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Short
Version:
I’m a left wing post evangelical. I’ve done 7 years Beach Mission with
Scripture Union in NSW, was the
Vice President of the Christian Union at Wollongong University, have helped
pastor a church and been on two Kairos Teams, which means that I had to sign off on
the Nicene Creed. I have worked voluntarily in prisons for 15 years. I am not a
Charismatic. I’ve been a Christian for 37 years. I’m currently in an
Anglican Church, but have also prayed regularly with a catholic lay community. I’ve been
married to the same woman for 30 years and have two adult boys, both of
whom are actively involved in church life. We have supported TEAR Australia, a
Christian relief agency, for 30 years. I have the Graduate Certificate in
Diaconate Studies and the Graduate Certificate in Pastoral Counselling Skills from St Marks Theological College, Canberra.
Long Version: I was born in 1954, in Sydney, Australia, and went to a Methodist Church as a child, but not in a family that took it too seriously. My father died early after a long illness, and although my Mum still went to church, she was very angry with God. She remarried when I was 13 and we moved 160 klms south to Nowra, on an agisted dairy farm. My stepfather was a Presbyterian, but the pastor was very Liberal in his outlook. I went to the Scripture Union run Inter School Christian Fellowship (ISCF) at Nowra High and was converted in Year 10 when I was 16. This began an association with Scripture Union, Australia, which has continued to the present day. I attended a Scripture Union bushwalking camp while at school and discovered that I loved it. I now possess equipment for about 7 outdoors activities, including bushwalking, abseiling, canyoning, fishing, canoeing, bike riding and boogie boarding. At that stage I was a Presbyterian, but even then was not happy with a pastor who did not even believe the bare bones of the faith and began to attend the local Anglican church.
After school I attended Wollongong University, studying English, History and Psychology. I learnt singing at the Conservatorium. I was a member of the Christian Union and eventually became the Vice president. It was basically Sydney Anglican in its orientation, but far more open than that in many ways as we were the only Christian organization at the university at the time. (There are now several). Over this period I did 7 years Beach mission at Burrill Lake on the South Coast, just south of Milton. It was a great time and I am very grateful to the leaders who nurtured me. I was considered a valuable person with something to offer by a Beach Mission 7 years before a traditional church gave a whimper.
After university I taught in Wollongong for three years at Kanahooka High School, a state school, and then my wife, Judy, and I went to Europe, in July 1980, traveling for three months and then working in London for three years. I pursued show business and got a job in the original London production of the New York Shakespeare Festival version of The Gilbert and Sullivan show The Pirates of Penance. I was, of course, a pirate, but I also got to drive the boat. It was at Dury Lane Theatre in Covent Garden. While there I joined a Christian club for professional artists called The Arts Centre Group. It was while in England that my interest in justice as a theological issue was confirmed. We attended St John’s Anglican Church in Penge in South West London, with the most wonderful Vicar, Collin Rookwood. We still exchange Christmas letters 20 years on. I was confirmed as an Anglican by the bishop of Rochester. Collin nurtured me and I was trained in preaching and leading. I sang, preached and led a drama group.
We returned to Sydney at the end of 1982 and I taught at Sefton High School, between Bankstown and Parramatta. We attended a local Baptist church and the first pastor, Peter Pade, was happy to use me in any capacity, and I continued preaching and leading. After 3 years I resigned from teaching and once again did a production of Pirates, this time for the Victorian State Opera. I then worked at various show business jobs and drove cabs and did casual teaching in the local high schools. I developed the show for pre-schools that I still do, sang in clubs in a barbershop quartet and worked for seven years at the Australian Opera in the back row of the Extra Chorus. At about this time the pastor left and I was part of the pastoral team which ran the church for two years. A new pastor eventually came, but he turned out to be a real control freak who insisted on doing everything himself. It became just another very ordinary church in which I had no real part. I went into prison work and have been there ever since, initially at Long Bay Gaol and later at Mulawa, the women’s gaol at Silverwater, where I helped for eleven years. I now help at Dillwynia Correctional Centre at Windsor.
I began at Silverwater with Merrill Broadly, an Anglican deaconess, who was the the chaplain there. My six years helping her once a month with services were the most pleasurable of my Christian life. We complimented each other magnificently and never had a cross word worth mentioning in the time we worked together.
Two years into my time as a helper at Long Bay, my Mum, who was over seventy and still living in Nowra, had a stroke. She was never the same again. It was like dealing with a six year old. I visited her one day and she stole my lunch and then denied it. Six months later my stepfather died. And a year after that my Mum died. It was out of these experiences that many of the songs on the album All Our Times came. He was her third husband, the first two having died of incurable diseases. After he died she said to us all “I’m going to die now, is that all right?”
While all this was going on, Judy accepted a job as a Head of Department at a state high school in Goulburn, two thirds of the way to Canberra down the Hume Highway, where her Dad and stepmum lived and where she had spent her teenage years. We bought a house in the quiet part of town and I now teach music keyboard to children two days a week and singing at the Regional Conservatorium, casual teach in both Primary and high school and do the pre-school show. I helped with the children’s ministry for 7 years at North Goulburn Anglican Church. I now attend St Luke's Taralga where John Clewer is the Rector. I also have links with the Catholic Lay Community St Joseph’s House Of Prayer, where I prayed once a week for ten years. (They have since moved). I began studying theology at the local Anglican College, St Mark's, a few years ago and have the Graduate Certificate in Diaconate Studies and the Graduate Certificate in Pastoral Counselling Skills.