What are you going to do in the future?
So many kind people have written to thank me for my leadership of Family First and my nine years in Parliament following defeat in the recent election. They all ask what I am planning for the next stage in my life. It is gratifying that so many have shown such concern. These are my plans for the future, God willing.
I will continue to encourage young ministers and young people aspiring to enter Christian ministry or Parliament as a Christian politician. I have a strong emphasis on not playing politics using the ways of politicians. I have never described myself as a Christian politician – I was always a Christian Minister who happened to be in Parliament. I hope to instil integrity in a new generation. Next week I will have a seminar of 35 young leaders on these matters.
So many of our young candidates for Family First have indicated they enjoyed the experience and they now want to gear up for future elections for Council, State and Federal elections. I will continue in helping Family First grow. When we started in NSW, the only money we had was what my wife and I gave to cover expenses. But support during this election means we have no debts and a surprisingly large cash surplus for the next election. We are planning to make an impact in the future and the young average age of our members gives us a good future.
Over the years I have given guest lectures at Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities, but the schedule was so busy we did not have time to look around. Beverley and I will shortly go to Britain for two weeks to see what we missed on previous visits.
I have two Board responsibilities, as a trustee of Mangrove Mountain Youth Retreat (which after raising three million dollars and building a total residential Conference Centre is a major source of interest for me) and being Chairperson of the Aged Person’s Welfare Trust (which I established in the mid 1990’s and which now has about $16 million invested with distributions to aged people’s centres providing greater personal comforts for frail aged). These two important responsibilities mean a great deal to me to see their expansion and continued service to others.
I will continue with my weekly Bible studies, our home prayer group, archaeological studies and preaching in churches. This year I have about 60 bookings for services. I will continue to publish ‘A Christian Voice” – a weekly commentary from a Christian perspective on politics, the church, the community and the home read by many thousands each week.
I first read one of Dr Frank Boreham’s books in 1954. He was a famous preacher in Melbourne. As a teenager I bought all I could find in second hand book shops. I read a chapter a day. Those books changed my habits for more than fifty years.
I learnt from him to communicate the Christian gospel mainly through secular media. Since then I wrote a brief Christian radio talk every single day for forty years with over 12,000 filed. I wrote in full two sermons every week and one essay for publication in newspapers and magazines every week for fifty-five years, with over 7000 filed and on the internet. I have written thousands of weekly radio and television talks given in Australia and overseas and scores of film scripts screened internationally. I will continue to write a weekly column for an Arabic newspaper “Egypt News” on Middle Eastern affairs.
I have published a book every year. In the past five months I have been published in four books bringing the total to 61 books all written in part or in whole by me. I have another manuscript finished waiting my final editing.
Boreham taught me how to be a busy pastor of a church and at the same time write and communicate to a nation and our largest city. I now want to continue with my writing which has a more lasting impact than anything else. Only last week, a vivacious woman leader in a church where I was preaching, told me it was a book of mine that changed her life a few years ago. She had purchased it in a second hand book shop. It has been out of print for 34 years!
The pen is mightier than the sword or any Parliamentary bench.