A Brief History
Caring for those in need, no matter what their Church connection, has been a Christian tradition since the faith was founded. In the early 1980s, the international Anglican Consultative Council began to define the mission of the Church in a broad and comprehensive way and came up with a four-part definition.
The Mission of the Church is to:
· proclaim the Gospel
· teach, baptise and nurture new believers
· offer loving service to all in need
· seek to transform unjust structures of society.
A fifth element, that of care and protection for God’s creation, was added in 1990.
In the present-day New Zealand Anglican Church, social services in all their variety are an expression of the third aspect of the mission. Out of this work, too, many arise action in social justice and structural transformation, as workers seek change in policies and practices which increase social deprivation.