GENERAL SYNOD

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 98, 9 April 1934, Page 6

GENERAL SYNOD

HAWKE’S BAY HONOURED Meeting in Napier This Week CHURCH ACTIVITIES The General Bynod of the Church of Englamd in New Zealand will open in Napier on Wednesday. The members of the Synod come from all aver New Zealand, each Diocese sending its bishop, three clergy and four laymen, and from beyond New Zealand the Bishops of Melanesia and Polynesia tfit.h other representatives from their Dioceses. As this General Synod is held only every three years and each New Zealand diocese has it in turn, there will not, in the ordinary course of events, be another General Synod in Napier for 21 years. The last one was in Christchurch at the time of the Hawke’s Bay earthquake; in fact, the Hawke's Bay representatives were travelling south in the express when the earthquake occurred, and, ot course, they went no further. At that Synod in Christchurch arrangements were made for the next one. It was .Napier’s turn to have it, but in the circumstances it was decided to pass on to the next place in turn and it was accordingly arranged to hold the next General Synod in Auckland. However, in August, 1932, while Napier’s future was still on paper, the Bishop of Waiapu, after consulting his Standing Committee, decided that Napier would be ready to take its proper turn, and accordingly invited the General Synod to come here in 1934. This optimism has been justified and the representatives from all over the Dominion will be able to see for themselves that Hawke's Bay is alive and under way again. BUSINESS ASSEMBLY. The business of the General Synod ig with the internal affairs of the Church. It is a. business assembly receiving reports on administration, the handling of its trusts and business affairg, aad dealing with the laws necessary for its existence as a society. It is not the purpose nor intention of the Synod to declare the Church’s policy nor to make pronouncements of its opinion on questions of the day. These matters may come up in the course of its business, but it is not what the Synod is for. The unavoidable routine business is very great and the members of Synod are very conscious that this has to be dealt with and it takes a long time. The rules which govern the Church s life as a society need revision from time to time and this is done by means of bills, which, are dealt with according to Parliamentary procedure. This method seems clumsy and formal to those unacquainted with it, but really it is the product of long experience and is the best way yet devised for ensuring that important decisions shall be made only after the most careful consideration.

Much of the Synod’s business will seem uninteresting to those not directly in touch with what is being dealt with, but some of it will be of real interest to those who are interested in the Church’s work.

SUPREME IMPORTANCE

A superficial view of its activity might give one the opinion that the General Synod is not very direotly concerned with the actual work lor which the Church exists. This is far from being the case. The members are there because this work is to them a matter of supreme importance. To be occupied with it is the normal life of the clergy members, and the laymen are men who give a great deal of honorary service all the year round in addition to their normal business. Behind all the Synod’s activities is the conviction that just because the work that the Church is commissioned to do matters so much every penny must be accounted for and well spent and everything concerned with the Church’s life and action must be wisely and justly guided. The Synod meets and works because it is convinced that its work is so important that it is worth infinite pains.