CHURCH’S TASK

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30275, 30 October 1963, Page 8

CHURCH’S TASK

Address By Moderator

Distance, race, and nationality made no difference in the task of the Christian Church, said the RL Rev. J. S, Murray, speaking at the opening of the General Assembly of tffe Presbyterian Church of New Zealand m StPaul’s Church. ChriMchurch. last evening. Mr Murray had just been elected Moderator of the assembly. The task of the Church was to take the message and ministry of Christ to any people who did not know it. he said. But the Church would not fulfil this task unless it realised «>at its first need ws * not organisation and resources. but the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church today had forgotten that it waa the power of the Holy Spirit that enabled the first Christians, a handful of common folk, surrounded by implaccable enemies .to do the will of their Lord, said Mr Murray. That was why the Gospel spread so far. and so fast. The apostles did not rush off to carry out the great commission, looking to the Spirit to help them. Instead they lived under the influence and power of the Spirit, as the great new quality that had entered their lives, and it was the Spirit that took them out into the world to do the will of their Lord. Mr Murray called on the. members of the assembly, ministers and elders, to realise that as leaders of the Church they should know the reality of the Spirit An effective Church leadership had always been necessary. Today the Church wanted to be sure it was following a soundly based policy, and had all the means to carry it out. The New Testament Church, said Mr Murray, dis--1 covered in a remarkable way that when it acted under the impulse of the Spirit abundant resources became ava lable to it, resources it could not have foreseen, enabling it to achieve astonishing things. These resources were, first courage, love, effectiveness in preaching, guidance in perplexity, and then material supplies. The decisive question today was not what common sense would say, but what was the will of God for the Church in this moment of history.