited ministry; many people aren’t sure whether to treat youth culture as a hot potato or energy for change; targeted student and youth ministry is vital but must also be integral in the church; congregational church is not an effective ministry for many people except where it is seen as a youth venue- but if  a service is specified as a “ youth service” there is the risk that the other congregation won’t attend; young people need a space to talk without adults, but also need interaction with adults; perhaps the church is not a good place for young people- should we focus on ministry outside the church building?; a community of faith is important for young people to cope with independence and peer pressure as well as learning values other than those presented by the media and government etc; but the young people are very busy and there is a general apathy among students- we must work with young people in schools to conquer this apathy.

The ideas that came out of these two sessions, Youth Reality and Youth Ministry, were valuable in setting the framework with regards to the type of people and issues we were talking about and with throughout the consultation.

After lunch we moved on to talk about what various organisations are currently doing in the area of youth work or ministry, including the Anglican, Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches, the Salvation Army, SCM and CCANZ (specifically the Youth Programme).  Short notes regarding each of these organisations can be found in the Proceedings document attached to this report. It seems that each organisation has some sort of structure set up specifically for young people, some more structured than others. There is limited co-operation between the Methodist and Presbyterian youth workers/ networks/ programmes, but few other joint ventures (excluding churches funding of ecumenical university chaplains). Discussion continued on until after dinner.

According to various counselling theories (including Rogers’ Humanistic approach), we can’t make realistic aims unless we know what we want or what could be possible, so Sunday was dedicated to talking about dreams and the formulation of an action plan. The group was encouraged to use Roger’s “Blue Sky Time” concept as a way of brainstorming ideas of how the ecumenical movement could be (the list of dreams is included in the Proceedings).

The final task was to form these dreams into specific aims and work out exactly how these aims can be attained. This session was facilitated by Chris. The following list of aims was formulated by the consultation:

1                    To explore ways of working ecumenically with high school students.

2                    The formalisation of links between CCANZ and SCMA.

3                    To encourage the SCMers to participate in local parish youth work.

4                    To be a catalyst for an ecumenical youth gathering with focus on inspiration.

5                    To ask CCANZ office to compile a national directory of youth workers/organisations/ programmes.

6                    Through CCANZ, to seek discussion with the churches about Christianity on campus.

The group then went on to make some recommendations regarding the practicalities of how these aims could be attained.

Aim 1

 Matthew and Kiersten will talk to the Churches Education Commission (CEC) about possible avenues and strategies we can take.

Aim 2 and Aim 4

We are the natural allies and we ought to work together. The group suggests the formation of a working group of four people (two SCMers and two CCANZ youth) for the purpose of intentional dialogue between the two groups. This group will also act as a catalyst for common programme planning. A vision we have is for this group to organise the planning of a national youth gathering in the year 2000- to coincide with CCANZ’s Youth Programme focus year. There is also the possibility of smaller lead up events in 1998 and 1999.

The group also suggested that it would be beneficial to have an SCM presence at the CCANZ Forum, and CCANZ presence at the SCM National Conference.

Aim 3

       SCM needs to talk about how we can do this.

 Aim 4 and Aim 5

Arana will write a report from the weekend, which Jan will use to ask CCANZ to look into these two aims.

 The event finished up with most people returning to their homes on Sunday afternoon, hopefully inspired to work for the ecumenical movement in their community.