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World Methodist Historical Society Historical Bulletin WORLD METHODIST HISTORICAL SOCIETY AN AFFILIATE OF THE WORLD METHODIST COUNCIL HISTORICAL BULLETIN VOLUME 47, NUMBERS 1&2 2020 EDITION from our PRESIDENT from our GENERAL SECRETARY The Rev. Dr. Richard Waugh The Rev. Alfred T. Day III Greetings to all supporters of the World Methodist Historical A FAREWELL Society—to you who cherish the legacy of the Wesleys and who foster the importance of our Methodist/Wesleyan historical This will be the last WMHS column I will write as I retire as General Secretary, a position I have held since 2014. and theological heritage—we thank you and celebrate your contribution. It has been a privilege working with you all during these years 2020 has certainly been a unique year with the Covid-19 and will be a lasting joy and rich blessing as the friendship and pandemic impacting globally, including to all our churches. passion for our shared “ministry of memory” work continues. Here in New Zealand I have been impressed by the willingness The guiding vision for this work is God laid on my heart is this: of our ministers, pastors and lay leaders adapting to working History matters! The work of history is more than what is put from home and with increased online communication when on shelves or inside archival boxes. It is what is pulled from gatherings have been restricted and when our congregations those very places which names and claims our distinctively have been unable to meet. I have appreciated my younger “Methodist” legacy—a people of faith and action, grounded pastoral staff members helping me with the recording technology in a theology of love and inclusion, a people experiencing for worship services. Like many of you, I am now much more “love divine all loves excelling” as life-transforming, a people conversant with frequent Zoom/Skype conversations! who because of “love so amazing so Divine,” are driven to engagement and involvement as difference makers. Our global John Wesley family-of-churches of about 100 million people earnestly prays for compassionate care for all I have given my all to this work. For friends made along the those who are ill. We pray for right and just processes as we way, the worldwide Historic Sites and Heritage Landmarks together face the pandemic challenge, and the important work visited and had opportunity to honor, the travels, pilgrimages, for a vaccine. conferences and convocations, the life-changing and perspective-altering relationships with diverse communities We know our Methodist/Wesleyan history of social engagement within global Methodism, the historical societies national and and so can strongly affirm the sacredness of all human life. worldwide who inform, expand and help Methodist history be Scripture says we are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27) properly identified and informed, the newsletters and journals and that God’s prevenient grace is active in all, as God seeks published and the books and scholarly articles resourced and to draw all people to himself. Human life is a gift and it is our reviewed—I AM THANKFUL. Christian responsibility to treat it as such. May the gifts the Holy Spirit bestowed on me during this tenure Such commitments constitute the foundation of John Wesley’s be recalled as faithful stewardship of the office. Words of Paul “Catholic Spirit.” The well-known fight against the transatlantic to the Philippians are on my heart: slave trade, the desire to educate the poor, the commitment to Continued on page 2 Continued on page 3 (Waugh continued from page one) Church history as that was the congregation where our family end the economic exploitation of children, the combat against belonged. the alcohol problem of Wesley’s time, and so much more by our I discovered that the Wesleyan Church (as Methodist churches forebears in our historical/theological stream of the church to were called in nineteenth-century New Zealand) was the first plea and work for peace and justice. denomination in Hokitika and the nearby settlement of Kaniere. Precisely because life was regarded as sacred, Methodists/ In fact the Kaniere Wesleyan congregation, according to 1865 Wesleyans—and others influenced by Wesley in the eighteenth newspapers built the first church building of any denomination and nineteenth centuries—were at the forefront of developing on the isolated West Coast of the South Island. The modest schools, hospitals, improved sanitation, and various other timber building cost £125. Following the opening it was initiatives, all aimed at alleviating impediments to the wellbeing recorded, “There were three penitents at the after-meeting, and of others. this was followed by a watchnight service.” In the Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand to which I I was able to contact the Kaniere Historical Society to draw their belong we are increasingly viewing the combination of these attention to the significance of the early Wesleyan Church and foundational beliefs, affirmations and practices as constituting a its church building efforts. The society has since made up a new “consistent life ethic.” In other words, the practice of promoting signboard about local history including about the pioneering what benefits human life and its flourishing, and the combatting church building and its Christian witness in the gold rush era. of anything that diminishes the dignity of the human person. So So sometimes we can do bigger things to promote Methodist/ we are for human life and challenge anything that degrades the Wesleyan history and other times we make smaller and modest human person, robs life, or undermines the dignity inherent in contributions. Let’s remember they all count for Christian all peoples. mission and certainly in harmony with John Wesley when he With such a “consistent life ethic” let us always be in our said, churches, historical societies, and wider denominational work “I look upon all the world as my parish; thus far I mean that, in active agents of Godly work and wisdom. whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right and my bounden From my South Pacific context let me share some updates. duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings Last year we had our bicentenary symposium in New Zealand of salvation. This is the work which I know God has called me marking the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the first to; and sure I am that his blessing attends it” (Journal, June 11, Wesleyan missionary to visit New Zealand (Rev. Samuel Leigh 1739). in 1819). The symposium was an ecumenical event involving In Christian Service, the Chinese Methodist Church, Church of the Nazarene, Rev. Dr Richard Waugh QSM Methodist Church, and Wesleyan Methodist Church and with a few others, too. What a blessing. I would strongly encourage I am sure all WMHS supporters join me recognising and you to identify special missional anniversary dates in your celebrating the excellent work that Rev. Fred Day has done context and work to make them times of reflection, insight and for our historical society these several years. We pray blessing celebration of sacrificial service and God’s faithfulness. on him and his family in this next season of service. We also In this bulletin I am grateful to Rev. Dr. Rob Haynes for his congratulate Dr. Ashley Boggan Dreff as the new General review of my new Renew Your Wesleyan DNA book. It is about Secretary and very much look forward to her new contribution. pursuing God’s mission in your life and church by engaging with the essential strands of Wesleyan theology cherished by global Methodism. The book is an historical and theological -WMHS- blend and aimed especially at lay leaders and younger people who want to be well informed about John Wesley and our Historical Bulletin is the newsletter of the WMHS. Currently global Methodist/Wesleyan family of churches today. The book it is being published on an annual basis in an electronic is available on Kindle. format. Apology is offered to those who are not able to access I conclude with a recent church history experience. I grew up electronic resources but availability through the internet allows in the small town of Hokitika on the West Coast of the South for much wider distribution globally. It also allows the Society Island of New Zealand. The town had gold rush beginnings to eliminate dues, the payment of which was very inconvenient in the 1860s with people coming from all over the world to for those outside the United States. There are two ways to see seek their fortune. A recent international best-selling book, The the current bulletin: it is posted on the GCAH website at http:// Luminaries by Eleanor Catton has popularized the town and archives.gcah.org/handle/10516/1151 or you can sign up for those gold rush times. email distribution by contacting Michelle Merkel-Brunskill, Executive Assistant at the General Commission on Archives When doing some research writing a book with my older brother and History, at [email protected]. All past issues are also about growing up in the town, I read much early Methodist available at http://archives.gcah.org/xmlui/handle/10516/1151. 2 (Day continued from page one) the date and the place of the next historical conference was set. However, the COVID-19 pandemic changed all our planes. Every time you cross my mind I will break out in thanks to God . There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started The church agenda for the next years changed and conferences this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to its flourishing have been postponed.
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