If you have not visited the web site of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand recently then you have missed the redesign of their site.  It is a sharp design with good use of graphics and easy, logical navigation bars.  It is a design that give the page a new look while preserving elements of the “feel” of the old site.  A nice transition.  And there are nice dynamic elements – check out the “Find something fast” bar at the top. When the Book of Order is at the top of this list you know you will please a GA Junkie.  But maybe the best thing about the new site is that there is now a feed for new info posted to the site, a great help for those of us with feed readers.  The redesign does unfortunately mean that many links in all my past posts about the PCANZ are now broken.

But for me the real news from New Zealand is that the PCANZ Archives Research Centre has begun its own blog, “Presbyterian Research,” in the same style as the blog from the PCA Historical Center, “The Continuing Story.”  Like The Continuing Story, Presbyterian Research highlights the denominational history and ethos with short vignettes and glimpses of items in their collection.  Any GA Junkie would appreciate the story about the 1901 General Assembly which got into a debate on the floor of the Assembly over the robes the Moderator was wearing.  Another item highlights a recent lecture to the Research Network by the Rev. Dr. Susan Jones.  (The print version is available on-line.)  The item describes the lecture

…which probed the development of ministerial training in the PCANZ.  She not only placed her research in an historical context but she also analysed the nature of the training itself. Her analysis showed that training has been fragmented and that ordinands have often learned academic subjects but they have not been helped to integrate knowledge into their faith.

When the article describes the topic as “continually challenging” that can probably be applied to Presbyterian branches everywhere.

And finally, what geek can not appreciate a blog where the first article is titled “Hello world!”  (For the non-geeks, it is now a standing tradition among programmers that your first programming exercise is to write a program that prints out the words “hello world.”)

So far it is interesting reading.  I look forward to much more.