ORDINATION HELD

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27501, 8 November 1954, Page 2

ORDINATION HELD

TWELVE NEW METHODIST MINISTERS

The Durham Street Methodist Church was filled for an ordination service yesterday afternoon. Twelve young men who have completed six years of theological training and qualified in their examinations were ordained to the full ministry of the Methodist Church of New Zealand. The president of the Methodist Conference (the Rev. C. O. Hailwood) presided at the service. The lay vicepresident of the conference (Mr E. L. F. Buxton) read the Scripture lesson, and the choirs of the Christchurch East circuits sang the anthems, “Come. Holy Ghost, our Souls Inspire,” and Jude’s Consecration Hymn. After the act of ordination, the sacrament of Holy Communion was administered to the ordinands by the president, assisted by the former president, the Rev. H. L. Fiebig, who also delivered the ordination charge. “In the few minutes allowed to me, what can I possibly say to you that you have not heard already,” said Mr Fiebig. “My one word to you is just patience.”

Mr Fiebig said that impatience had lost more big battles ana big causes in the world’s history than any other factor. Many careers in the Christian ministry were also wrecked by im-patience—-perhaps more than through any other single factor. It was the hardest of all lessons to learn. What many wanted to achieve in a week or a decade often took a century. Impatience was a form of unbelief. A man’s best work was done when he settled down to the long steady pull of a lifetime’s work, said Mr Fiebig. For best results time was necessary and no person ought to recognise it more clearly than the young man facing his life’s work.