Volunteers Matter: The Geographies of Community-Based Ecological Restoration Groups in the Wellington Region

<p>The Community-based ecological restoration movement is a growing phenomenon here in New Zealand. While the role of volunteers and human agency is integral to ecological restoration; most academic attention has been paid to the science of ecological restoration and its practical applications. The scant amount of literature which examines the social worlds of community-based ecological restoration, both internationally and here in New Zealand, warrants further investigation of this topic. This study explores the Geographies of the community-based ecological restoration movement in the Wellington Region by investigating 1) what these groups are doing, 2) who these volunteers are and what draws them to this work, and 3) what keeps these volunteers coming back. This study found that the volunteers of these groups, motivated by a wide range of both social and environmental concerns, do a stunning amount of work for their group which would be completely unaffordable if done by anyone except dedicated volunteers. The members of these groups are generally older, with the time and money to be able to take on this kind of commitment. And while seeing the results of their hard work is a major motivating factor in returning to volunteer for the group again and again, volunteering in this sector is not always as altruistic as it may seem to bemused passers by; the vast majority of members have received a range of new skills and knowledges as well as a number of social benefits as a result of their membership to these groups. As New Zealand's population ages, the number of potential volunteers willing and able to do this work will increase significantly, posing implications for the agencies that currently fund and support these groups.</p>

Volunteers Matter: The Geographies of Community-Based Ecological Restoration Groups in the Wellington Region

<p>The Community-based ecological restoration movement is a growing phenomenon here in New Zealand. While the role of volunteers and human agency is integral to ecological restoration; most academic attention has been paid to the science of ecological restoration and its practical applications. The scant amount of literature which examines the social worlds of community-based ecological restoration, both internationally and here in New Zealand, warrants further investigation of this topic. This study explores the Geographies of the community-based ecological restoration movement in the Wellington Region by investigating 1) what these groups are doing, 2) who these volunteers are and what draws them to this work, and 3) what keeps these volunteers coming back. This study found that the volunteers of these groups, motivated by a wide range of both social and environmental concerns, do a stunning amount of work for their group which would be completely unaffordable if done by anyone except dedicated volunteers. The members of these groups are generally older, with the time and money to be able to take on this kind of commitment. And while seeing the results of their hard work is a major motivating factor in returning to volunteer for the group again and again, volunteering in this sector is not always as altruistic as it may seem to bemused passers by; the vast majority of members have received a range of new skills and knowledges as well as a number of social benefits as a result of their membership to these groups. As New Zealand's population ages, the number of potential volunteers willing and able to do this work will increase significantly, posing implications for the agencies that currently fund and support these groups.</p>

Africanising the Four-self-leadership Formula in the Church of Christ in Zimbabwe

The Church of Christ in Zimbabwe (COCZ) has adopted Western philosophies of Euro-American cultures originating from the Victorian age during the Restoration Movement (RM) of the American Second Great Awakening (SGA). This exclusive, divisive and oppressive culture denied women, the poor, and the young, the opportunity to lead. The RM emphasised going back to the founding charism of the New Testament Church, with Christian unity and ecumenism as central elements. Its doctrines became rigid, denying female leadership, constitutions, central headquarters, and further ministerial formation as worldly. This study raises these aspects as indispensable to the contextualising, inculturating and incarnating framework of the gospel in an African context. This reflection takes account of the four-self-leadership formula, as inspired by Magwidi’s PhD study (2015–2021), as well as other sources like the minutes of church board meetings and contextual writings by COCZ’s local clergy. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews that were collated with written sources and heuristically interpreted by the African Cultural Hermeneutics Approach (ACHA) (Kanyoro 2002; 2001). A synthesis of missionary ideology with African narratives of the Christian faith (using ACHA) interpreted the data to understand the “how” of contextual, cultural and religious transformation in the COCZ. The study recommends new, inclusive and transformative modes of leadership empowerment for an authentic African Church.

Yesterday and Today

In Chapter 6, we take brief notice of other anti-Calvinist (and distinctly Protestant) movements that emerged after the sixteenth century, including some groups that did not always self-designate as Arminian, such as the English Baptists, nonsubscribing Presbyterians, and the American (Stone-Campbell) Restoration Movement. We then take stock of the breadth of Arminian views in the twentieth and early part of the twenty-first centuries, with a special emphasis on movements arising from Methodist and Wesleyan influences. We conclude with a summary of Arminianism, its historical development, and the major themes that are common to the various expressions of Arminian theology.

A Moderate Millenarianism: Apocalypticism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the largest and arguably best-known branch of the Restoration movement begun by Joseph Smith, sustains a complex but living relationship to nineteenth-century marginal millenarianism and apocalypticism. At the foundations of this relationship is a consistent interest in the biblical Book of Revelation exhibited in the earliest Latter-Day Saint scriptural texts. The Book of Mormon (1830) affirms that apocalyptic visionary experiences like John’s in the New Testament have occurred throughout history and even contains a truncated account of such a vision. It also predicts the emergence in late modernity of a fuller and uncorrupted account of such an apocalyptic vision, with the aim of clarifying the biblical Book of Revelation. In addition, however, Smith received an apocalyptic vision of his own in 1832 and produced a vision report that suggests that he understood The Book of Mormon’s anticipations of apocalyptic clarification to come as much through ecstatic experience as through the emergence of new apocalyptic texts. In 1842, Smith created a ritualized version of his own apocalyptic experience, a temple liturgy that remains authoritative into the present. This lies behind the moderate apocalypticism of twenty-first century Latter-Day Saint religious experience.

Are we Going Back to our Roots? The Restoration of Early Church Ecclesiology in the Modern Church Today

A movement, known as the Restoration Movement, developed on the early American frontier (19th century) to unite the various denominations that followed migrants from Europe and to bring them back to the ideals of the early church. The means to fulfil this quest was done through the belief that the early church could be “restored” in the 19th century. It was asserted that if all denominations simply read the Bible only and rejected all human creeds and traditions that came along with the centuries, there would be one church, total unity and an exact replica of the 1st century church. The methodology was correct, but unfortunately the intellectual paradigms of the day led the restoration leaders to formulate a wanting ecclesiology which ended in more schism than unity. This article sets out to establish that when one considers the modern church trends today and the true nature of the early church, there is clear evidence that contemporary ecclesiologies are being shaped more accurately into the shape of the early church. This is happening by default and spontaneously. Postmodernism is the catalyst that is slowly but surely influencing the natural restoration of the early church in contemporary society.