A life of 9s – 1979
Several significant
events in my Christian life happened in years that ended in 9. These are 1969,
1979, 1989, 1999, 2009 and now 2019. This post recalls the second of those
events.
20th April 1979
This was day of my
ordination as a Presbyterian minister. It happened at St John’s Presbyterian
Church Hayes St Henty NSW. It was conducted by the Presbytery of Wagga Wagga
with my parents present and also Paul Cooper from Finley attending.
Before that day
The previous post told
of my awakening to personal faith in 1969. At that time, I had started studying
for an economics degree at the University of Sydney on a NSW government
scholarship to be a secondary school economics teacher.
That project came to a
conclusion at the end of 1970:
(a)
I lost
interest in things economic for things divine. I gave much time to my own
growth in Christian understanding and quickly became involved in youth group
leadership.
(b)
The
economics faculty shifted to a quantitative model which meant lectures taught
by a new range of lecturers whose accents I struggled to understand and whose
approach mystified my non-mathematical mind. So, while doing well in subjects
like government (offered entry to the honours programme) and industrial
relations, I bombed out in the core economic units.
The outcome was to
leave economics and FT study at the end of 1970. After a brief period working
as a hospital orderly ,I worked for Robert Bryce and Co (industrial chemical
wholesalers) in sales support for two years.
During this period, I
married Glenda and rose through the ranks of the local, regional and state
level Presbyterian Fellowship of Australia. I also preached my first sermon.
1971-72 were thus
formative and prescient with marriage and the start of serious ministry. They
were my growing up years.
By this time Glenda
and I already had a sense that my future would be in employed ministry. So,
when I switched to part time studies for an Arts degree at Sydney Uni, I chose
philosophy and history as good background to later theological studies. Combining
FT work, PT study, weekend ministry and marriage made life busy.
By mid 1972 the need
for choice arose. My employer spoke to me about training as an executive and
including study at Harvard. The people that gave me the teacher training
scholarship wanted me back in teacher training and Christian friends were
suggesting employed ministry. There was really only one choice and I so I
applied for, and was accepted as a candidate for Presbyterian ministry.
I returned to
university full time in 1973 with a clear sense of purpose. Glenda worked as a
school teacher to enable this. As an honours student I had freedom to shape my
studies in the direction of reformation era and evangelical church history and
chose philosophy options to fit with ministry.
Meantime I preached
weekly or twice weekly in long term supply ministries in the southern and
western suburbs of Sydney. This built my preaching skills and gave grounded
ministry experience.
During 1975 the
question arose as to where to do theological studies. The realistic options
were Moore Theological College or Sydney University School of Divinity. From
our own considerations and the advice of others I opted for the Sydney BD. It
was thought good to have some evangelical study there (against a background
that saw some regard evangelicals as dim-witted) and it was a good follow on
from my BA. So, to the BD it was from 1976-78. The spiritual tone was low, the
theological range was very wide and there was no practical ministry component. In
fact, I studied none of the things that I later taught as lecturer in ministry
and practice at a theological college. Church requirements saw me do one year
of field ministry training in a fairly dispiriting location, after which I
declared that I would do no more of this and returned to supply preaching.
Ironically, I was later to supervise the field education ministry training that
I had opted out of.
In late 1978 the
question of where I would be posted on graduation arose. The way the system
worked is that the student went to a meeting, was given a list of churches,
asked to rank three and then a church committee took the decision. Of course,
we students had talked and had figured out several of the places on this list.
So, I went to the meeting and made my choices (the place I hoped for was not on the list at all). I was rung a few
days later and offered one place that I declined and was then told I would go
to Henty.
I had never heard of
Henty. I could not find it on a map. I then found there was nowhere to stay for
a weekend visit. So, the fact that I had not asked to go there and could not
find it was potentially unsettling. We consoled ourselves with the thought that
God was in charge. Then we went to church the following Sunday at Ashfield (where
we lived). An elderly man shuffled up and introduced himself as the retired
minister of Culcairn (16k from Henty) and said that he had watched me and had
been praying for the last year that we would go to Henty.
Wow! That meant we
went to Henty with high purpose.
Henty was a town of
just 1,000 people. The church had preaching centres at Cookardinia, Yerong
Creek, Woodend and Pleasant Hills and Lockhart was soon added. That meant some
long Sundays with much driving. The area was dominated by family farms of about
1000 acres and with mixed cropping and livestock.
I had lived in Hay as
a child so this was not altogether unfamiliar to me. Glenda had never lived in
a rural setting and we entered a learning curve. Two of our children were born
there (one was earlier born in Sydney) and so we settled into family life.
The church had
recently undergone change as about half the congregation left to join the
Uniting Church. Its determination to survive helped created commitment to my
ministry and patience as I made the very big transition from academic study and
PT city ministry to FT rural ministry. My ministry was shaped by a weekly
sermon preached two or three times over, teaching religious education in
several local schools and pastoral visitation. I soon also became involved in wider
denominational affairs, but that is a story for the next post.
April 20th 1979.
After I arrived in the
church as a licentiate in February 1979, the issue of a Call from the
congregation soon arose. I was dutifully called, accepted it and so a date was
set for my ordination.
A major hiccup arose
when I said I would not wear the then customary clerical robes (I had written
on this issue in 1975). My reasons were mainly theological and related to a
view that the minister was different from the rest of the church only on
functional grounds and that special clerical dress implied an ontological
distinction. The local church may not have grasped my reasons but seemed
untroubled by the issue. It was different however with my interim-moderator,
who was also presbytery moderator who state moderator. And so, there was a
period of a few weeks when the ordination seemed in doubt. I was prepared not
be ordained and would not budge … and so the ordination happened.
Making sense of it all
The ordination meant
little to me. I had been ordained as an elder in 1976 and saw the 1979 event as
little more than an extension of that. Further, I had been preaching and effectively
caring for churches for several years on a part-time basis and already had a
sense of ministerial identity.
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