William Chong

It’s not long before we wind our clocks forward again and embrace Daylight Savings in New Zealand (Sunday 28th, 2am becomes 3am). Catching more sun will be excellent, and I’m glad that daylight savings will extend all the way out till April 2009. It also heralds the start of the summer orienteering season – which I’ll definitely be looking forward to taking part in again. 

I’ve been really enjoying my running these last few weeks – there’s a peace that can’t be spoken when you’re spending some quality time pacing around the neighbourhood, the spring air colouring your Pleasantville views.

To counter the immense time-wasting I find myself embroiled in all too often, I normally get onto listening through past sermons at HBC. Right now there’s a few unresolved technical issues with that… so I’ve been going through a couple of fiery Mars Hill sermons. I’ve come to realise that lightning-rod mentality aside, Mark Driscoll essentially preaches it like it is, and as lined up to his conservative Biblical exegesis as possible. But it’s good food, and I suspect my running times edge faster whenever this guy ramps up his rhetoric!

Regarding rhetoric, I have to learn to communicate better. I’m not quite there yet.

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Oh, and thanks Rewa! See you next year!

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17 August 2008 Р4pm, Hollywood Caf̩ @ Westfield Pakuranga

Williamchong.com - This author delves into the rise of the phoenix-like Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand, and shares coffee and conversation with the denomination’s National Superintendent, East City Wesleyan (ECW) Senior Pastor and avid aviation historian Rev Richard Waugh (QSM BA LTh STh MBA).

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Were you a part of the ECW opening celebrations? Had a hand in the Wesleyan Methodist church history? Share your thoughts here.

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AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – A drive through the industrial kaleidoscope east of the Tamaki River offers a mish-mash of factory outlets, imposing high-voltage pylons and small retail and residential cliques resembling a multi-lingual Monopoly streetscape. In one of the artery-like perfusions that included ethnic supermarkets, food outlets and a gated residential community, a pitch-coated building carries a 12-foot high cross that’s coloured white as a light on the proverbial hill.

Under the pastoral direction of Rev Richard Waugh, East City Wesleyan (ECW) has graduated from meeting in high school auditoriums (since 2000) to boldly staking out its permanent place in the East Tamaki/Burswood area, officially opening its doors to the public during an Open Weekend that was well-publicised in local print media. On the 15th of August, 150 showed up to a “Surge” youth rally featuring Christian pop/rock band Ember Days; 100 visitors filtered through on Saturday the 16th in an “Open Day”; and a capacity 300-strong congregation had attended the Opening and Dedication Service a week earlier. I was fortunate enough to share a coffee and conversation with the Reverend, taking the opportunity to get some of his thoughts on ECW, the Wesleyan Methodist movement in NZ, the general Christian climate in New Zealand today and what he’s keeping an eye out for in the future.

Church identity in a secular age

I first ask Rev Waugh what the intention of ECW’s move into the area was, and the initial reaction from the local community. He explains, “That was an experiment in terms of getting commercial advertisers to wrap around a very big feature on the church, where I explained the story and the background of the church.” It’s no mean feat to spend thousands of dollars on confronting the public about ECW with a double-page advertorial spread, but Rev Waugh’s confident the coverage-purchase worked. “We had quite a few non-believers, where some of our young people invited their friends and so on: and I think frankly, getting towards a secular age, you have to come and put it before people: “This is what the church does. Our church is about grace and truth.’”

I pose the next question: “So you’ve set out with a great opening: once the buzz dies down, what’s your long-term vision in terms of ECW?”

“Our vision’s always been for ECW to be a church of regional, if not national influence. So my goal is for ECW to be the preeminent church in the John Wesleyan tradition. I wouldn’t see it as a competition with other parts of the Body of Christ, but within the WM stream we want to be the largest multicultural church.”

Evangelical, Wesleyan, Holiness: Defining the NZ Wesleyan Methodist

Next, I ask Rev Waugh: “For someone that doesn’t know the term at all, how would you sum up the Wesleyan Methodist tradition?” He takes a sip from his espresso, before recounting the history of John Wesley, an Anglican clergyman who took the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the villages and slum suburbs of 18th-century England on horseback, when no one else at that time from the Church of England would. Rev Waugh shares with me his admiration for the way in which Wesley could combine his doctrinal faith with an evangelical passion for the lost. Critics mocked Wesley’s “Methodist” attitude to religious observance, self-discipline and untiring social service and the name stuck with his followers since. What was originally an English revival crossed the Atlantic and over the centuries matured into a number of Methodist movements, one of them the Wesleyan Methodist denomination.

So do Wesleyans think of their namesake as a saint?

“He was anything but a Saint. He had a disastrous marriage, for example. But we do see him as a mentor and someone who, at a junction of history, was able to hold things together in a Biblical way that is still very inspiring, and to spread ‘Scriptural Holiness’ throughout the land.”

I listen as Rev Waugh briefly explains the term, referring to a Christian’s process of ongoing sanctification.

“John Wesley was a master at holding seemingly opposing things in a creative tension – particularly social action and evangelism. When you fall either way, things can become out of balance – in New Zealand, most Methodist churches have fallen to the social gospel,” Rev Waugh added.

Which is?

“Very liberal theology, passionate about the disadvantaged – but they’ve lost their evangelism. There’s a whole story about the Methodist Church and how it was once the leading evangelical denomination, and now it’s just a shadow of its former self.”

There’s a sense of wistfulness in Rev Waugh’s voice describing the decline of New Zealand’s “oldline” Methodist churches during our conversation. Indeed, ECW’s formation in 2000 was the end result of a number of long-suffering years and painful split from the national Methodist Church, in which Rev Waugh himself spoke out in a 1998 report against a Church hierarchy now “driven by a radical left-wing theology which has little or no place for traditional Christian confessional statements or doctrinal understandings.”* The formation of the Wesleyan denomination in New Zealand arose from a culmination of years of much-publicised political tension, differing theology and hair-splitting disagreements on the ordination of homosexual Ministers – yet a decade on, Rev Waugh seems to take a pragmatic view of his former denomination that’s today “almost as liberal as the Quakers.”

Of all that, I ask him plainly: “Would you call the Wesleyan movement a ‘reaction’ church?”

He pauses, and then responds: “I think the Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand is really a rebirth.”

Views from a veteran servant

A seasoned veteran of a generation’s worth of church committees and community boards, Rev Waugh has so far spoken more eloquently than I’ve been offering questions. Our conversation carries on over a range of issues in which he offers well-thought and fairly open insights on.

Defining liberal theology:

RW: “Liberal theology would say that the Bible is a source of truth, but God speaks in many other ways. And some parts of the Bible no longer have any authority. In this light, for example [in liberal theology] homosexuals and lesbians are entitled to be ministers like everyone else because God has created them that way. And [in liberal theology] of course it’s a woman’s right to have an abortion – so moral issues always read to the left.”

Regarding church denominations:

RW: “Firstly, you can’t be independent – you’re better off making a decision about the theological emphases that other streams have, not that necessarily any one of them is better than the other. At their best, they all contribute to the richness of the whole Body of Christ in a healthy way. People who stand in my stream with me, we need to know who we are, and how we relate to Presbyterians, Baptists, whoever. My contention is that every denomination has a part to play in the Body of Christ.”

Regarding women in leadership:

RW: “Again, we go back to Wesley: he was very influenced by his mother [Susannah Wesley], a passionate lady and a great disciple. Despite living in a patriarchal age, he came to the realisation that if women are spiritually gifted in preaching and teaching, you have to ultimately allow women to be equal in ministry to men. Otherwise you have to say that God gives spiritual gifts to men, but not to women. In the NZ Wesleyan church, a third of our pastors are ordained pastors and licensed ministers.

And what of 1 Tim 2:8-15?

RW: “You can find isolated verses to prop up that argument, but I think at the end of the day they fall down as a house of cards. I think you have to look at the totality of Scripture – in Christ neither male nor female – and you have to face up to other things that are supporting an argument. I think the Holy Spirit has really spoken through church history, from New Testament times, of women being in places of authority and teaching. You’d have to deny all that – I wouldn’t be in a position to do so.”

Regarding the “emergent church”:

RW: “Well I think it’s a legitimate part of the diverse expression – we have one of our congregations, cession|community would almost drop into that category, much as they might resist being boxed together. I’ve been to a number of emergent churches [Rev Waugh spent a year visiting churches in different countries as part of his D.Min studies at Asbury Theological Seminary], and I think most of them are orthodox-believing – there’s sometimes concern about whether they’re pushing beyond what the church has always affirmed. Some people think that this might be the church of the future – I don’t actually believe that, because I think the Body of Christ is always very diverse. It’s not going to take over everything else, but I think the emergent church is one doorway to the Kingdom.”

Regarding big Gospels and little gospels:

RW: “There are many ways of expressing what a ‘Salvific’ message is. For some people coming through the substitutionary [atonement] view, there are actually other ways of expressing it. I actually think in New Zealand secular society, grace is a very powerful message to tackle people with, ultimate grace: rather than talking about the cross straight away, or sin straight away. I don’t think necessarily that many younger people have a great awareness of their sins. But if you talk about aspirations, life in all its fullness, frankly I think that presses better buttons for many people. It’s legitimate for different parts of the Body to be promoting different parts of the Gospel – there’s plenty of room, as long as people are fundamentally within the orthodoxy of the church, basically affirming what has always been affirmed.”

Regarding interfaith dialogue:

RW: “That’s an interesting question, it is an increasing issue in Auckland – [for example,] the Buddhist temple’s thrown that into sharp belief. As Christians, we have an exclusive view on salvation in Christ. You can’t give that away: though interestingly, most of the inter-religious dialogue in New Zealand has been dominated by liberal Christians. But I don’t think they can act with integrity when talking with Muslims and Buddhists, because they don’t represent the main Body of Christ anymore. You can only interact with other religions if you know who you are as a Christian – if you’re lost, you’re only going to get even more lost talking to them.”

The right renewal of Evangelicals

The recurring theme of our conversation seems to be Rev Waugh’s confidence in New Zealand’s ecumenical movement: across a number of denominations, like-minded churches that affirm Scripture as God-given authority, savour Biblically orthodox foundations and share a common zeal for sharing the Good News are a gradually growing influence. “There’s a large movement across the Body of Christ that’s pushing the mainline Churches [Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist], or you could call them ‘oldline’ Churches: and they’re saying ‘no – here’s a unity that’s built on Biblical orthodoxy and being together,’” declared Rev Waugh.

With greater unity comes greater political conviction, it seems – Rev Waugh talks excitedly about movements such as Vision Network of New Zealand, an ecumenical organisation of over 500 member churches, congregation and church agencies, that are “changing the Body of Christ, changing how it reacts politically and how it speaks out.” There’s evidence of action on their website, with a flurry of position papers, discussions and conferences having a noticeably evangelical underpinning. Rev Waugh feels that VNNZ’s collaborative nature so far engages constructively with other churches “in a way that liberal church leaders wouldn’t have a chance.”

He notes, “There’s a maturing of the Evangelical view of what it takes to be a thinking Christian today.”

I ask whether there were any challenges to working with such a diverse group of churches.

“There’s the liberal challenge,” he replies, returning to a subject that he feels strongly about. Rev Waugh reflects on the local scene 25 years ago when the traditional denominations (Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian) were dominant and prided themselves in being liberal, though not “radical-liberal”. He claims that today they’re being increasingly marginalised as the Church in New Zealand shifts to a more Evangelical, Bible-believing base. Rev Waugh cites the 2006 Presbyterian General Assembly’s decision to reaffirm that “no practising homosexual could be a candidate for licensed, ordained ministry” as a strong indicator of a prevailing Biblical orthodoxy today. It’s definitely a contrast from the days when theologian Lloyd Geering, then head of the Presbyterian Theological College, in 1967 could boldly declare: “Christ was not resurrected from the grave.”

A ongoing orthodoxy

Over the course of the hour, Rev Waugh has come across as a man of God who�s passionately evangelical, passionately orthodox. We’ve woven our way through topics without too much specificity, yet I’m impressed with the way he’s approached each question with thought and precision. It will be interesting to follow the progress of the ECW flock as the New Zealand church climate moves through its seasons, and which way the progressive/orthodox pendulum will swing over the next few years (or whether the pendulum stays relevant) remains to be seen. But before we go our separate ways, I pluck up the courage to ask the most important question of all.

“What would be the most important thing you’d want to tell someone who wasn’t a Christian?”

There’s a considered pause as Rev Waugh collects his thoughts.

“I’d want to say that they’re missing out on the quality of living and loving that without Jesus Christ, is just not possible. I’d want to quote to them John 10:10, on the fullness of life. That even if you think you’ve got a balanced and happy life, you can find that much more fulfilment as Christ’s follower.”

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Further reading:

Rowe K. Beyond the Tamaki: celebrating 150 years of Methodism in Howick-Pakuranga. Auckland: Barry Crichton, 2002. ISBN: 0473010518.
Investigate Magazine – Writer Bernard Moran’s angle on the homosexual debate that polarised (and split) the Methodist Church of New Zealand.

Disclosures: None to declare.
Email the author: lemmingz (at) gmail (dot) com