When the Methodist Minister Got Bogged
When I was a young minister freshly graduated and ordained, my first ministry in the 1960’s, after seven years of the slums of Newmarket, was in a small country church, in the small country town of Ararat, gateway to the Wimmera in Western Victoria. There I learnt the difficult art faced by all city bred ministers, of becoming a country parson.
At the same time as Beverley and I arrived in Ararat the local Methodist church received its new minister as well the Rev. Geoffrey Stanton Crouch and his wife, Lorna. Geoffrey and Lorna had returned to Australia after being career missionaries in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. They arrived in those early 1960’s after long experience in Papua New Guinea including courageous leadership during the time of the Japanese occupation.
Geoffrey had become a team leader on the mission field and after the war had helped in the construction of the education system of the struggling nation of Papua New Guinea. He was appointed a District Inspector and then a leader in the Department of Education to help construct and then conduct village schools. It was an important position and for two decades he served at great personal sacrifice and with immense personal courage in some of the most primitive and difficult areas of the world. A fine village education system stood to his credit.
Part of his own leadership plan was to build a strong team of trained indigenous Papuans to take his place. Gradually, as the leadership developed, he worked himself out of a job. Now, close to retirement age, he returned to Australia for what was to be his final ministry before retirement. When Geoffrey and Lorna arrived in Ararat they faced the problem that many missionaries experience of culture shock on re entry into the life of their home country after thirty or more years of living in a different society with different values, cultures and customs. Geoffrey and Lorna demonstrated in the first weeks that we knew them that they were suffering greatly from culture shock.
I remember the day this fine man came and knocked at my door and asked if he could speak with me in my study. We called it a study even though it had the barest of facilities and furniture in what was really a temporary situation. Geoffrey sat down in the one visitors chair that I had, his back to the window. He looked a funny sight. Nature had given him two very large prominent ears that stuck out at right angles to his head. Their chief advantage was to stop a hat falling down over them. Added to this was the fact that he had attached to his spectacles, so as he would not lose them, a long piece of plaited grass or twine from Papua New Guinea. Made for him by some native craftsman, this tough plaited thong started on one side of his glasses, circled over his ear like a large halo, went round the back of his neck and rose up over the other ear like a halo, attaching itself to the other arm of his glasses. Sitting with his back towards the window, his two ears stood out with their halos giving him a Mickey Mouse appearance.
While it looked funny the reason for his visit was not. “Look, I’ll come straight to the point. I’ve been away from Australia for 30 years and I’ve never had to fill in an Australian income tax form. I have just picked up these income tax forms and to tell you the truth I cannot understand one end from the other. Could you please go through them with me so that I might do the right thing on my income tax?”
I realized in an instant that this summed up the enormous changes of many faithful missionaries who come back to a world of different cultures, values and forms.
Geoffrey and Lorna quickly became our dear friends. Although 40 years older than us, they were just like big brothers and sisters. We visited them regularly in their house and they in ours.
One day Geoffrey knocked at the door again and, sitting down in my study with his back towards the window, said “Look. I’ll come straight to the point. I have spent thirty years baptising believing Christians in the sea and in the river in obedience to Christ’s command and in strict accordance with Methodist doctrine and the practices of the Overseas Mission Board. Now I come here to Ararat I find they expect me to baptise people in a church by just sprinkling a little bit of water on top of their head. I don’t think that is a New Testament practice and I feel quite uncomfortable about it. Furthermore, several of my members request baptism by full immersion. What I want to know is this I’ll come straight to the point can I borrow your baptistry for a few Methodist baptisms?”
I told him that we would be delighted and that if he would not mind, a number of our people would be pleased to join in the service and if he felt it appropriate I would be willing to join with him in the conduct of the service. So it was that we started a number shared baptismal services together.
The friendship with Geoffrey Stanton Crouch has, I am pleased to say, by God’s grace and good health continued for these past 25 years, but there was one moment when I thought that friendship was at a point of breaking.
The Rev. Geoffrey Stanton Crouch was on the telephone and his manner was brusque. “Is that you Gordon? It’s Geoffrey here, and I’ll come straight to the point. I have just been out visiting some of my people and I want to tell you what happened.” He began to tell me a story which in its baldest outline was one of the funniest I could imagine.
“Look, I’ll come straight to the point. I felt it was time I started visiting some of the lapsed Methodists that we have on our rolls. Most of these people haven’t been to church for years and I felt I should go and visit them.”
“I found the name of a couple of Methodists on a card who lived out on the ‘Mount Ararat’ station by the name of Geoffrey and Marjorie Judd. I understand that you have met them.”
“Well I decided it was time I went out and faced them with the reality of church membership and revived their lapsed state. I was out visiting around Moyston way when I detoured off the Moyston Road to visit their farm. It was pouring with rain and I want you to know the circumstances of my visit.”
“When you go off the main road onto the dirt road that leads to their property there is about a two mile drive and you need to open and shut the gate at the entrance from the road, then another gate half way down through the horse paddock. There is a third gate closer up to the house.”
“By the time I had opened the second gate, drove my car through in the pouring rain, got out and closed it behind me and got back into my car I was already soaked to the skin. Having done this twice I was thinking that I had better get up to the house soon or else I’d catch my death of cold. While I was thinking this I absent mindedly drove the car a fraction off the main track and immediately my wheels sunk into the muddy paddock. Geoffrey had ploughed his paddocks right up to the edge of the road and in going off the main track my wheels became hopelessly bogged.”
“I got out of the car and went round the front and tried to push it. It would not budge. I then engaged the car in reverse with the back wheels spinning in the mud while I put my back to the front bumper bar and with all my strength heaved. After a little heaving the car wheels grabbed some firmer ground and slowly the car began to move out of the bog. However, as it took off I was taken by surprise and stumbled backwards falling into the mud. I then looked up to see my driverless car going backwards down and across the main track. As quickly as I could I ran after it hoping to jump inside and disengage the gear. I didn’t need to run far because it ran over the other side of the track into an even wetter portion of the paddock and became hopelessly bogged, its wheels still spinning. I realized that I could never get it out.”
“Fortunately on the hill over to the right was the house but the road move around to the left. I decided to walk but instead of walking all the way in the pouring rain following the road, I decided to cut down through the paddock and up to the house. I took off my shoes and socks to enable me to walk more quickly through the mud.”
“It was when I was half way down the hill and about to come up the other side I got in the most swiftly flowing creek that you could imagine. I realized why the road went around the other way. I crossed the creek and was wet almost to my thighs. At least it washed some of the mud from the paddocks off me. I then had to crawl up the creek bank and continue walking over the freshly ploughed ground, which was now a quagmire, towards the house.”
“As I got closer to the house they saw me and Geoff came out wondering who on earth this was wearing trousers rolled up to the knees but without shoes or socks, a shirt with a black stock and white ministerial collar, but with no coat or hat, dripping wet and covered with mud. I explained to him who I was and how I came to be visiting them. Geoff took me up to the kitchen where I dried off the best I could. Marj wanted me to have a cup of tea and something eat but I didn’t want to get all dry and warm and then go out in the rain again, so with a borrowed pair of gum boots and an overcoat and hat, I went down to the shed and stood on the back of Geoff’s Fordson Major tractor which he would use to pull my car out of the bog.”
“Look, I want to get straight to the point. He drove the tractor up to the back of my car which was axle deep in mud and hooked it up with a chain to the tow bar on the tractor. I then sat in the car at the steering wheel while he dragged me back out of the mud up onto the stony, unmade road. In the car were my muddy shoes and socks, my soaked coat and the mud from the Wellington boots was on the seat and the car floor. When I gave Geoff the signal to pull, the tractor started in reverse to drag my car up onto the stony road, and as it did one of its huge back wheels picked up a stone in its tread the size of a cricket ball and flung it up at the back of my car. It went like a rocket straight through my rear window. Not only that, but it went up into the lining of the car’s roof and ripped it before crashing into the front screen shattering it.”
“Geoff was most apologetic to me that the tractor should do that but we were now pulled up onto the road so I suggested that he just pull me back up to the house.”
“Marj insisted that I have a bath and after the bath several cups of hot, strong tea and some scones fresh from her oven which she had just whipped up while we were getting the car unbogged.”
“After several cups of tea I decided to get around to the point of my visit.”
“I said to them, ‘Look, I will get straight to the point. You are both Methodists and you have been on our lists as inactive members for years. You’ve never been to church for years but I am a new minister and I thought that I would come out and put the challenge to you: Come back to church and worship God with us every Sunday as loyal Methodists.’.”
“Geoff and Marj looked at each other and mumbled and shuffled in a most embarrassed way. I said to them ‘Now you needn’t feel embarrassed about the reasons why you haven’t been. I don’t care what those reasons were. The important thing is that you decide to get back to worshipping God regularly and attending church with your four children each Sunday. I look forward to seeing you in the congregation.’.”
“At that point Geoffrey spoke up on behalf of his wife and himself. ‘Yes, it’s true that we haven’t been regular. We just got out of the habit of going I guess, and somehow or other with all the busyness of the farm the years have just got away with us. We’ve been talking a lot lately about getting right with God and going back to the church. We’ve been reading a lot about what is happening in the churches lately in the “Ararat Advertiser” and we decided that we ought to get right with God and come back to the church. Then last week the new Church of Christ minister in town came out see us. Last week we made a renewal of our faith in Christ here in this very kitchen and we both made a decision to be baptised and to join the Church of Christ.’.”
There was then a long pause on the ‘phone.
I had a deep sinking feeling in my heart. I knew that this was the point to which Geoffrey was leading. After all that he had done as a faithful pastor he discovered that the people whom he was interested in had already made, the week before, a decision to be baptised and become members of the Ararat Church of Christ. I had been responsible for the disappointing result after such a tragic day’s events. I shuddered to think of the wrath that was about to fall upon my young head.
Geoffrey Stanton Crouch then continued, “Look, I’ll come straight to the point. God bless you son, you are doing a marvellous job. It is absolutely right that you should go after people who are not going anywhere to church and bring them to commitment to the Lord and to baptism. They are no good on dead rolls in any church if they don’t worship the Lord. You are absolutely right to go and visit them and to welcome them into your membership. I believe you are doing a great job, son. Keep it up. Lorna and I promise that we will pray for you.”
I sat there absolutely stunned. Instead of wrath and bitterness I found magnanimity and Christian grace.
Geoffrey Stanton Crouch was true to his word and our friendship has deepened from that moment on and abides to this day. In his grace, forgiveness and magnanimity there was not a word about his own misfortune, only words of encouragement and praise for my own ministry.
When I hung up the ‘phone that day there were tears in my eyes at the thought of the graciousness of this wonderful Methodist minister who taught me so much. It so happened that Geoff and Marjorie Judd and their daughters became not only members of the Church of Christ in Ararat but lifelong friends and for the next twenty years our family would travel to their home and share our holidays together with them. Every time I drove up the Moyston road and around the Mount Ararat property I would think of the first time I heard Rev. Geoffrey Stanton Crouch speak to me about the matter, and of his magnanimity to a colleague.
So I headed back to the country manse at 90 High Street, opposite the Railway Station, having learnt another lesson in the difficult art of becoming a country parson.
GORDON MOYES
