Waiting
My life has fallen into a few stages.
As a child, I lived in Box Hill when it was a Village. I then became Pastor to the Slums of Inner Melbourne for eight years. I was then a Country Parson and a Teacher at a One Teacher Bush School out at Jackson Creek in Western Victoria and then for thirteen years, I was a Suburban Minister in one of Australia’s largest suburban ministries.
And now, for more than 20 years I’ve been Superintendent in Sydney of Wesley Mission, Australia’s largest church ministry.
I’ve told you stories of people in each of these places.
Tonight I want you to come with me into the heart of the city.
The process of becoming Superintendent to the Central Methodist Mission in Sydney was a very protracted and onerous one. I discovered I had to be patient. There was much waiting in this game.
During 1977 I had been to the Central Methodist Mission in Sydney, on a number of occasions, at the request of the then Superintendent Rev. Dr. Alan Walker. He asked me address about 100 ministers during January 1977 at a conference held at Vision Valley. I was then back to speak at the Mission Anniversary in May 1977. That was a significant occasion because Alan Walker had indicated to the congregation that after 19 years of ministry, he was planning to retire at the end of that year. A new Superintendent would have to be appointed.
The process of appointing a new Superintendent has occurred at the Mission only every 20 years or so. There were not many who really knew how the process worked. To make matters worse, Rev. Dr. Alan Walker was retiring at the time when the then Methodist Church moved out of existence and became part of the new Uniting Church in Australia, a union of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational churches. This involved a whole lot of new regulations and new processes.
As I remember the process went something like this: A Settlements Committee was established by the Mission to find a new leader. I understand that over a period of months they listed the names of some 45 people including some in overseas countries who could be suitable. Those people had their credentials closely examined. At the end of 45 possible candidates for the position, one, an outstanding Methodist minister in South Africa was the leading candidate. Others had heard of my ministry in Melbourne and I had recently been heard by all the members of the Settlements Committee when I preached on four occasions during the Mission’s May Anniversary. Consequently seven of them came to Cheltenham one Sunday to observe what was happening. They tried to mix unobtrusively among members of the five congregations that I was addressing that day. They then had lunch in our Manse and spent about three hours in discussion with Beverley and myself.
There were other meetings then held back in the Mission. I am not sure how many were held but they were times of apparent anxiety. The leading candidate from South Africa and myself were the two candidates ultimately to be voted upon and the arguments in favour of one or the other ran hot. The ballots were almost equal. Then came the final ballots and I received the majority vote. One member of the Settlements Committee telegrammed me: “Vote close. Mission hopelessly divided. Strongly advise you to decline.” He was one apparently supporting me, and he wanted me to avoid a hopeless situation
If you thought that was the end of it then both you and I were mistaken. Just because the Officers and the Board of Wesley Mission had voted in favour of me, did not mean to say that I would receive the invitation. The candidates again had to be discussed and their recommendation of myself had to be agreed to first of all by the Mission Council, a larger body of about 80 people and then at a Parish meeting, a much larger gathering of all of the members of the Mission.
My understanding is that as each meeting went by I received more affirmation from those attending and consequently the decision was made that I should be invited to be the next Superintendent.
But because the Central Methodist Mission was the most obvious part of the new Uniting Church in Australia anywhere in the nation, and because it was the largest parish of the Uniting Church in the nation, there were a number of other complications there was also a large number of groups and individuals who felt they should have a say on the successor to Australia’s most visible minister.
The Pastoral Relations Committee of the Presbytery of Sydney discussed the matter at great length. Because I was a minister from another denomination and also from Melbourne (that most unlikely of places for a successful minister), the debate then had to be referred on to other Councils. The congregations of Wesley Mission meanwhile were anxious that I should be invited and reply. The Pastoral Relations Committee of Presbytery referred the matter to a full Presbytery meeting where for some hours the position of the successor to Alan Walker was discussed. They agreed that I should be invited. That then raised the question of whether my credentials were acceptable to the Uniting Church. Consequently the matter was passed over to the Synod Ministerial Education Committee to examine the matter in detail.
The irony was that for more than 20 years I had been doing courses and equipping myself as a Churches of Christ Minister, to be the most effective Minister that I could be. I had never once dreamed of working within the Uniting Church and certainly never becoming the Superintendent of the then famous Central Methodist Mission. But all of the courses and programs that I had taken were equipping me to take the place of Alan Walker and some of the courses I had undertaken were in the Uniting Church’s Theological College.
I had been properly trained at a Theological College and graduated with honours in every subject. I had subsequently completed a university degree and graduated. I had undertaken some post-graduate study for the London University Bachelor of Divinity. But apart from this, I had undertaken many additional courses. It had been my habit to undertake at least one major study program every year over a period of some 20 years. Some of these were in the field of psychology and counselling and others were in the field of theology. I had sat in various schools of theology including the prestigious Ormond School of Theology at Melbourne University under such visiting scholars as Professor Alan Richardson of Great Britain, Dr. Hans Kung the distinguished Roman Catholic scholar from Switzerland, Professor James S. Stewart from Edinburgh, Professor Edward Schweitzer from Switzerland, Dr. Leon Morris, Dr. Colin Williams, Dr. Philip Potter (leading Methodists), Rev. John R.W. Stott, Dr. Edwin Robinson, Bishop Stephen Neill (leading Anglicans) and Dr. Koysume Koyama, of Japan.
I had also completed other programs such as with the Church of England Chaplaincy Department in the Royal Melbourne Hospital in clinical pastoral education. I had completed a sensitivity training program with the Victorian Council of Churches, Christian Education Department, a professional counselling course at the Cairnmiller Institute, and a two-year program on the rehabilitation of alcoholics and drug addicts with the Victorian Department of Mental Health. In the two years prior to my call to Sydney, I had undertaken a course in Transactional Analysis and Gestalt Therapy.
What had given me a great deal of satisfaction however, was being part of a group of ministers and theological lecturers around the world known collectively as “a panel of scholars” who prepared, every four years, papers for study and discussion at the World Convention of Churches of Christ. I also worked with the Churches of Christ Christian Union Department studying the Proposed Basis Of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia and how it would impact upon local congregations. It was our desire to see Churches of Christ become part of the Uniting Church of which we were then official observers.
As an author, I had, on behalf of the Federal Conference of Churches of Christ in Australia written “A Guide To Church Membership” which was a six-week training course for adults in church membership used in churches throughout the nation. Tens of thousands of people undertook this course. I had also written many lessons published by the Joint Board of Christian Education for the member churches of the Uniting Church. Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational ministers and Sunday school teachers had used my lessons with young people. I had published two books, one of which had sold at that stage 12,000 copies, and a further 120,000 copies had been purchased of a series of 20 booklets on “Christian Living” that I had written. Every fortnight for eight years I had written a scholarly article in a national magazine on some 200 New Testament Greek words, their doctrinal and theological background and their implications for Christians today.
As a young minister I had always been heavily committed to communicating the good news with young people. For many years at Cheltenham I had spoken every week to more than one thousand teenagers in youth gatherings. These weekly presentations meant I had a lot of experience in communicating with youth. As an evangelist I had conducted crusades for groups of churches in every State of Australia. As a pastor I had been ministering for the twelve years previously in what had grown to be one of the largest congregations in Australia. As a person interested in the Uniting Church in Australia, I had with the Department of Christian Union explained to Churches of Christ who were interested what was happening with the proposed Uniting Church in Australia. This had lead to a number of Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches inviting me to address their congregations on some of the confusing aspects of the proposed union. I knew the Uniting Church regulations better than most ministers who would enter the Uniting Church.
In all of this I had also the responsibilities as a builder. I had lead building programs vigorously within my churches. The church at Cheltenham had just completed a tremendous program of building developments purchasing old properties, demolishing them and building five retirement villages catering for more than 300 people, a nursing home, tennis courts and in the process the largest campus of probably any Protestant church in the nation. This meant as a minister I was used to dealing with finance, legal agreements, building contracts worth many millions of dollars and companies.
I had also had the privileged position in Melbourne of being well known because of nightly appearances on television. I had made more than one thousand television presentations on GTV on the Nine Network and my television experience went back to 1965 when I also started radio. Hence my experience as a minister suitable for the Central Methodist Mission in Sydney was considerable and beyond that of any of the other ministers currently working in the Methodist, Presbyterian or Congregational churches in Australia. There was one other desirable feature; I was securely married with four young children, to a wife who was extraordinarily competent and able and both of us were still in our mid thirties. No other candidate matched the credentials.
Let me assure you that that did not convince the Synod Ministerial Education Committee. They required me to come to Sydney and spend a whole day in theological debate and discussion. It was an enjoyable experience. And as they spent most of the day asking questions about the issue of adult baptism by immersion, I was doubly delighted. This was not only a practice from the New Testament days which I understood and repeated, it was also an area where everything that I believed and practiced had been substantiated and authoratively supported by theologians from within the traditions that made up the new Uniting Church. As a result the Synod Ministerial Education Committee recommended me then to the Synod Settlement Committee. The Synod Settlement Committee then spent much time in discussion and then finally made a recommendation to the Council of the Synod of the Uniting Church in New South Wales. That Council met in an all day conference at Wesley College at the University of Sydney. I was obliged to attend and stood outside the meeting waiting to be called to be examined by members of the Council of Synod. I was given a time and duly made my appearance on time and ready. The Council of Synod discussed important business, discussed me at great length and the position and left me waiting outside alone for more than three hours.
Eventually I was invited in and the position was confirmed.
There was one requirement, that I should attend the United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne and undertake some further studies in church sacraments and in the new Uniting Church polity. I did not mind that at all. I would be meeting with my friend Professor Norman Young under whom I had taken studies previously and in studying the regulations and practice of the new Uniting Church I was merely studying what I had already been lecturing to Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches in Melbourne. I spent a year with young students doing this required course, although they all thought the requirement stupid. Many of them asked me to help them in their student studies and in their understanding of the issues. The lecturer was quite keen to have my understanding on the issues of Bishops and the Concordat with South India – two proposals that were rejected.
Shortly afterwards I was asked to meet the Secretary of the New South Wales Synod. This meant another trip from Melbourne to Sydney. The time was set and I duly came to the Mission Settlement building in Castlereagh Street where his office was situated. These were buildings previously built by the Central Methodist Mission. There was a long history of more than a hundred years of conflict between the Methodist Conference and its huge, cantankerous and successful child, the Central Methodist Mission. Now the Uniting Church in Australia had taken over the former Methodist offices and it was anxious to show the newly appointed Superintendent of the newly named Wesley Central Mission who was boss. Once more I sat outside the office of the Secretary of the New South Wales Synod. He was a very committed and careful man. He duly worked through mountains of paper work. I sat outside his office waiting for an hour. His secretary bought me a cup of tea and apologized for the waiting saying he was extremely busy. I waited another hour. Because I was sitting waiting in the passage which lead in and out of his office, I observed that no one came or went. He was busy with papers and wanted me just to wait because of his busyness.
I began to realize something I had never before experienced – that keeping people waiting is actually a power game. Keeping other people waiting is a means of indicating who has got the power. I then remember that whenever I had rung any of these church bureaucrats I was always kept waiting before they answered the phone. Some poor secretary would keep coming on the line apologizing while I was just kept waiting.
Waiting was a power game and one which I have never joined. It is my habit to answer the phone as quickly as possible and if there is someone in the foyer waiting to see me, I will go and welcome them personally to my office or else if I do have someone else there and the new comer has come without an appointment, I go and explain the situation, ensure that they have some refreshment and be as quick as I can.
But soon the waiting would be over.
There was one other aspect of this matter of waiting. During this period of time throughout 1977 and 1978 before I commenced in Sydney, the Board of Mission invited me to lecture all the other Uniting Church ministers on the issue of church growth. I had conducted Church Growth Seminars in every State of Australia to over 15,000 church leaders. Now I was to speak to hundreds of ministers and church leaders in St. Stephens Macquarie Street with my friend and acquaintance of some ten years Rev. Dr. Robert Schuller of California. That was a mistake. The problem was I was 20 years younger than most of the other contenders. Here was I, an outsider from Melbourne, teaching my elders and betters how to suck eggs.
The problem was that at these meetings there were present most of the ministers who were among the more than 40 or so contenders for my position who had been rejected. A dozen or more of these ministers who knew they had been rejected took time out to meet me personally and give me some advice.
Each of these were prominent Methodist ministers who had been the leaders of the largest Methodist churches in the country and especially in New South Wales. They were on the list of possibles who could have been chosen but they were the fish “that John West rejected”. Now they came to give me inside information. I was taken to a series of small coffee breaks where over a cappuccino the message was given “don’t get your hopes up too high. No one can follow Alan Walker. Everybody expects the successor to fail and rather have one of the more successful New South Wales Methodist ministers fail, they consider a Melbourne based minister from another denomination would be more suited. Then a proper appointment could be made of a more suitable candidate. We doubt that you will be here long. Don’t be disappointed.”
I had that message six times so I knew the matter was being discussed widely.
Well, I had been kept waiting so long I now knew that waiting was part of the process. I also knew that I could make some people wait.
I am now in my 23rd year as Superintendent of Wesley Mission Sydney. The work has grown for more than 20 consecutive years and is today bigger and stronger than at anytime in its history. If those same more suitable candidates are still alive, I guess I am still keeping them waiting!
The city would grow to be one of the world’s great cities and Wesley Mission would grow to be one of the world’s great churches and I was privileged to spend each day in the heart of both.