Community, commitment, Christ and family, says incoming Anglican vicar
New Anglican minister Ian Thatcher. Photo: Neil Wilson.
Incoming vicar Ian Thatcher says that he’d like Golden Bay’s Anglicans to be outward-looking and actively engaged with the rest of the community.
“I think Christians should be community-oriented people. We’ve got to extend out into the community or we’re in danger of being seen as little bands of ‘holier than thou’ navel-gazers,” said Ian. “Being committed sometimes means challenging others and standing up for things, but the key issue is how we proclaim the gospel of Christ. I think we’ve got an important role to play, particularly for the young people in this community.”
Ian’s vision of Christianity is more about rubbing shoulders with people than about “beating them over the head with a Bible.”
“Our role as committed Christians is to proclaim Christianity,” he said. “We have to reach out in a real way to our community. Living out the idea that there is a purpose to life and there is a future and, from a Christian perspective, it’s a pretty darn good future. I’d like the church to move away from the old religious model where the vicar’s role included quite a bit of ‘do as I say’. I prefer to think of the successful vicar as a kind of shepherd/coach. Once his team is on the field - out in the community - he can’t have much influence over the way they play the game; they make their own decisions.”
Ian and his wife Karen came to Golden Bay because they believed that the Nelson Diocese was the best place in New Zealand for him to be a vicar. He comes from an interesting background, including time in the police force, where he worked under cover and as a Youth Aid officer. He is also a trained counsellor and was, for a time, the practice manager for the Open Home Foundation in Palmerston North. The foundation is a non-denominational Christian-based body arranging foster care and other forms of family support.
Immediately before Ian came to Takaka, he took a year off from working in the church and worked on a dairy farm in Culverden, where he says he learned that he prefers people to cows. Prior to that, he and Karen had been in England for about 14 years. At first Ian was a lay minister in a church in the East end of London and, after his ordination in 2000, he was the vicar at Fleetwood in Lancashire. The pull of family, especially grandchildren, was a factor in attracting Ian and Karen back to New Zealand.
So, the new vicar is a man with a sense of mission, then. How will he know if he has been successful in five years’ time?
“If the congregation can see the fruits of Christianity in the community – in the way that people treat each other. We are a group of Christians together, like a family. It’s not up to me to make people operate in a more Christ-like way, it’s up to the members of the family themselves.”
Ian said that he and Karen had been thrilled with the welcome they have received in Golden Bay.
“The people who are actively involved in the congregation are absolutely superb,” he said. “They’re committed, practical, welcoming and really supportive. We’ve been welcomed even more warmly than we expected to be.”
Neil Wilson
