 
# IN AND OUT

# OF SYNC

—

# The Book

# Dave Mullan

Paperback 2011

This Smashwords Edition 2015

ISBN 978-1-877357-19-0

ColCom Press

28/101 Red Beach Road,

Hibiscus Coast, Aotearoa-New Zealand 0932

colcom.press@clear.net.nz

http://www.colcompress.com

http://dave-mullan.blogspot.co.nz

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# Contents

Foreword

1 — Early Days

2 — Primary School

3 — Secondary School

4 — To Work

5 — Lower Hutt Again

6 — Trinity College

7 — Hauraki Plains — Reflections

8 — Panmure — Reflections

9 — Taumarunui — Reflections

10 — Dunedin — Reflections

11 — Fieldworker in Ministry — Reflections

12 — Bay of Islands

13 — Retirement

14 — Reflections

Afterword

About the Author

Dave's other general books

Dave's books on church and ministry

# Foreword

Under this title I wrote Notes for a Book on My Life. However, at 550 pages, with over a hundred key words missing from the very last revision, and with a few controversial pages, it's OK for the family but not suitable for general circulation. Ask to borrow a copy if you must!

I kept the title. I was always fascinated with audiovisuals and, especially, moving images and sound. Getting the loop exactly right on a 16mm movie projector so that picture and audio were perfectly "in sync" was an early learning. These days I'm still struggling with "lip sync" while editing video on the computer. What's changed?

This account will reveal that my life hasn't always been in sync. There have been highs and lows; there have been contrasts and contradictions. There have been moments of brilliance and some of near stupidity. Sometimes my church-ship has seemed to be too conservative and often it was too radical.

But that's life. For anyone in ministry in the decades from 1960 it was never going to be an easy ride. For those who stayed the course during that period there has been the privilege of engaging in one of the most remarkably turbulent periods the Methodist Church, as an institution, has ever experienced. I don't want to add to that stress by now handing out blame.

Indeed, if this account seems to be a little critical of the church's leadership since the early 1980s it may be because many people found themselves thrust into responsibility for which they were sometimes not well prepared. I pay tribute to those did their best while lacking the depth of experience that used to flow strongly through the veins of leaders in earlier decades.

I will always be grateful for the students of the 1980s Home-Setting programme. We enjoyed a synchrony of purpose and passion that drew out of me resources that I didn't know I possessed. If the result was that my commitment led to enhancing lay ministry rather than further developing voluntary ordained ministry, that was never going to be their fault. In any case, the church changed its views on that, too.

Since 1990 my most enriching moments have been with small congregations who often felt abandoned by the denominational hierarchy. Those who, in small workshops in Bay of Islands, "rock rural" Ontario, the Murray Valley or the slate-grey valleys of Wales, pressed the hard questions and demanded clarity and inspiration from my answers, stimulated me in ways beyond description.

In and out of sync, it's been a great life and it owes me absolutely nothing. Bev and I have had the privilege of over fifty years of marriage. Keeping reasonably in sync has always been worth the effort. We've had the satisfaction of raising a couple of great kids and with them we share the joys of their own marvellous children. They may not follow our particular stars but in each of them we see something of the passion that energised us.

However, this volume is first and foremost for the Church which was for Bev and me a chosen lifestyle, our nurturing mother and our somewhat overbearing father in our pilgrimage together. It is offered with humility and grateful thanks.

Grace and peace to you all.

Dave Mullan

Autumn 2011

# 1

# Early Days

"There's a Butcher's"

(Little David, looking up the chimney)

Employment regulations after the great depression required Mum to give up her full-time position when she and Dad were married on Boxing Day, 1933. He had steady work in the motor industry so they could get by. But keeping house in the small flat in Pirie St in central Wellington didn't extend Mum in the slightest.

So the decision was made to sell Dad's beloved Chev coupe and start their own £1600 home at 16 Kauri St, Lower Hutt. I guess it was about that time Mum began to Knit Little Things. And in due course I arrived in the early hours of 20th May 1935 at the unpretentious nursing home in Penrose St, Lower Hutt.

There were no refrigerators in homes like ours, of course, so there was a problem with meat. Mum had to gather me up and walk to the butcher's at Ludlam Cres. to buy meat every day or two. "Come along, David, we're going to the butcher's," meant not just a ride in the pushchair but actually a trip outside the house. Naturally, it wasn't done on a rainy day so trips to the butcher's became associated in my needle-sharp mind with fine, bright days. One day, I am told, I was peering up the family chimney and caught a glimpse of the sky and announced, "Oh, look, there's a butcher's!"

Along with others of his generation, Dad did body-building exercises that must have made an impression on me. Early in my efforts at communication I am supposed to have seen a traffic pointsman managing a difficult intersection in Wellington and exclaimed "He's doing eketises".

* * *

Barbara arrived a couple of years after me. I don't appear to have been greatly upset by this invader to my exclusive domain. Our little family could manage modest bicycle outings with me in a seat on the bar of Dad's bike and Barbara in another seat behind him. Of such simple pleasures was life made.

When I was a little older, one trip to the "butcher's" had some extra excitement. I was old enough not to be actually gripping Mum's hand—she was doubtless managing the pram with Barbara. We had come through the pedestrian right-of-way onto Ludlam Cres. and there, on the pavement, where my eyes were a bit closer to the ground than anyone else's, was a bright one-shilling piece. Now in those days a shilling was a shilling, not a mingy ten cents. Having mastered the ethical dilemma by resolving that if anyone saw it and said it was theirs I would give it to them, I began "saving up".

But my familiarity with things financial didn't run to understanding when Great-Grandma Rose Attwood told me there was a "thripp'ny bit" on the windowsill for me. I hadn't the foggiest idea of what she meant. It was threepence.

A highlight of my pre-school years was to go on firewood expeditions in the riverbed near the Melling suspension bridge. Dad and Albert Maud would scavenge on the wide banks for old timber stumps that had washed down from the felling and clearing work done in the valleys in earlier decades. Much prized were sweet-smelling rata stumps.

* * *

By the time Marion came along we had managed to cash in on one of the privileges of middle management at Ford—the right to purchase an ex-company 1936 Model C Ford Ten, fawn, low mileage, indeed only a few months old, at a very favourable price. Petrol was only about 1/7 a gallon—say five cents a litre. In terms of earning power that wouldn't actually be much different from modern times. Of course, wartime rationing meant the car had to be used very sparingly.

Until some additions were made to the house there was a certain amount of doubling up in the accommodations when there were visitors. I still have the slightly eerie feeling that overcame me when I was put to bed one night in the double bed that Mum and Dad had vacated—because of intolerance of their sleeping habits, I gathered later—and woke up in the morning to find Dad's sister, Aunt Mollie in the bed with me. While she made all the right noises for an aunt, she always left me with a feeling of awe. I had the feeling that you didn't mess with Aunt Mollie. So to wake up in bed with her, even in the most innocent of my years, was something of a shock.

Just before Easter 1939 Aunt Mollie and Uncle Harry lost their Wanganui home by fire. Dad went up there for the long weekend to help them build a shed and fit it out for temporary accommodation while their new house was being built. Somehow, I was taken along for the trip. I guess it was not as much that Dad wanted me under his feet on the building job at Wanganui as that Mum welcomed the opportunity of having me out from under hers at home.

* * *

Dad bred budgies and arranged their nest boxes to be accessible inside the garage on which the aviary was built. He could easily open up the nests and inspect the babies. I am supposed to have insisted on kissing one of them. The tiny bird was not as enthusiastic as I was about the interaction and bit me on the lip. But aviary birds would feature in my life on and off for decades.

One of my earliest recollections is of being picked up on the side of the road by Uncle Arthur in his Maxwell tourer. I had travelled on my trike from Kauri St right across the Hutt Valley. I must have crossed the suspension bridge at Melling for I believe I ended up on the Western Hutt Rd. I was missed for several hours but quite unconcerned when found.

* * *

Mum's parents obtained a rather dilapidated holiday cottage at York Bay and when measles raged through the family at Kauri St I was allowed to go to "the bach" with Grandma for a few days. I don't remember making much of a contribution to the sanding and painting work but I still can recall the aroma and taste of the raisin toast that she made there. The first thing I wanted to bake when we got a bread maker in the 1990s was raisin toast. When it filled the house with the aroma of cinnamon and raisins and yeasty dough I was right back there at York Bay.

* * *

Although Dad had only two weeks' annual leave from Ford's, he was up for anything that would make a change from the routine. One Christmas he strapped no fewer than three suitcases on the Model C's groaning luggage rack and we set off for a holiday trip. To Auckland. For a none too small family, with one or two of us—notably me, actually—prone to becoming violently carsick just traversing Haywards Hill to go for a Paremata picnic, this was a pretty big undertaking. The main route was via Taranaki and the fearsome Mt Messenger. Great sections of the road had only the most primitive seal and many sections were still unsealed. At our modest pace the trip was not particularly exciting for the three in the back. On one particularly boring stretch of road I worked out that it would be a lot of fun to tell Dad that the suitcases had fallen off. He was quite a tease himself.

Well, my tease certainly created an effect but the outcome, overall, was much less than satisfactory. On the one hand, the family capacity for "just kidding" seemed to be acceptable only when Dad was doing it. And on the other, I guess I've always had a little difficulty conveying the difference between a bit of a joke and a serious report. Some people have told me my throw-away lines have sometimes been more memorable than my most studious thinking—a dubious compliment.

* * *

It was a huge trial for my parents to get me to go to Sunday School in 1939. Working with children and young people in the church had been part of their life's work for the past few years and a rather stubborn youngster upset that routine. I guess it was the first place where I really had to deal with others of my own age and it was not much fun.

However, the pre-school years were generally very happy. There were warm family relationships and many interesting and positive experiences in a very supportive environment. We were well established at Kauri St and Dad had a steady job. And, of course, the Labour Government was still introducing all manner of new social legislation which was heralding the coming of better days for everyone.

All that neatly ordered life was about to change. In 1939-40 the world would go to war and I would go to school. Difficult days lay ahead for everyone.

# 2

# Primary School

"Can David come out to play?"

(Jenny Day, a ten yr old blonde, after dark)

I am told that Mum had a lot of difficulty getting me off to school. Some earlier reluctance about going to Sunday School had absolutely nothing on the crisis that occurred after I became five. I survived it but with no warm memories of those first couple of years at all.

One compensation was that the lengthy trek from our Kauri St home to Waiwhetu School lay across the railway at Hinau St. Somehow I became a regular pedestrian along the rail tracks lines instead of straight over them. It was exciting to stand beside the track as the WW and Wab locomotives roared past. It still amazes me that I continued doing something that I not only knew was wrong but also quite dangerous.

With the war came blackouts on the windows of the family home. And, of course the 9pm BBC News. Our Morris cabinet radio was high on a cupboard in the kitchen/dining room. It was a family ritual for us kids to kiss goodnight the china pussy that sat on it before we went to bed.

In my first years at school two large earthquakes struck the Wellington region. I can remember the absolute terror I felt at this totally unaccustomed experience. Dad, in a reserved occupation producing munitions and vehicles, had been drafted into the Emergency Fire Service for the duration. It was in that role that he was called out the morning after each of the big earthquakes. I was allowed to go along for the ride and watch as he and others made dozens of shattered chimneys safe and temporarily weather-tight.

Grandad Thomas's "Four Square" store had all the stock stacked from floor to ceiling wide, deep shelves around the walls. Tins were on top of each other five or six high. When the earthquake struck everything simply fell to the floor. I remember the shock of seeing the wreckage

* * *

Kauri St was bursting at the seams by the time Peter became the fourth youngster in the family and we moved to 15 Brasell St in Waterloo in 1942. This roughcast home had a huge garden section and had a good deal more room for the expanding family.

Among the extensive alterations required, Dad created a fold-up table. It was probably a good space-saving idea but it was never folded up. It didn't realise its full potential but did what it did well enough (a bit like the contemporary Methodist Church, perhaps...).

Dad had hated doing market gardening work for his father in the mid 1920s. But having this enormous garden already laid out really brought out the best in him. His father should have lived to see it. We grew almost all of our own potatoes, onions were tied up in strings in the shed, runner beans were sliced, salted and stashed away in big glass jars, carrots were buried in sand. Leeks, lettuces and cabbages were always there in season and sometimes out of it. Broad beans grew best of all – but I wasn't very appreciative about that.

There were fruit trees, large gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes which fruited in the middle of the summer holidays. It was a major family project to harvest these crops for jams and preserves. Each of us four children had our own patches in which we emulated to a greater or lesser degree the amazing horticultural achievements of our Dad.

* * *

Mostly Dad worked overtime or went straight to evening church meetings from work with perhaps a scratch meal on the way. Indeed, for most of the impressionable part of my childhood he was pretty much a Weekend Dad. So any time he was coming home for tea at the usual time it was a bit special. Now and then we played The Sleeping Princess. When we knew he was just about due at the door we would all take up positions around the house and freeze. Someone would be cutting bread at the table; another putting something into the oven; each of us would be frozen in an action and feigning sleep. And Mum, the Sleeping Princess herself, would be lying in bed counting the moments while the pots simmered anxiously on the stove and the mutton flap casserole started to crisp around the edges in the oven.

At the appointed moment, Dad would come in the door and encounter this frozen atmosphere. He would tiptoe round the house inspecting, but not waking, all the sleeping inhabitants. Then he'd go to Mum. Now, if you were the servant who was taking the roast out of the oven, you got pretty sore knees while the darn prince was trying to kiss his princess back to life. It was a huge relief to everyone when he went quickly round the house and kissed the rest of us into wakefulness. We thought it was our game but I imagined later there were some other forces at work.

If a Sunday afternoon was too wet for an outing we might have some family games. Acting out the story of the Good Samaritan was one of these. I think Dad was always the donkey and his role in the story always provided a degree of hilarity that was not strictly biblical. There were special Sunday night teas now and then, with toast and jam and whipped cream skimmed from the tops of the milk bottles.

Like many families, we had chooks. Many times I went off with Dad to Upper Hutt to collect young pullets and sometimes day-old chicks which we raised to a respectable level of egg-production. They were far too precious to kill for the table except at Christmas. That was always an entertainment. Dad lopped off their heads with a slasher and we kids all stepped back while their decapitated bodies flopped around all over the place. Then we were initiated into the mysteries of what was inside them and what you did with it. We shared the agony if an internal sequence of shell-less eggs of various sizes showed that we had killed a hen in prime lay rather than one of the oldies who wasn't quite pulling her weight.

Charlie and Helen were my first two homing pigeons. After a lot of perseverance they learned to return to our place. Helen once went off to Taihape on the train with a group of her former racing friends. We were assured that she would be home in three or four hours after being released by the stationmaster at Taihape. Alas, it was a full week before she dropped in at our place, cool and neat and casual.

One memorable occasion I took a couple of my pigeons to school at Hutt Central (Some of us were bussed here because of overcrowding at Epuni). After my morning talk the whole class trooped outside to see the pigeons thrown into the air in the proper manner. However, Cheeky and Gayboy flew a few orbits of the school, then returned, came through the windows of our classroom and installed themselves on the high opener bars and enjoyed the whole day's lessons. They didn't leave until school closed—and they got home before me.

It was something of a Guy Fawkes tradition to go to Windyridge on Melling hill where Mum's Aunt Dorothy's family lived. Their view of the valley was marvellous. An extended family gathering of up to twenty would provide an opportunity for an unaccustomed late night and we kids made the most of it. We lit our own modest fireworks and had a dress circle view of anything else that went off down in the Hutt Valley.

There were plenty of family chores to be done. Of course we all made our own beds and there was a dish-washing and drying roster for us all. But I was responsible for scrubbing the garden vegetables, making up a weekly mash for the fowls, and scraping the dropping boards beneath their perches and, occasionally, replacing their straw.

Whitewashing the whole interior of the fowl house was somewhat less of a bore especially when even Dad got fed up with hand painting it and tried a stirrup pump instead. That was not a success. I was as prepared as any youngster to make my contribution to the war effort. But when I got promoted to hand-mowing the large lawns, that was Something Else.

* * *

The "bach" at York Bay was one of the highlights of my first ten years. We were able to go there in the short school holidays. Dad could bike to work as easily from there as from home. At barely ten years old, I was allowed to take a lunch and head off down the hundred steps to play on the beach all day. I caught shrimps and small fish in the rock pools.

One night after dark, a diminutive blue-eyed blonde knocked on the bach door and asked politely if David could come out to play. And we did. I remember sitting on "my" rock with Jenny Day, sending Morse code messages with a torch to ships in the harbour in the dark. She disappeared back to England after the war. If you're reading this, Jenny, I'd love to get in touch again.

I was back on "our" rock when the four-masted barque Pamir came up the harbour. Mum and Dad took us all into Wellington and we walked right onto the wharf beside this extraordinary sailing ship. I was also on the rock the morning after the trans-Tasman passenger steamer Wanganella came to grief on Barrett's Reef.

I had stumbled onto the Arthur Ransome books by seeing "Pigeon Post" in the school library. It was a short step from there to develop a passion for sailing. But only in my head. Sailing didn't become a reality until forty years later when I put my first dinghy into the water at Half-Moon Bay and just sailed out on starboard tack as if I'd been doing it most of my life. Well, in a way I had.

Sometimes we helped men with a drag net at York Bay. The dripping rope would get our clothes soaked and our small hands would get red with the effort but it was great fun. Once we saw a sea horse brought in.

One day in 1945 the milkman came up the York Bay Rd yelling that the war was over. We all piled into the car and went into Wellington. We waved little flags and gaped at the crowds and all the spontaneous celebrations that broke out around the city.

Alas, the bach had to be sold in the late 1940s. Nobody who now lives in the modern homes strung around the York Bay hills can have much idea of the magic that rather remote region had for a ten year old boy in the 1940s.

* * *

One birthday Dad built me an epidiascope. It was a light-tight, ventilated metal box about 700x250x250 with an opening about 150x150 on the top and a lens on the front. Inside were two 100w bulbs and a mirror. When an ordinary picture was placed over the top aperture, an image was projected onto a white sheet on the wall.

It was magic. I could paste about six pictures on a long piece of dark card and present a progressive story. No matter how inadequate the wattage, it was the stuff of which dreams could be made. Weaving word and pictures together began to be a passion long before I ever heard the words Audio-Visual Presentation.

Considering that our family was very taken up with church activity and Dad's overtime, it seems remarkable that I can recall a large number of family picnics and outings. There were visits to bathing beaches at Point Howard, Eastbourne, Day's Bay, Paremata, Plimmerton, Karehana Bay and Titahi Bay. And there were challenging blackberrying expeditions to the Hutt River, Brown Owl, Akatarawa, Moonshine Valley and other places.

* * *

In 1944 Lionel Fletcher conducted an evangelistic mission in New Zealand and one afternoon event at Lower Hutt was specially for families. I was nine and while my parents and I have slightly different recollections of what took place I was what Wesley would have called "strangely moved". I answered the call and signed up for Jesus.

I found out only just before she died at 82 that my mother was very uncomfortable about this event. She and Dad were not at all conservative and the church which they helped to launch at Waiwhetu was served by probationers of the theological calibre of Ray Dudley, Dave Williams, Arthur Witheford, John Silvester, Charlie Oldfield and Eric Clement. All these had trained in Dunholme or Trinity Theological College and balanced lively evangelical enthusiasm with pretty sound theology. Members of their congregations had little chance of nurturing a very conservative style of theology while they were around. But there was an evangelical edge to their faith so the Lionel Fletcher mission probably didn't seem to be a totally inconsistent event to many of them. But when young David seemed to want to get out of his seat and answer the call, it seems Mum was doing some serious re-thinking of her theological position.

It would be a later generation of newly trained ministers who, trying to avoid what Trinity College Principal Eric W Hames used to call a "superfluity of naughty religious subjectivity", actually "tipped out the baby with the dirty bathwater". They rejected anything to do with emotion in worship and feeling in spirituality in favour of a theologically correct style of intellectual Christianity that often failed to get the juices flowing.

Mr Patterson was my Sunday School teacher when I was around eleven and twelve. I don't think anybody knew if he had a Christian name at all. He was the oldest member of the SS staff and profoundly deaf. Scorning the official AH& AW Reed curriculum, he produced his own detailed hand-coloured drawings showing black hearts (ours) and red hearts (Jesus') and snow-white hearts that we could have if we gave ourselves to Jesus.

Even I realised that the church leadership was uncomfortable with his style. But there was no doubt that he loved us into faith. He showed us book-binding and other graphic arts and I developed a fascination for making books that has never left me.

* * *

One morning, as I walked Dad to Waterloo station to go to his father's funeral at Levin, he said perhaps I'd better go home now as Mum would be worried about me. I said goodbye and added, thinking only of the excitement of the adventure of the two train trips he was about to have, "Have a good time, Dad." I was not quite old enough to know beforehand that it wasn't exactly the right thing to say to someone going to a funeral. Afterwards, as I walked home by myself, I realised I'd got it wrong.

On one occasion our summer holiday trip was to Christchurch. This was a huge adventure but my memories of it are mostly pretty uncomfortable. In the first place we went south to Lyttelton on the Wahine of the day. She had a reputation as a "bit of a roller in adverse conditions" as someone described it in a book I read. So we children had been bustled down to our little five shilling bunks somewhere beside the boilers as soon as we went on board. No doubt the theory was that if we got to sleep before she sailed all would be well. I was far too excited about the whole deal to go to sleep. And the instant we encountered the long rollers coming through the heads my eyebrows shot up to the top of my head. I was hopelessly, miserably and thoroughly sick. On and off all night.

We stayed with Dave and Jean Williams and their family. I had difficulty adjusting to not being the bossiest kid in the place. So it was not a really happy visit—though I am sure there were a lot of bright moments.

Evidence of the high trust that Mum and Dad had in me was our regular holiday trips into the zoo. While I was still only ten or eleven, I was allowed to take the rest of the family to the zoo. This involved walking to Waterloo station for the train to town, connecting with the correct tram and taking that all the way to Newtown Park Zoo terminus. Today's society would not be very accepting of a bunch of kids between five and eleven years old heading off on such an expedition without an adult in charge.

However, the confidence Dad and Mum had in me was not always well placed. Once I heard them discussing cracks in their bedroom wallpaper and Dad thinking aloud that the sun porch corner of the house appeared to be sinking. Suddenly I realised I could tell him why. I had for a couple of years had been building myself a special hidey hole under that area by excavating quite a lot of the soil between the piles. It seemed propitious not to mention the matter.

* * *

In school, marbles were obligatory. I had a lot of good marbles grabbed by other kids because I didn't know the unspoken rules about "First of May, Smugglers' Day". Isn't it true that you should never tell the most vulnerable about the rules until you can improve your own position by applying them? I could throw a fairly good top but never managed to destroy anyone else's by a particularly heavy throw.

One of my prized possessions was a cut-away fuse for a 25 pound shell. This exposed the mechanisms that Ford had been assembling during the war. I got several Morning Talks out of this and at only nine or ten years old knew exactly how its quite complicated inter-related parts worked.

I envied a neighbour who had an air rifle; this was very uncommon possession. Some of the others at school had handguns that fired pellets out of potatoes but I made myself a very realistic pistol which fired little bits of stick propelled by a strong rubber band.

Some of us played in canoes made out of a sheet of corrugated iron folded around a piece of 2x2 timber at the bow end and a rounded end of a bushel apple case at the other. The need for proper caulking often escaped us so that the craft's buoyancy tended to do the same.

I have written elsewhere of my complete lack of prowess in the sporting department. Dad was in one of the first softball teams in the country and trained me to be a reasonable batter. However, Hutt Valley High School hadn't found out about softball and there were no opportunities for me to take that up as a serious sport.

Along with most of the Bible Class boys, I was a founder member of 5th Wellington Company of The Boys' Brigade. We acquitted ourselves reasonably well in drill competitions and other events and a whole tent-full were at Waipara for the International BB Jubilee Camp in 1950. I achieved a number of badges and was eventually awarded the King's Badge.

* * *

When the bach at York Bay was no longer available, Dad built an excellent camping trailer. He bought a large tent and a two burner Primus camp cooker. Half a dozen chaff sacks were cut open and re-sewn, by hand with string, to make a large mat for the tent floor—our family knew it for years as the "sacksminster".

In 1947-48, with the polio epidemic raging, we found a spot on private land in a valley just north of Golden Gate peninsula on Paremata Harbour. Severe winds battered our outfit and the tent required a lot of repair work but Dad was up to it all. When he had to go back to work, the rest of us stayed in camp for a further five or six weeks. We four children were in the big tent which was also the kitchen and store room. So it was into our tent that the possums come to scrounge bits and pieces of food that were not secured in tins.

Dad had obtained a fearfully round-bottom canoe framework on which he fitted and proofed some canvas. He improvised an outrigger on one side and I took it on all kinds of adventures all over the local bay area. When Dad was with us most of us could go floundering at night. With a headlamp from a Ford Mercury and the car battery floating behind us in an apple-box on an inflated inner tube the rest of us became quite skilled, spearing up to eight or ten decent fish in an hour or two. We were also adept at catching yellow-eyed mullet in the old wide-mouth milk bottles. Once we found 13 of them had stuffed themselves into one 600ml bottle in quest of half a slice of white bread in the bottom.

* * *

For a few years we housed a piano at Brasell St. Miss Davis had more passion for music teaching than I did for learning. I gave up after a couple of years but Boys' Brigade claimed me to play from a very small repertoire of hymns every week for Parade Night. Then Bible Class needed someone to play the harmonium and when I was thirteen I was asked to play the big Barnes and Mullins organ for Sunday morning worship. It had been cunningly provided with an electric motor but when the power failed, young Peter had to pump it by hand.

Once I played the piano on the radio when our children's choir broadcast on the 2YA Sunday children's session. Now that was an awesome assignment. I developed further keyboard skills when I bought myself an 80-bass piano accordion while at High School.

As well as the occasional outing to "the flicks" at the Prince Edward I had a special birthday tradition which was to go to an evening show with Dad. Laurel and Hardy, George Formby and The Marx Brothers became the milestones against which my young life was checked.

# 3

# Secondary School

"Retire to a safe distance"

(Instructions for fireworks)

Because of the polio epidemic in the summer of 1948, schools opened several weeks late and in a very disorganised manner.

Secondary school life in the first couple of years was one continuous challenge. There were some unpleasant bullies at the school and, lacking confidence and being what adults called "highly strung", I was an easy target. "Let's take the pants off Mullan and name the parts" was not exactly the lunchtime rallying cry for the entire school but it felt like that. I know that we were told to report bullying but I remember feeling absolutely too terrified to say anything. I felt that I was the guilty one, I think.

For the second half of High School my personal experiences were less prone to that kind of behaviour and I spent a lot of time in the company of good friends. A few of us regularly went to the Carter Observatory night for their excellent public sessions. And we formed the Hutt Valley Junior Astronomical Society with our own logo. Dad had a friend at work who had made one or telescopes and he gave Dad a completed reflector glass for a six-inch one. We assembled a neat unit, scrounged some eyepieces and even an equatorial mount. I got a great deal of pleasure from it.

Russ Bennett and George Style had come to this country from England for the duration of the war so, like me, were a little out of the mainstream in 1949. They were more outgoing than I was and we made an odd threesome. With a few others we put together a bit of a band.

When I acquired a piano accordion with my first Saturday morning work wages I often was lead as we played for occasional school functions. The piano accordion also accompanied many a Bible Class "formal social". That was what we had to call a church dance if the local church trustees were not to find themselves in disagreement as to whether or not we should be allowed to do there what we would be doing somewhere else if we couldn't do it there.

Some of us used to go to the Taita Speedway, so on our push-bikes we tried to slide all over the loose gravel. Real boy racers, we were. I got a great snap of Ron Alexander in a beautiful slide. He took the enlarged photo to the speedway and showed it to everyone's hero, Bruce Abernethy.

* * *

Once when our family was camping at Paraparaumu I rode Dad's big old bike out there. Coming down on the Pauatahanui side of Haywards Hill I was making an excellent pace when the backpedal brake—well, the only brake, never entirely reliable—just gave up the ghost. I eased my foot onto the spinning front tyre as an improvised brake. All at once the mudguard caught in the tyre and the wheel stopped dead. The bike and I didn't and I sailed over the handlebars and landed on the road. Almost completely unhurt, I cycled on, reprioritising my pocket money.

I was very skilled at avoiding Physical Education. A large verruca on my foot gave me a cast-iron medical excuse for some weeks and I managed to make this last for a full year of Fifth Form. One or two of us would appropriate the school's 35mm projector and watch educational filmstrips. It was not so easy to get out of the occasional cross-country run for which the entire school had to turn out. I earned the distinction of coming approximately last year after year.

* * *

Mum was a great and imaginative cook. I don't know that she cared for doing it all that much but she produced some marvellous meals. Mutton flap stew was a staple and there were, of course, regular Sunday roasts that were recycled two or three times during the week.

Mum cut school lunches for all of us but once a week we were allowed a shilling to buy it. At Hutt High we were allowed off the premises to purchase lunch in the town as long as we had a signed lunch pass. As getting these signed wasted a lot of the lunch hour, I became reasonably adept at forging them and was never queried on one. I used to cycle right through town to a distant fish and chip shop where you could get a good piece of fish and some chips for sixpence. Then it was quickly back down the High St to a bakery where a meat pie was fivepence. The penny change from the lunch shilling would buy a small ice cream at Elbe's Milk Bar. In real money, pies are actually very much cheaper these days but fish and chips have become three times as expensive as they were in 1948.

* * *

I got to the point of noticing the matter of sex rather late. We were having sex instruction in school when Miss Maysmor had to end a class before the critical moment. One smart Alec said, "When she takes us next I'm going to ask her how the sperm gets to the egg." Everyone chortled with laughter—even me – but I didn't have any clear idea as to the basics. Next class that vital information was overlooked.

This deficiency might have been made up one night when Dad came into my bedroom quite late. He was obviously having trouble finding the words but he felt that he needed to tell me about the "facts of life". I was as embarrassed as he was. I felt an agonized silence while he searched for the words with which to begin. So I said, "It's OK, Dad, we're having all that at school with Miss Maysmor." I should have bitten out my tongue for passing up this chance to fill in the gaps. Dad should have refused to be put off and should have carried right on. But, never slow to recognise an opportunist straw when it hit him in the face he grasped at it with both hands: "Oh, that's all right then" and went back to bed.

Happily, when I was babysitting for our minister's two toddlers there was a small book left lying around the house in an obvious position when I arrived. I think it even had drawings and they pretty much cleared up the mystery for me. Later, there was another incident in connection with this topic but perhaps it is best left to the more discrete volume of Notes for this book.

In the last year or two in High School I obtained Saturday work with Les Ingram's Home Services. He would tackle just about anything and he was willing to take on even me for Saturdays and two shillings an hour. At first it was hard work for my underdeveloped frame but I learned to use hedge clippers to finish a straight line. I managed to clean and dig ten square yards of neatly turned garden soil an hour. And I did some respectable dry-stone walling.

And I learned about log guns. You filled the gun with a handful of blasting pellets, hammered the pointy end of the thing into the end of the log, lit the fuse—and, as the fireworks instructions used to say, retired to a safe distance. All going well, the gun would go off and bits of your log would fly in all directions. All going not so well, there was a heavy time with wedges and mallet trying to free it.

* * *

With such an underdeveloped appreciation for the whole school experience, it was hardly surprising that I didn't cover myself with academic glory. My writing was hardly legible and my ability to retain even the most basic elements of anything I read or heard or saw was only very modest. Studying for School Certificate was a long hard grind. I did enough to get through but with nothing much to spare. If I had not been accredited with University Entrance the following year I don't think I would ever have passed the exam. No doubt I was thought to be reasonably intelligent—I was in the A-stream to the fifth form—but the school environment never motivated me to realise any academic potential.

* * *

For me, secondary school was an experience I couldn't wait to put behind me. I don't recall any discussion about the possibility of staying on another year at school with a view to going to university. I was just looking for a way out of school. That meant a job.

# 4

# To Work

"You cook a mean chip"

( _Maurie Hack, on my cooking steak)_

When the time came to leave school, the question of what I was to do was very much in the air. Alas, the world of movies was not yet ready for Peter Jackson, never mind me. Only the National Film Unit had permanent work of any kind and it could get all the staff it required, fully-trained, from immigrants. Roger Mirams encouraged me to look for allied work such as processing. So I found an unadvertised position at Kodak's Ciné Process Dept, deep in the basement of their Victoria St building.

We used equipment made during World War I for reversal processing 16mm film. In the 1930s the machines had been somewhat crudely adapted to handle 8mm film as well. The tanks were not light-tight so most operations had to be done in darkroom conditions. We made titles for customers' films with old 8mm and 16mm cameras and I obtained permission to borrow these. A couple of fully edited films of events associated with Waiwhetu Methodist Church have survived.

I loved the creativity of editing film. I didn't cope too well with dozens of short lengths of film hanging on clips all around me. But I persevered; building a story was what mattered. No words could be recorded with these images in those days but they were there in my mind as the clips went together.

* * *

My first year at work brought all kinds of new personal experiences. Going to choir practice on Thursday nights from about May there were now four of us in the car. We could have made up a quartet because Mum was a pretty good contralto, Dad delivered an excellent bass and I could manage tenor at a pinch and this blue-eyed creature who had just moved from Johnsonville to Waterloo and who we picked up in Cressy St was a soprano.

A few weeks later, with a certain amount of parental prodding, I plucked up courage to ask Beverley Taylor out to the movies. But, no, she said she wasn't feeling well. "Perhaps another time?" And, a week or two later, I put myself all through it again and we went to see "Where No Vultures Fly" at the King George theatre in the Hutt.

We were fairly circumspect about this development. But almost immediately any pretence of a secret relationship became impossible. The choir was to sing at a wedding in Levin. Dad scored a brand new Zephyr "drive-away" so he and Mum rode in style. I was relegated to the family car and there was the question of where Bev would travel. Suffice to say that when we rolled up at Levin Bev and I were sitting in the family Prefect. A redeeming feature of this car's otherwise dated design was that it had an extraordinary amount of room in the back seat. I can't think how I have digressed onto that automotive feature in the context of the Big Romance but there you are. It was, of course, ideal for transporting Sunday School children and on one occasion there were thirteen people in it.

Bev and I worked in adjacent buildings and in our lunch hours we often ate our lunch on Queen's Wharf. We saw a great deal of each other during that year. Bev joined our family on many of our Sunday afternoon outings but more and more the two of us went our own way. We both had bikes and used them a good deal. On one expedition it is alleged that we were seen riding down from Stokes' Valley abreast, holding hands. If there were any doubt about it before, it was now absolutely clear that we were what today would be called an item.

The rest of 1952 passed in a blur of bike-rides, movies, picnics and assorted outings. There was Boys' Brigade every Monday night, choir practice every Thursday, Youth Club every Friday and, from time to time other various functions at the church. Bev's mother said to her once that she didn't know why she didn't take her bedding "down to the church".

* * *

Partnerships like Bev and I shared were absorbed into the community without tension and many marriages began among our group as we attended district Christian Youth Movement Methodist events. The opportunity of travelling separately by car did not really exist for most of us. There were Easter Camps and residential Winter Schools and training and fellowship events of various kinds and we took part in them all. We had film evenings with free films borrowed from the National Film Library and education films from CORSO and other places. On a couple of occasions I obtained a second projector and we ran the whole show without breaks to thread up each film.

* * *

By January 1953 it had become clear that there was no immediate prospect of moving on to anything else in film work from the film processing with Kodak. Having a hankering for the outdoors, I approached the Forest Service's genial Joe Johnston, head of personnel. The Service promised security of employment and a good training programme. However, I was too late for that year's Trainee intake so was offered a position as a Junior Labourer at Karioi Forest. This was about as far from home as you could get and still be in the Wellington Conservancy.

Number 8 Camp was a busy little place in those days, with perhaps a dozen of us in the single camp and quite a number of married men in the little village. My hut was on the edge of the camp, next to the main trunk railway. For the first three or four nights I woke with every express train that roared past within a few metres of my hut.

In the first two days on the job I saw a rather rare long-tailed cuckoo, three deer and a group of wild horses. If there was any real drudgery around, the Junior Labourers could count on having it allocated to them. However, I got a good grounding in much routine forestry work in radiata pine plantations and also an absorbing introduction to the indigenous bush, assisting with chain and compass.

I've just found a formal letter from the Conservator of Forests congratulating me on passing a First Aid Medical Course while I was at Karioi Forest. That is a level of personal interest in a lowly employee that is not always shown by the highly efficient Human Relations departments in today's rather more sophisticated government departments. Filed away with that yellowing letter is a formal statement of my earnings. It seems I earned some £384 for the year.

Bev and I settled down to a relationship of written correspondence rather than the active diet of church events, movies and bike-rides. When I was based in the little town camp at Ohakune Junction, I would go to the movies each night, then walk across the road to the station, eat a Railway pie and drink a Railway coffee while writing a letter to Bev. An extra penny on the postage in the Railway Travelling Post Office Late Fee box as the southbound express came through just before midnight and Bev would have the letter at work early next morning. We exchanged over 1200 letters during our courtship. Aunt Mollie chaperoned us for a weekend in Wanganui but she must have regarded us as pretty slippery.

* * *

I was moved about six times during the twelve months, living in hut camps at Karioi, Ohakune, Erua and Taurewa and in tents in a couple of locations deeper in the bush. I would have been among the last to work in the native forest measuring standing native timber for survey or valuation purposes. For no reason that I can discern, the process was called cruising. Our measurements would be the basis on which saw millers might tender for the timber or forested land might be transferred. One such task involved a trip of anything from one and a half to three hours driving in the old Ford station wagon and then walking the rest of the way to the job. At this time we were in huts at Ohakune Junction and ate at the Kings Court Hotel. Here the rather cocky manager was cleaning some old jerry-cans with petrol to which he added boiling water. But to heat the water he had lit a fire on the other side of the section. When the hot water vapourised the petrol the entire yard was embroiled in the conflagration which ensued.

At Erua we had to master pressure lamps and an ancient oil engine which powered the firewood saw. This, with our personal efforts, was all that stood between our cold huts and relative comfort on winter nights when the frost or snow lay white on the ground. As if these rigours were not enough, we went from there to a very remote assignment deep in the bush northwest of National Park. Here we actually camped in tents on the job for four nights each week, returning to the civilisation that was Erua just for the weekends.

In the bush I could make a pretty good billy tea over a fire. "That's a good brew," leading hand Bill Drower would say reflectively, "Just the colour of a nice wine." And Maurie Hack said I could fry a mean chip over the open fire. But nobody let me cook steak again after my first attempt.

I enjoyed driving and gained experience with a huge range of vehicles. Our favourite at Taurewa was an ex-war Dodge wellside truck. "Bambi" was kept in beautiful order and drove and rode like a car.

At the new camp at Taurewa for most of the winter of 1953, I had a couple of escapades with an exploding hut stove and a bare heater element hanging from a light socket. Winter at Taurewa was cold. In these conditions we planted radiata trees in the tussock—once we thawed out our spades that had usually frozen into the ground overnight.

I climbed both Ngauruhoe and Tongariro one day that winter with only five grapefruit to eat. The last of the snow on the sharp ridge of the saddle between the two mountains was frozen. When I slipped and started sliding on my back I saved myself from skidding right over the edge only by digging my thumbs into the surface. Mount Ngauruhoe was throwing up small rocks to a good height while I was climbing. And I went right down into the crater itself. Alone. Was that stupid or what?

* * *

Maintaining a diary was a required exercise for trainees, and I took the opportunity of including personal material which is now of considerable interest. Unhappily, diary writing was a skill that did not survive my two years in the bush. But today it has reminded me that I processed a lot of film and made hundreds of prints in most difficult conditions. I also assisted in the projection booth for the movies at Taurewa hall. After a few nights of supervision, I ran all the changes on The African Queen. Seeing it on TV last year brought back a raft of memories. The atmosphere in the bush cinema was something that will never be seen again. It was stimulating stuff for an eighteen year old. I never feel quite the same about "the pictures" these days.

* * *

Towards the end of 1953 my application for the Professional Division of the NZFS was turned down. My former form teacher, Stan Ramson, by now principal of Hutt Valley High School, tendered the opinion that I had achieved University Entrance by "sheer hard work rather than brilliance"; I was "not university material". Genial Joe Johnson at NZFA head office now wrote me a consoling letter extolling the wonderful career opportunities that lay before me in the practical work of the General Division.

On 23rd December 1953 I travelled south on the usual Overnight Express. Next evening, on its return trip to Auckland, it would plunge into history in the lahar that swept down from the mountain and destroyed the bridges at Tangiwai with the loss of over 150 lives.

* * *

My General Division course was at Whakarewarewa Forestry Training School. I distinguished myself by guessing the height of a 136 foot radiata pine tree to within half a foot and its diameter to within a third of an inch. I must have learned something in the bush. But on the third day I distinguished myself rather differently by contracting shingles of all possible diseases.

At church in Rotorua I met Ciss and Evan Lewis. He worked at the Forest Research Institute, on the same site as the FTS. He later preceded me into the Methodist ministry and in the 1970s we would work together for several happy and productive years in Dunedin.

After the course I was posted to Dusky Forest in West Otago – another long distance from home. Two other trainees and I made ourselves very comfortable in the standard huts at the camp. We got into a few scrapes with the tyrannical Professional Forester. He would later become the last Director General of Forests before the government closed down this very effective department. But in 1954 we knew him as Mick the Bastard. Happily, he lived in camp only four nights a week and went home to Mum in Invercargill for weekends.

There was no queuing up for meals in Mrs Bulman's cookhouse. No, she walked with each plate from the kitchen and served each of us personally where we sat: "Your dinner, David." Once, when I had shot a quail with a .22 rifle, she casseroled the tiny bird and brought it in with ceremony: "Your quail, David."

* * *

One of the most boring jobs at Dusky Forest was chipping firebreaks. Up and down hills and around the perimeter of the forest every growing thing had to be removed for about ten metres' width. With a mattock. It was back-breaking stuff.

One day, while carrying my axe on a steep slope, my feet went out from under me and I cut two fingers to the bone on the palm side. The Tapanui doctor stitched it up (with a straight needle) and authorised several days of light duties in the office. Here I gained a good deal of useful experience. Filing, correspondence, handling orders and requisitions and even doing wages calculations were all new procedures. The office clerk rather enjoyed having me around and secured my assistance on occasions when he could persuade Mick the Bastard that he really needed the help. However, on this first occasion, Mick sent me back to work three days ahead of my doctor's certificate. While carrying a six-foot crosscut saw with two fingers still stitched and very bandaged up I had the saw torn from my shoulder by a branch and got a two-inch cut in the other hand. I have scars to prove them both.

We did release-cutting, freeing young trees from over-growing weeds. We three trainees were used as a production crew for a few months so we got to do some serious logging in large radiata. All our logging work at Dusky was done with hand crosscuts and axes. We saw a chainsaw once but it was only a demonstrator: it was a giant piece of equipment requiring two men using both hands to operate it.

The job that should have been quite fun was seed-collecting. Douglas Fir seed had to be gained by picking mature cones off the very top of a tree. Thirty metres above ground, the trunk itself was small enough to be enclosed in your fingers. In a generous breeze the tree might sway ten feet from side to side. After twenty minutes of this I would arrive back on the ground trembling all over.

On another very windy day we were working a stand of very old radiata and pine cones were flicking off the clashing branches and coming down like shells from a howitzer. They just disappeared into the mulch. On another windy day our journey to the work site was halted by no fewer than 26 trees down across the access road. By the time we'd dealt with these it was time to knock off and go home.

A seasonal district operation was "lining-out" seedlings at the Tapanui nursery. Trainees and other spare staff were brought in to assist with the lifting and transplanting of young trees. That was a back-breaking job. Once I helped with bagging chaff for the horses at the various district forests. The chaff-cutter wasn't actually steam driven but it was pretty old just the same. Another easy task, managing a burn-off of scrub on the fringe of the forest, was a welcome change from heavy manual work.

I scored a lot of time driving three and four-tonners carrying gravel for a new road being pushed through the forest. Spreading the metal evenly on the uphill, rough surface was not an easy job. At least I got most of the metal on the road and kept the truck there, too – more than some others did. We were a bunch of amateurs for such work.

As well as "thinnings "of Douglas Fir for pit props for the Mines Department, Dusky's contractors sent a modest quantity of timber to a local sawmill. An interesting chore was measuring each log before it went in and then measuring the planks that were successfully cut from it. The yield was not much more than 55% in usable timber and the rest went in sawdust and firewood. Big mills do much better these days with by-products like bark, chipping, mulch and resins also salvaged.

* * *

I joined an Adult Education choir and did a lot more developing and printing photos for myself and others. I even tried electronics and built up the beginnings of a portable radiogram. After a large investment in a portable typewriter, I took up touch-typing with blank tape over the keys and only a keyboard chart to keep me on the rails. Again and again in the 55 years since, I have blessed that old portable and those long nights in a small remote hut in the middle of West Otago.

We could pick up a bus on Friday nights at the camp gates and travel through Tapanui down to Gore. There was time to go to the movies or other evening events and still get the bus home.

I got a few shots away at deer and once lightly wounded a good animal in the depths of the forest where it was impossible to follow. One moonless night I walked right into a deer while heading up through the forest in the dark to be at the cleared edge at dawn. I was more successful with the plague rabbits of those days, scoring dozens of them with my semi-automatic .22 rifle while sitting on the step of my hut.

In the gravel pit in the Pomohaka River we'd catch eels with a bit of binder twine wound around a bait of fat. Deep in the forest I found a little creek with a couple of reasonable sized fish in it and successfully "tickled" one.

The three of us who were trainees each put in a week's pay to purchase a 1928 Buick straight eight tourer. The delivery trip of about 18 kilometres was marked with a puncture and a crash into a drain but we weren't deterred—not even when we found it did only about six miles to the gallon. It was mobile and quite powerful and its narrow wheels cut through the snow to find the gravel road below without difficulty. In November I romped through my Heavy Traffic licence in our International KB6. A beautiful ten wheeler truck with synchromesh on all the gears except the two lowest out of six, it drove like a car on a rough road at 60mph with a full load of pit props.

* * *

I attended Kelso Presbyterian Church, sometimes playing the organ for evening service. In the winter the immense coke-filled stove glowed dull red with the heat generated by burning on high draught since morning.

I spent many weekends as a guest at the Heriot manse where I was able to help with a bit of gardening and laying a lawn. Iain Hewson and I used to talk about the church a great deal. At first my interest was moderate but with my background, I had some understanding for his position as a newly trained and ordained young minister.

It was in some of his services, among a modest cluster of faithful old retainers, that I began to think more about my faith and the church than I had in all the years of busy involvement at Waiwhetu. What struck me most of all was that the men with whom I worked simply had no understanding at all of Christianity. It was not that they had experienced it and decided against it. They simply did not know anything about it. That was an issue about which I had never given the slightest thought.

In the context of this kind of deliberation, I accepted an invitation to preach my first sermon. Iain coached me through the presentation but left the words almost completely to me. The good folks at Glenkenich Presbyterian Church received it kindly. It was later delivered at Tapanui church which seemed to seat about 300 but on a Sunday evening had only 17 people. And they were all sitting in the back two rows. It was an inauspicious beginning. Happily for them, I suppose, it lasted for only about eight minutes.

Iain and Barbara Hewson were wonderfully good to me. They were disposing of their 1952 Morris Minor convertible and I delivered it to St Andrews for them. But not before I had the use of it for a long weekend in Christchurch with Bev. She came down on the inter island ferry to Lyttelton while I drove all night. I must have arrived a bit late because we seemed to waste half our first day just looking for each other on the wharf. But we didn't waste any of the rest of it and I didn't catch up much sleep. The little Morris was dropped off at St Andrews where it told no secrets. I rode the train back to Waipahi Junction and hitchhiked back to Dusky.

Without doubt, my close interaction with Iain and Barbara helped me realise that the ministry was a possible calling. The work that I loved was not opening up a clearly developing future, though it breathed permanence and security. I realised there must be something more worthwhile.

I was not one of those who opened the bible at a whim and put a finger on a word of advice for their situation. However, one night, while working at Tapanui I did this–just once!–and my finger landed on Jeremiah's protest: "I have not hastened from being a pastor..." I took this mysterious direction on board and began to think about the ministry not so much in terms of "if" as "when."

On the advice of Eric Clement who had been our minister at Waiwhetu in those most formative years, I wrote to Principal Eric Hames at Trinity College. His directions were very clear: "Get some university work under your belt and then think about offering for college." Now there was a dilemma. I had been rejected for the Professional Division on the grounds of being unsuitable material for university. But the same obstacle was now in the way of my offering for training for the ministry. Iain Hewson was keen to have me apply through the Presbyterian Church, in which I enjoyed full "reciprocal" membership. He thought I could train at the Theological Hall for ministry in union parishes, of which the first half dozen were already in place. It was not a silly idea and held my attention for some time before I made the decision to stick with the Methodist track.

The first step was to commence studies for Accreditation as a Local Preacher. Next, I secured position in Forest Service's Head Office in Wellington. Here I would be granted a few hours a week to study part-time at university. After Christmas, Bev and I attended the Marton Youth Conference. There were a lot of hi-jinks that went on in the formal events. Indeed, if memory serves me correctly, there was quite a lot of activity before, after and sometimes instead of some of them.

* * *

Early in January 1955 I was back in Dusky Forest for my final few weeks in the open air before moving to Wellington. If I needed an emotive confirmation about the decision to leave the outdoor life, Thursday 24th February was the day any doubts would have been dispelled. As the only trainee with a heavy traffic I was gentling our fully loaded Chevy three-tonner truck down a winding, narrow forest track. All at once the brake pedal went straight to the floor. If that doesn't cause the hairs to stand up on the back of your neck it should. Although our load of logs was chained to bolsters on the back of the truck the bolsters were not secured to the flat deck. I knew that if I put the truck into the bank to stop it, the entire load would come forward and wipe the cab off the chassis. I did a quick change down to a lower gear and two of us tugged manfully on the handbrake. But this was an affair that operated some flimsy clamps around a spinning drum on the drive shaft. It was hardly effective even as a parking brake and certainly made not the slightest bit of difference when the vehicle was under the control of an irresistible gravitational force.

We rode the beast downhill for several corners on the narrow track going faster and faster, finally coming to an outside corner where there was room to spare. I moved to the edge of the road and spun the wheel over the other way. The truck bucked up on one side and the entire load, pit props, bolsters and chains sailed off the side of the tray and burst on the downhill slope. I straightened out and found a good bank on the uphill side and ground the truck firmly into it. With a lot of graunching and bumping we came to a stop. There was one of those pregnant silences you read about in books as we looked at each other for quite a while. It took two men and both of Dusky's horses most of a day to retrieve the props from the bottom of the valley.

A few days later I rose at 5.30am; I made the routine train trip to Christchurch and travelled on to Wellington by the overnight ferry. I took with me a clear sense of calling to share with people like my friends in the bush what I had come to experience of the life of faith.

In time I would revise this sense of call. I would come to see the calling to ordained ministry more as a kind of withdrawal from the "front line" to be a trainer and equipper of the "troops" who were at the cutting edge. That was a concept that would have been somewhat ahead of its time. But in February 1955 I was very clear about my general direction.

# 5

# Lower Hutt Again

"Busier than forty cats in a tripe-shop"

(Grandma Thomas)

On 2nd March 1955 I reported to NZ Forest Service Stores and Accounts section, just a few doors from Kodak where I had first started work.

In a few days I was responsible for all the Service's printing, stationery and office supplies for the entire country. Stocks were held at Gracefield and I had to manage reprinting as required. Eric Page of the Government Printing Office was most helpful to this tyro in the business and I was soon speaking the language of publishing. The ritual suggestions campaign netted me a couple of weeks' extra pay from some pretty basic re-designing of forms. The whole experience was exactly the kind of stuff that first inspired the play Glide Time.

This was a time when Bev and I saw a good deal of each other, of course. Once more our offices were within three minutes' walk of each other. We resumed meeting for lunch and, occasionally, going to a modest after-work dinner or outing. We were a lot more conscious of the need to save now that I was thinking about going to Trinity College but we managed to have quite a good time.

We had our twenty-first birthday parties on two Saturdays a week apart. My Thomas grandparents sent me some money with a lovely letter suggesting I buy something that the "fairies didn't bring me on the day". They weren't able to come to the party because, said Grandma, they were "busier than forty cats in a tripe-shop".

* * *

Of course I was caught up once more in a lot of church activity during 1955-56. One interesting project was preparing a proposal for the management committee of Elsdon Camp. I suggested that the gorse-covered property should be turned into radiata forest. The project would use volunteers from among the young people of the district and eventually provide some perpetual income for the camp. The idea was rejected. In years to come I would get a lot more experience with offering imaginative plans to committees which couldn't quite catch the vision.

Waiwhetu had its own Easter Camp in 1955 so Bev and I attended that but the following year we went to separate district camps. The "Young Men's" camp that I attended was held on the Boys' Brigade campsite in Wainuiomata. Some Scouts at their own camp down the valley thought, naturally enough, that we were the Boys' Brigade people who had raided their camp the previous summer. Our boys chased and captured two of the Scouts and dragged them back to our hall where over 120 rowdy young men were soon screaming for vengeance. John Dawson, camp chaplain, calmed everyone down, reminded us that we had been studying Jesus' trial before his death. He took our thoughts back to the judgment before Pilate, pointed out that it wasn't Jesus who was on trial that day and then, in pin-dropping silence then asked, "So what should we do with these fellows?" There was a long silence. Then someone from the back of the hall called out very clearly "Crucify them!"

Winter Schools were mixed sex events so we were able to go together. There was a fairly solid line in teaching and usually the participants were serious and committed. The singing and fellowship of those events were memorable. These Schools provided an excellent grounding for church leaders, not to mention intending candidates for the ministry. And a little romancing on the side.

There were plenty of opportunities for me to gain more experience in leading worship, mostly in the many smaller churches in the valley. I developed a feel for the small congregation and have remained a small-church person to this day, probably because of people in Brees St and Rata St congregations. Closing such churches on the grounds of "viability" may yet turn out to be a strategy that the church will regret.

Waiwhetu's young people were well represented at the national Youth Conference at John McGlashan College in Dunedin. The programme was memorable but not as much so as the Great Water-Fight. It was my last night with Bev before I had to go off early for Compulsory Military Training so we felt the need to make a close inspection of the sheltered rough adjacent to the twelfth tee on the adjacent golf course. When I finally crept into the men's quarters in pitch dark I got a huge watery surprise that was actually intended for someone else.

* * *

Next morning I left for my initial CMT course at RNZAF Wigram. From the beginning our bunch of intelligent young men set out to prove that "university" men were above military discipline. The course was a shambles. It was easy to qualify as Air Craftsman Class Two, Radar. We found some interesting distractions, especially a good number of flying training accidents with student pilots landing Harvards. The Chief of Air Staff of the Royal Air Force made a ceremonial visit from UK. His white Avro York was obviously a development of the four-engined Lancaster bomber and I discovered recently that one was used for carrying Winston Churchill on wartime trips. But, according to at least one of his pilots, Churchill's persistent efforts at flying it himself left quite a lot to be desired.

Air Force Day was celebrated at Wigram while we were there and a demonstration drill squad was selected from our ranks. My Boys' Brigade drill competition work must have showed because I found myself selected as Marker for this. We were permitted to wear white webbing which looked very smart. The drill—a mixture of conventional military manoevres with some fancy bits and pieces added into it—was demanding but quite impressive.

Antarctic exploration was getting under way at this time and the US Navy had several aircraft at Wigram. The Grumman Albatross was a "triphibian" seaplane fitted with ice skates and wheels. Somewhat ungainly, it was loaded to the limit with fuel and supplies for the long flight south. With both engines bellowing it would labour along the tarmac. Then four jet-assisted take-off rockets would be lit and in huge clouds of smoke and a shattering racket the thing would be hurled into the air. As the rockets died, the pilots would then drop the nose and steal just enough airspeed to stop everything falling out of the sky. The crews who flew those little planes for all those hours across the southern ocean to the ice at McMurdo Sound had guts.

The Wigram Chaplain at the time didn't cut it with the rather academically minded trainees in our intake. Happily for me, he wasn't a Methodist and I didn't feel obliged to stick up for him. I was as bored and frustrated as everyone in his padre's hours. Once he showed us slides. There was no detectable objective except to occupy us for the requisite period. It was dreadful. He came to a picture of a hillside and some willow trees and, no doubt to rivet our interest on the show, asked, "Anyone here from Nelson?"

"Yes, Padre," was a reluctant response.

"Well, where's that, then?"

In a flash the reply came, "Nelson, Padre."

Really, he deserved the huge laugh that rocked the hall at his expense. I would recall the moment in later years when I became a chaplain in the territorial force myself.

I attended local church services when I could and took a service in the local Methodist Circuit. I had no other respectable clothing so got permission to wear my dress blues for the occasion. This probably caused a minor sensation in the little Clarence St congregation who could probably still recall when congregations like theirs were bitterly divided over pacifism during the war. JD Grocott was very good about the whole visit and gave me some generous feedback.

Eight weeks passed very quickly and I was soon back into the Lower Hutt routine, boarding with Rev Les and Wynn Norwell, active in the local church and district affairs, continuing university studies with a second unit towards a BA degree and working at Forest Service Head Office in Wellington.

* * *

By now I had a lot more responsibility but there were a few perks. Having a heavy traffic licence, I was sometimes asked to drive a truck for moving bulky materials between the various offices. Very occasionally I was released for a day to deliver a brand new truck to a Wellington Conservancy Forest and once did a two-day trip to Rotorua. This truck was a Ford "Cost Cutter" Thames three-tonner cab and chassis. As it was not run in, the truck was strictly limited to 10mph in second gear, 17mph in third and 25mph in top. I was in no hurry so was happy to be quite conscientious about this and made the most of the paid overnight stop at Taihape. I duly delivered the truck to Waipa Forest HQ and returned by bus and train to Wellington in time for work next day. A big adventure for a 21 year old civil servant.

* * *

My biggest break from the office routine occurred immediately after the big Balmoral Forest Fire. The Canterbury Conservancy Store at Ashley Forest had been completely gutted of all tools and equipment for fighting the fire. Naturally there had been no time to fill in the prescribed forms for items taken from the store. Canterbury appealed to Head Office for someone—anyone, I suspect—who had hands-on experience in an actual Forest Store. All my enforced hours of "wet time" and "light duties" in Dusky Forest office paid off as I found myself on board the overnight ferry to Lyttelton, bound for Ashley Forest.

It was a fascinating assignment. Although the formal records were an unbelievable mess there were casual lists of items rushed out during the emergency. I took all of these and wrote out formal requisitions for every item that could be identified. I signed authorisations for every one of them myself. Nobody asked if I had the authority to do so but the system seemed to be happy with the results. Before leaving the district I was given a tour of the Canterbury Forests. And I was invited to drive one of the ex-desert war fire tankers. Now that was an experience.

However, with the pressure of attending lectures it seemed a wise idea to find work that was both better paying and closer to home. I also needed an occupation that was less mentally demanding. I found work driving the Ross straddle carrier at Odlins Timber Yard in Petone. The Ross was a beautiful piece of machinery with four speeds in each direction. The highest mark I ever got for work at university was for a paper I wrote on "Plateaus in Learning" in which I described the challenging process of learning to drive it.

Most of the work was shifting skid-loads of timber around the yard, into the various saws, knives and planers and out to the despatch department. The yard was surrounded by built-up property and every available piece of flat land had to be utilised, often involving very tricky manoevres.

That year I moved into Stage II units at university with more early evening lectures. I used to cycle from Waterloo to Petone to start work around 7.30am. After work I took the train from Petone to university in Wellington, sat through one or two hours of lectures – in the first of which I usually fell asleep for a few minutes. Then at 8pm or 9pm I would go back to Petone by train, pick up my bike and ride back over the Railway bridge to Waiwhetu.

* * *

During this year I led a Young Men's Junior Bible Class and we organised a weekend camp for just our group of about ten. Bev came along to handle the meals and her lovely roast was on the plates when one end of the borrowed trestle collapsed and everything slid to the floor. There was no panic. Nobody screamed. We just got down on the floor and scooped it all up and put it back on the table and had a great meal.

These young men, only three or four years younger than me, were a wonderful team to work with. In later years I came to value work with this age group much more highly than work with children. The church had a great opportunity in the days when teenagers looked to the local congregation to provide them with entertainment, fellowship and a broadening social experience, not to mention a "safe" communal setting in which to exercise their first experiences of dating and courtship. We may sneer slightly at the "social" church of the 1950s and it may be true that many members participated for other than the very best reasons. But in many places the church of the day did some things well, and comprehensive ministry among their youth was one of them.

* * *

When I had returned to Lower Hutt in early 1955 I had to finish the studies to qualify as a Local Preacher. As soon as I had finished these papers I went on to four or five more for candidature. The church was wedded to the principle of written examinations at every level. Later, I would discover how that came to be.

The main evaluation of "the gifts and graces" of ministry candidates took place in the Circuit, the Synod and the Examination Committee of Conference. In each setting we had to give an account of our conversion and call to the ministry and answer questions. In the latter courts the questions were often put by very competent theologians and the outcome was never to be taken for granted. We waited in an adjacent room while each body deliberated, often at great length. But, eventually, I was accepted by Conference with eleven others, one of the largest intakes ever.

Even in those first two experiences of the process I was beginning to entertain doubts as to its appropriateness. I would return to that theme within five years and eventually would make a significant contribution towards changing the system.

* * *

After Christmas our family had the last of our big camping holidays. This time Bev came along as well. Dad's two cars took us briskly up to Cooper's Beach where we spent several days with Dave and Jean Williams and their family. We returned slowly through the North Island and I went back to work for another month or so. In February I would be off to Trinity College in Auckland.

# 6

# Trinity College

"Fudge, anyone?"

(Anon)

At twenty-two I was still fairly young to be entering Trinity College but I had seen a little more of the seamier side of life than some of those who were about my age. The everyday local church held no mysteries for me and I was fairly easily able to earth my ministry studies in my experience of real conditions.

The college curriculum included a conventional list of subjects themed around the classic disciplines. "Father" Eric Hames was principal, "Doc" David O Williams was the other full-time staff member for most of our time and John Silvester came in towards the end. JJ Lewis was, as Father Hames put it to us, "overseas between the Testaments" doing post-graduate study in the intertestamental era.

Hames' passion for the church, his broad knowledge, puckish humour and commonsense, idiosyncratic approach would never be forgotten by his students. The advent of women students in ministry classes had already occurred so my generation must have missed some of the more outrageous comments that were formerly sprinkled through his lectures. Students of the Congregational College took many lectures with us. Their Principal H G Nicholas, (inevitably known, in the disrespectful climate at Trinity, as Tinpants) was a man of great and deep knowledge but rather less passion as he delivered his share of lectures to us.

Most of our tutors were people who had proved themselves in pastoral ministry in the church and their lectures tended to be well grounded in that experience. This encouraged me to see a very firm link between what I was learning in college and what I would find myself doing in circuit ministry. We were also greatly privileged to have Seward Hiltner as a visiting lecturer at Trinity College for a good part of one year. We sat through the essentials of his latest book The Christian Shepherd in a series of lectures. He and Doc Williams both saw pastoral care as being closely related to personal problem-solving. For a time we had a really intense two-man mutual admiration society around the place. Their approach was grounded, but not slavishly, to the non-directive approach of Carl Rogers.

All the divinity students were supposed to turn out on Wednesdays for an afternoon's work around the property. I got initiated into the art of secret nailing as Seton Horrill and I replaced elderly match-lining on the former collegiate church hall. Doc was in charge of work afternoons and really enjoyed the practical aspects of maintenance around the property. He found endless pleasure in fiddling with mechanical and material bits and pieces.

* * *

Some Thursdays I did a night shift at the bakery around the corner. The money was helpful but losing even the few hours' sleep I usually managed each night was not very good for next day's lectures. At the end of term I hitchhiked home after a bakery shift. Half asleep, I must have been dull company sometimes. One trip to Wellington took only nine hours. I didn't spend more than a total of half an hour between lifts for the entire journey. When I later did the trip in our own car it was more comfortable but never as quick as that.

* * *

Students were expected to do at least one long vacation on "supply" in a parish. My own circuit accepted me for Naenae church in my second long vacation. That community would become famous in a year or two as the first post-war suburb to demonstrate widespread delinquency among its youth but in 1958 the neighbourhood was a pleasant place. The church had a good core of committed people and a large youth roll and it was a very good opportunity to explore and develop some of the skills of regular parish ministry.

I was boarded with the memorable William White and his less than memorable wife (which is simply to say I can't remember her name). He claimed that everything on the table was "out of our own garden". When I challenged him about the roast lamb his very logical answer was "Definitely out of our own garden—it's never been in it."

One short vacation I was contracted to paint the family home at Levin. Considering that Bev was in Lower Hutt, my spending a precious vacation in Levin was not an advantage as far as our courtship was concerned. Sometimes Dad's little van was on auto-pilot on Sunday night trips north.

* * *

At Auckland's Pitt St Church, Eric Clement instituted an "open air" event on Friday nights and some of us became involved with this. Over the top of a small platform on the church steps we had a large sign saying Any Questions? We set up a rear projection screen that showed short films thrown up by a 16mm movie projector and a mirror. Neighbours was a brilliant little piece from Canada using a remarkable technique they called pixillation to show how easily neighbours could fall out. After the film, one or two of us would stand up and invite questions and comments. Sometimes fifty people would stop to watch the movie and then melt into the distance as soon as we stepped forward. I found it a stimulating challenge to think quickly on my feet and to respond with something reasonably worth saying.

It was made clear that I was expected me to use the three years in Trinity College to continue with advanced units at university. While we were there I completed Education to Stage III and Psychology to Stage II. The only other really challenging requirement for a BA degree was a language. I told Father Hames about this. He was one of three people who attempted to teach me elementary New Testament Greek so he was aware of my infelicity with languages. He thought for a moment then he said, "Enrol for Hebrew, Mullan. It will be all right." So I did. And it was. I passed.

I scraped through Trinity College exams mainly on the strength of having taken good notes in lectures; but even that was a lot of very hard work for me. At least my notes have underlined references to what I saw as the practical application of what we were being told. But reading was hard; I still have difficulty in digesting large amounts of printed material – even my own. I guess my reading difficulties are well illustrated in the inadequate proof-reading in most of my publications. I simply do not see the occasional that is missing or the that words sometimes get transposed. It is if as I am sort of dyslexic or something.

The leadership of worship and especially preaching were college topics that were taken very seriously. There was a Tuesday night criticism service each week of term until each student had contributed an offering. Both students and staff were rostered to offer criticism. On one side or the other, no holds were barred and no prisoners were taken. Doc Williams handled most crits and he could deliver a pretty thorough demolition on a poor performance, especially if one's peers had failed to do the job. I think that no theological college in this country paid so much attention to the conduct of worship and preaching as did Trinity in those days. It was no surprise that lively fraternal suppers usually followed these services.

We also had to conduct "outside" trial services twice during the college course and these were evaluated by Auckland District ministers. Some of them saw this chore as an opportunity for ministers to hassle the college staff. I think that many circuit ministers yearned to be on the college staff.

* * *

Life at Trinity College in the late 1950s was not a complete grind. In our first year there was a creaking noise outside our window in the middle of the night and I looked out to see a kerosene tin with a dozen bricks from the chapel building contract being raised up from the ground on a rope. The whole of John Mabon's third floor room had been emptied of all its contents while he was away. Bricks were laid two deep across the floor. John was not pleased and his mantle as Professor of Modern Languages was enhanced no end by his verbal gymnastics on discovering the situation.

I managed to spend some time with Bev when she came to work in Auckland for most of my second year and flatted around the corner. This audacious move on our part gave rise to a good deal of shenanigans that began the morning she arrived for her first visit. I slipped out very early to walk down to the station to welcome her off the overnight express but it did me no good at all. Some of the third-year students brought me back up to college where I was undressed almost to the point of indecency, daubed with various colourful dyes and secured in a chair on Doc Williams' front porch. Bev was met at the station by others and informed that I had got "tied up at the last minute".

The year Bev was in Auckland, two carloads of us made a very pleasant weekend trip to Rotorua. We stayed in the cheap holiday flats in the former Methodist parsonage —a concept that would return to me forty years later.

It would have to be said that I was not entirely uninvolved on the occasion when students in another year were our guests for after-crit supper. Apparently, the fudge that had been specially made for the evening and generously shared with them was laced with a mild chocolate laxative. And, apparently, the toilet seats on their floor were fitted with almost invisible strands of fuse wire that delivered an electric shock when sat upon.

And the inference that the bicycle raised on the college flagpole in the middle of the night was put there by me just because I was the one who risked life and limb to take it down in broad daylight at the stern behest of Father Hames is not necessarily correct.

There were frequent raids on mattresses. On one occasion, one was hidden in the large cavity behind the stereo system in the common room. Some of us were standing on the first floor across the quad from the common room and noticed what appeared to be steam rising off the damp tiles in the morning mist. Only it wasn't steam; it was smoke rising from every tile over the room. The cavity where the mattress was tossed included the metal chimney for the built-in fireplace and the mattress had smouldered for some time. The mattress thieves, being informed of the problem, rushed into the common room, threw open the cupboard and dragged the mattress out into the quad where it promptly burst into flames. Doc Williams found out about it only at the end-of-year inventory when Matron Pearl Grove, trying to account for a specific deficit in the mattress tally, observed, "Well, of course, there's the one the boys burned." That cost every college inhabitant seven shillings.

* * *

I was a very frequent attender at Easter Camps in those days and we were encouraged to give leadership at these events. One that sticks in the memory was in 1959 at Waiomu on the Thames Coast. At the invitation of Cliff Duder, minister at Thames. I accepted the role of camp chaplain/teacher role on the understanding that Bev would come up from Lower Hutt and also play a leadership role.

I picked her up from the overnight train and drove down to camp where we behaved ourselves pretty well According to the local newspaper, we made a "useful contribution". After the event I was to take Bev down to Frankton to catch the overnight train back to Lower Hutt before driving back to Auckland. We figured that the trip to Hamilton would give us a little time to be alone together. However, Cliff found someone else who needed to go to Hamilton, and suggested that we might like to take him along with us. Some intervention from Cliff's wife enabled us to go off on our own. Afterwards, the expression "doing a Duder" entered into our family lore, to describe the action of anyone who could arrange someone else to do a favour for a third person.

* * *

A short letter that I treasure from this time is from Secretary of Conference. In the final days of my college career Secretary Athol Penn informed me that the recent Conference had given permission for me to get married and wished me well in marriage and church work. Most of us were marrying straight after college and needed that letter. In my case the letter was dated a week after our wedding.

At many previous weddings Bev and I had been a part of whatever fun and games took place and clearly, nobody was going to pass up the opportunity of giving us a slightly hard time. So, notwithstanding the fact that I had to wade through about thirteen three-hour exams in the days immediately preceding the nuptials we paid a good deal of attention to hiding our getaway car in a place where it was only accessible through a pedestrian railway station subway. It was an absolutely foolproof plan.

But an hour before the wedding we were doing the last-minute checks and Seton Horrill, my best man, asked for The Ring. It was in the pocket of my sports jacket—in the carefully hidden car in Petone. A quick trip and a vow of secrecy got everything back on track and the wedding proceeded. Our exit from the reception went smoothly and we allowed everyone to chase us all round town in a borrowed car for a while and then we carried out the switcheroo through the subway exactly as planned. It was a textbook job and we drove sedately out to the Paraparaumu motel – and ran into the entire bridal party looking for a place for a meal together! Happily, charity prevailed and they went off and left us to it.

At Levin next morning Dad had set up a treasure hunt to find the key to the caravan he'd hired for us. We went all over town before we got it and by then they were home from church so we couldn't avoid having Sunday dinner together. You might have thought that would be enough. But that night we went to the evening service at Dannevirke Methodist Church. Bev needed to look her best so flicked down the sun visor mirror to check hair. Confetti exploded all over her: Dad had placed a slim open box full of confetti on it and it had stayed in place all afternoon until the visor was lowered.

We had a great trip. The most memorable overnight stop was in the middle of the Huiarau Ranges where the noise of the dawn chorus was unbelievable. On our return we had a couple of months to spare before moving to our first appointment so we moved into a flat over the Northland tunnel in Wellington. On our arrival, the whole place was decorated inside and out with toilet paper. We were also "tin-canned" by a troop of Waiwhetu people one evening.

It was a very good experience for us to have time together as a married couple before we were launched into a parsonage. Bev continued to work at the job she'd been in for a year since returning to Wellington and I did my last stint of driving with the Public Service Garage.

I'd been with the PSG during several college vacations over the previous three years. In the busy Christmas season I worked some double shifts – some fourteen hours on end. The work was fairly undemanding both physically and mentally and, of course, I simply enjoyed driving. Anyway, with these last few weeks of driving around Wellington, I ended my career as a lay person. Bev and I made some final deposits into our new joint bank account, packed up our things and finalised our coming transition to a completely different kind of life.

In November 1959, while getting the news that we were allowed to marry, we also heard where we were appointed. Everyone at 9 Cressy St in Lower Hutt had to look for a map when Bev got an unofficial phone call late at night to tell her we were going to Ngatea.

Nobody had heard of the place.

# 7

# Hauraki Plains

"Make this last as long as you can"

(Jack Harris, offering a personal cheque for $50)

We'd at least had the benefit of a few weeks living together when we arrived at Ngatea and moved into the rather modest parsonage. But we had to get up to speed on many things as we settled in. Up to this time I guess we had been sort of "playing house"; now it was for real.

It was all new and interesting and we enjoyed doing it together—when Bev could tear me away from work around the pastorate or my probationary studies, that is. Right from the beginning we both had a fairly clear idea of what I was there for. To a greater or lesser extent, my work and ministry was a priority for both of us. We were partners in the work, so far as we understood it all.

WR (Bill) Laws, later General Secretary of the Church, was my first superintendent and presided over the induction service. He chose to stay the night with us rather than drive the fifty or so kilometres home to Morrinsville. Whatever his limitations in after-dark driving, he took his supervisory duties very seriously and was unfailingly encouraging, if a trifle old-fashioned.

"If someone in a meeting threatens to resign if the meeting doesn't do what he wants," Bill said, "suspend the business and say, `We will now consider the resignation of Mr X'". I don't think it ever came to exactly that, but I was generally fairly decisive when threats and blackmail were offered in the context of decision-making at various levels of the church.

* * *

The house was a very modest two-bedroom home in concrete blocks that had been cast by a previous incumbent. Largely completed by voluntary labour, it was a proud possession for the circuit but not by any means up to the proper parsonage standard. The toilet was outside on the back of the basic garage and that required some imaginative arrangements when Bev was pregnant and likely to be caught short in the middle of the night. The roof hadn't been painted and we put that right. But not before there was some comment from the conservative neighbours when Bev was seen wielding a brush while wearing the shortest of shorts.

The Hauraki peat was excellent for gardening if we could keep it adequately watered. We were in a rather visible location so we took trouble with flowers and there were economic motivations to have vegetables as well. Several fruit trees and an improvised bottling system using an old copper in the spare section next door, gave us huge supplies of potential desserts.

* * *

A very early decision of the parish was to put together some kind of monthly newsletter with a real Methodist Preaching Plan. There were no facilities so I provided the typewriter. I made a few enquiries around and, through the good offices of a salesman who was persuading the local school to upgrade their duplicator, I acquired a venerable Gestetner Model 26. While I didn't have the artistic style of Rev Les George at Waihi I got some very satisfactory results out of this for several years.

In 1960 I spotted an advertisement for a 6x4 bench-top letterpress and in a fever of extravagance we dashed up to Brown's Bay to see it the same morning. It was a complete press kit with composing stick, fonts of type, reglet and furniture. It had been used for print work on Waiheke Island. It was not efficient to hand-set a whole newsletter, of course, but I was soon creating letterheads and visiting cards and other items for the parish. Bev printed prize tickets, admission tickets, membership cards, wedding invitations and all kinds of small items for pocket money. We developed quite a lively hobby trade in numbered and dated stewardship envelopes.

* * *

One of the major problems facing "the Plains" when I arrived was its financial viability. Of course, the people were sure that the appointment of the right minister would bring more people into the congregation, the offerings would go up and all the problems would be solved.

These were the days of the "stewardship" movement, so, by my second year, the key objective in my work was to encourage our Quarterly Meeting to have a "directed" canvass. Apart from the idealistic "If people's hearts are right with God there won't be any money problems" there was the usual agricultural culture by which farmers lived on the budget strategy their accountants gave them. They were always in overdraft. So it was not without some discussion that the meeting decided to go ahead. But, clearly, everyone recognised that something had to be done. As regular planned giving of this kind was designed to replace the system of regular monthly appeals for this and that special cause it was lightheartedly referred to as "putting all your begs in one ask-it".

Our circuit became the setting for the first NZ trainee director Bill Wotherspoon to cut his teeth on. Bill and his secretary Dorothy threw all their weight into the programme and the people rallied round. We adjusted the official programme, to make it more user-friendly and less costly. Nobody resigned their membership in anger and our giving doubled. Interestingly, so did the annual church attendance in the June statistical return.

* * *

For Bev and me, the stewardship mission at Hauraki Plans was our first exposure to the invitation to serious, sacrificial, proportionate giving and we rounded the tenth of our disposable income of under £10 a week up to a commitment of a pound. A sense of purposeful, sacrificial stewardship remained a part of our lives even as family expenses rose faster than stipend increases in following years.

But financial affairs were not easy for us, and we received nothing at all for six weeks after we arrived. Then we were given a $50 cheque on the local pharmacy with the admonition, "Make this last as long as you can." Perhaps everyone handled their affairs that way. At a Trust meeting we had a routine letter from the bank concerning new overdraft regulations. The letter was set to be taken "as read". However, Olive Brennan asked for it to be read. The meeting burst into laughter—everyone had received it except her.

Ministers normally had four bedrooms so that they could offer hospitality to the many official visitors. While Mary Astley was with us, Paul's cot was moved from the only bedroom into the study. In the morning a tremendous morning crash told us of an accident with a sorted box of tiny printer's type.

Mrs Desmond Smith of the Bible Society wrote a memorable note:

>... thank Beverley for her delectable feast... and joy to you both in shouldering the Plains—I don't expect Palestine was any easier... and we do it harnessed to the Invisible Partner...

and:

> When things are too tough I find buying a bunch of grapes and spitting out the stones is very helpful!

Our Waiwhetu friend Ann Browne, now Sister Erena of the Methodist Maori Mission, often dropped in. Her Morris Minor was always packed with clothing she was expected to sell to her "parishioners" to pay for the petrol she used to get to them. This was a demeaning requirement of her ministry. As we come up to 80 years of age we find ourselves in the same church with her most Sundays.

* * *

I was called on very early to represent probationers in a special committee appointed to consider stipends. It was a condition of being allowed to marry before ordination that you would accept a single stipend rather than the married rate. I made a couple of trips to Auckland to make the case to some of the wise old heads of the church. Conference eventually accepted our interesting if not completely novel proposal that married probationers should receive the married rate. The decision was implemented too late to make much difference to Bev and me but it helped quite a few others.

Another connexional issue was to do with the Children's Fund which provided a very small allowance for each child. Our first, Paul, turned up in 1961, pretty much as planned, but in some dramatic haste that necessitated 70mph through Turua at 4am. His mother reckons he hasn't stopped since. I received a short letter from the Connexional Secretary:

> In connection with the birth of your infant son I write to ask if you have communicated with the Treasurer of the Children's Fund, Mr TM Pacey, P O Box 1792, Wellington. You should do this immediately.

After it had been typed it must have looked a bit terse because he hand-wrote at the bottom a charming note of personal congratulations. Looking back on my own ministry, I wonder if there were many times when I was as successful at such personal touches.

However, when stipends were reviewed later on, this tiny concession was eliminated altogether instead of being proportionately increased. It was another case of a good principle imperceptibly undermined by inattention to changing circumstances, something that the Methodist Church seemed to be able to achieve with studied negligence time after time.

Christine arrived rather more sedately in 1963 and tended to sit on the floor observing the world. Both our children travelled well, especially at night when we bedded them down in the back. No seatbelts. No restrains at all. Those were the bad old days for toddlers in cars!

* * *

We had five "preaching places" on the Plains. Ngatea was the strongest of our congregations with some solid support among couples of our own age group. It met alternate Sundays at 9.30am and 7pm. There was a small Sunday School in the vast hall. Gerard Pinnock was an excellent organist at Ngatea and the singing was good. However, there was also an 11am service at Turua or Kerepeehi, or Patetonga.

The third Sunday of the month was the busy one: Ngatea at 9.30am was followed by half an hour run out to Patetonga community church. Kaihere at 2pm was a challenge in summer. Almost all the men had been up since very early morning for milking. They had usually done a day's work, and had a big roast dinner just before church. By about half-past two in a stuffy, hot, brick church, as I was launching into a sermon to inspire and enthuse they were ready for a little kip. On one particularly oppressive afternoon I could see that every one of the thirteen or so present was fast asleep. Trinity College had not prepared me for that situation. Reflecting realistically that there wasn't a lot of evidence that people gained all that much from preaching when they're wide awake anyway I just preached on and gradually and unostentatiously they rejoined the service.

A few kilometres down the road was the Kaihere flaxmill. Here we had a small service at 3.30pm in a rough old barn for the mainly Maori workers. They could sing half a dozen Maori hymns with confidence. Occasionally Sister Erena would come up from Hamilton and we would conduct the very informal service together.

A short run home to Ngatea by 5pm and an early tea and we would be off to the last service of the day, 7pm at Kerepeehi, eight kilometres towards Paeroa. Here a small Methodist building housed about half dozen faithful attenders. It was at Kerepeehi but not in this building that the then Home Missionary Cliff Duder, arranged for the congregation's matriarchal Martha to prepare the elements for communion. Caught short without the requisite "fresh juice of the grape" she improvised with some raspberry jelly crystals. Right up to the moment of putting his own glass to his lips, Cliff did not know that she'd overdone the mixture and the stuff had set firm in the glasses.

Two other Sundays of the month there were afternoon services at Waitakaruru where there had been a Methodist Church since the 1930s. I usually played the organ as well as conducting the service and the four or five people in the congregation sat right up close and personal.

Methodist services were held in the Turua Presbyterian Church at 11am every second Sunday. The membership roll included 16 who were surnamed Baker—and the 17th was a Baker in-law. It gave a whole new meaning to the term Family Church. The people of the plains belonged to a day when most church people were grateful to have a minister to exercise ministry among them. If everything was not quite perfect they might grumble but they would hunker down and wait for the next one to come along. I should have been more grateful to have commenced ministry at such a time.

One of our first harvest festival services was followed by the traditional auction to help the circuit to meet its commitments. It was a new experience for a city boy and, as we talked it over critically afterwards, people warmed to the idea of perhaps passing the produce on to Thames Rest Homes for people who could really use it.

Among the various outings for District Youth there was a bus trip to Ruapehu. Charlie White was willing to loan us his 1942 Mack school bus if someone would drive it. I was keen and obtained my passenger service licence on his smaller bus a few days before the trip. With a rather modest Ford V8 flathead, the Mack was not a specially speedy vehicle. And we had three stoppages for petrol blockages. But a good time was had by all in the snow and with an overnight stop in the Methodist Church Hall at Taumarunui we were back in Thames Valley by Sunday evening. They still talk about it in Thames and a member of our present church told me the other day that she was on that trip.

* * *

By way of personal family relaxation, we had a few picnic outings and occasionally took one or two days at the family bach at Taupo. Barney Greenbank and I made sixteen attempts before finding a route to the top of Kaitarakihi in the Coromandel ranges. Warwick Gust and I climbed to the wreckage of the Skyliner on Ngatamahinuera – a prominent young Methodist known to some of us died there.

* * *

For my first year's trial service the minister-critic offered me no fewer than five pages of notes, including a comprehensive summary of the sermon. I still have them. Addressed to "The Preacher" or informally "Mr Mullan") the gist of the main criticism was that I was relying on "a very good dignity of worship—clear and sincere voice" to cover "the thinness of" my preparation. The sermon, lacked "illustration and substance", the hymns were a "limited choice" and my stance at the end of the sermon, appeared to contradict the words I was saying. I was thrown by the huge Morrinsville church after three years of leading worship for people who were only a few steps away. But when it was suggested that I was like ET Olds, who, he said, would have been a better preacher if he had needed to work harder and not relied on a fine voice, natural oratory and personal charm to carry him through, I wasn't sure if I was being damned with faint praises or praised with faint damns. The whole event was a "trial" in more ways than one. But I was passed in my year.

In later years when I was required to plan trial services for my students and others I took care to schedule each in a setting where the candidate would feel reasonably at home.

While on probation, Methodist ministers were expected to do further regular assignments and end-of-year examinations in most of the subjects they had already studied during college. This made huge inroads into our time. I was not greatly consoled when I later discovered that the programme of probationary studies was an accident of history. At the time of the NZ union of Methodist churches in 1913 the Wesleyans had been training their students in their own theological college for three years and the more practical and probably less affluent Primitive Methodists trained their students alongside competent ministers in a sort of curacy. When the two denominations merged, the two models were simply put together so that ministerial training became three years in college followed by three years on probation. It was a punishing programme for those of us who, in the 1960s, were no longer put into "curacies" but were expected to take complete charge of circuits of, in my case, no less than five worship centres.

Of course, they would tell you that it was a compliment to your abilities that you were put in such a demanding appointment but I was quickly learning that whenever they offer compliments of that kind they're probably just about to dump on you.

* * *

At the same time I was trying to continue work for a B.A. The extramural Massey University demanded very regular and carefully marked assignments and these also competed heavily with the church's probationary studies for regular and substantial blocks of my time.

During our time at Ngatea I didn't play much part in household affairs. For that and obvious reasons, Bev's life was very full. The two children naturally kept her busy but she also took a large part in parish life. She would have hated the term, but she filled very well the traditional role of minister's wife. And she developed a ministry of her own among the women, attending both our two separate groups to encourage them to come together. The NZ Guild Fellowship and the Methodist Women's Missionary Union had united to form the Methodist Women's Fellowship a year or two before. But Bev later found that her efforts for local union in our parish were thought by some of the ladies to be just her idea.

* * *

Religious Education in the local schools was an exceedingly mixed blessing right from the beginning. I was allocated a class of beginners at Kopuarahi but it was hopeless. Those little kids chewed me up and spat me out in all directions. They ignored me; they argued with me; they fought and yelled and screamed. Once I conducted an entire class with the twins having shut themselves inside the piano. There was a more serious issue. Parents complained about their children having nightmares after teaching sessions from some of the other volunteers. Indeed, the main reason I persevered with religious instruction was to keep the extreme fundamentalists out of some classes.

I had never even attended a funeral before I had to conduct my first. The amount of practical instruction we'd had was based on fairly dated practices and was also very slight. The funeral I learned most from was taken by Rev A Everil Orr of the Auckland Methodist Central Mission. In the course of his peregrinations around the district soliciting funds for the Mission he had negotiated the promise of a substantial bequest for the Central Mission's work for the assurance that he would take the funeral of one of the people on our rolls. When she died, he came down from the big city and offered a fulsome tribute of a "Mother in Israel" which bore no resemblance to the rather testy old lady whose idiosyncrasies of temperament were well known by all attending. More than anything else, that funeral shaped my future thinking about the ministry of the funeral and, especially the place of the tribute.

* * *

Having grown up in a large circuit with several churches and three ministers in a lively district it was easy for me to encourage our people in broadening their contacts. But, they'd been brought up on a generation of Home Missionaries of only modest understanding of the Methodist Connexion. I was involved with a District Youth Committee which provided events and training for teenagers. It soon morphed into the District Education Committee and took on a wider agenda. I enjoyed meeting with others from the five or six circuits of the Thames Valley and we organised some good events.

I also had to attend District Synod, of course. Ministers met in separate session for two or three days in March and a day in August but lay representatives attended the main event for two to three days in August. As a probationer I was generally expected to sit well towards the back and not to say too much. I wasn't good at that. On a hot summer's day in the 1960s the retired John Watson was expounding enthusiastically about a connexional publishing house. Why, he rambled, the church could establish a printing press on the floor above the Epworth bookshop in Wesley Church grounds in Wellington. Knowing that 100-year-old crumbling building very well and aware that the church had many times rejected the publishing proposal on grounds of economics I stood and got the attention of patient chairman Bill Francis. I agreed that having our own church press was an excellent idea. But, I said, with my understanding of the condition of the building proposed for the press and the size and weight of printing machinery I thought the whole project would probably fall through.

* * *

I was to be ordained at the Christchurch Conference in 1962. My parents came down with us and we shared a few days around the upper South Island. Paul was less than a year old and we were away from home for nearly four weeks for the ordination conference and a holiday — no wonder he travels so well these days.

At Christchurch I lined up for the last time before the august body that was the Examination Committee but there were so many of us that the questioning was inevitably somewhat cursory. In due course we were ordained to do what we'd been doing for three years anyway. This special service was in Durham Street Methodist Church which was destroyed in the 2011 earthquakes with the loss of three lives.

Late in 1962 I received my first enquiry about a possible "call" to another appointment. In fact, I received sixteen of them. Indeed, one day I was faced with three men who hadn't even waited for the normal letter-writing process but arrived on our doorstep from Papatoetoe circuit. They failed to persuade me to accept their invitation to Otara. All this attention was, I supposed, one of the benefits of being ordained. I turned them all aside, feeling that three years was hardly long enough for me and Hauraki Plains. However, if I were to finish the university career on which the church had started me, I would really need to move to a centre where advanced university courses were available.

* * *

No account of our time on the Hauraki Plains could ignore the ecumenical element. The 1958 vote of the membership of the four denominations had given a fairly strong lead. The anomaly of Barney Greenbank and I meeting each other on Orchard East Rd at a combined speed of about 120 miles an hour while we travelled between Ngatea and Turua to take our alternating Sunday services in each other's churches at 9.30am and 11am was not lost on most of us.

What was also not lost on me was that Barney was quite vigorous in visiting families who were not necessarily his exclusive pastoral preserve. Certainly, Barney did it, as someone used to say on TV, "in the very best possible taste". But we Methodists had been taught that it was most unprofessional to seek to build up one's own "flock" by working another's. The term was "sheep stealing" and it was a serious offence in a day when the term "professional ethics" was not limited to sexual activities as seems to be the case now.

However, we did a lot of worthwhile things together. One Christmas our two parishes teamed up with some people from Paeroa and presented Caleb Simper's cantata "The Nativity" in both towns. I conducted rehearsals in groups of four and five in homes all over the Plains. I think we had the whole 35-strong group together for only one rehearsal and the two performances.

The Presbyterians had four churches in the Plains and we had five. The Anglicans had rather more. Today all of these congregations are united in one well-attended service in Ngatea and elements of the Ngatea buildings of all three denominations are on the one site. Other buildings have been decently disposed of.

* * *

During my fourth and final year at Hauraki Plains I became aware that only eighteen of our members attended church as frequently as ten times a year. I interviewed all sixty-three members and asked them how they came to be on the membership roll. The results were a revelation. Not one person knew if the church Leaders' Meeting had been invited to approve their name, very few had been to classes of any kind and hardly any had been invited to give any kind of personal testimony. Most agreed that they had been asked to make some vows and had been involved in some kind of service of recognition as members.

I wrote up all this research and, hearing about it, the connexional Spiritual Advance Committee invited me to present my findings at one of their meetings in Feilding. The outcome was that at next Conference the Faith and Order Committee was asked to conduct a review of church membership. As I moved to Auckland the following year, I was appointed congener of the sub-committee that managed the work for the next year or two. The end result was the dual concept of membership that was given specific recognition by Conference in the mid-1960s. The membership in the catholic church that was conferred at Baptism was affirmed by scrapping the "Baptism" register and substituting it with a "Register of Members". The significant change was that if an unbaptised person presented for membership, he or she would be simply baptised, not baptised and confirmed, a change that is still lost on many in ministry today. The entries would all be placed in the Register of Members.

The "evangelical" understanding of membership that was reflected in the controversial "pruning of the dead wood" understanding of membership would be reflected in a new Electoral Roll. This would contain the names of all people who had ever been received into the church and were continuing in active fellowship in the local congregation. It could be made up at any time on any basis without compromising the concept of underlying membership.

The fact that the General Secretary and the Connexional Office printed entirely the wrong titles on the register that is still in use detracts not a little from what was actually a significant shift in Methodist thinking. To bring those disparate threads together was a significant achievement for the Faith and Order Committee over those years. I greatly enjoyed contributing on issues of this kind and re-writing liturgies.

* * *

In my last year on the Plains, my grandfather Bert Thomas died in Levin and was to be cremated. The family were determined that the many friends who would drive up from Lower Hutt should not be left to their own devices while the immediate family went off to Palmerston North for the committal. I should say that I wasn't involved with any of this discussion but I was told that the family insisted that the committal be held at the church. "You can't commit a body to a hearse," the funeral director protested, not once but many times, I gather.

But the family got what they wanted. There was a dramatic send-off as the words of committal were echoed by the hearse starting up and literally driving off down the road. It was an effective and final closure and everyone adjourned to the wonderful fellowship occasion that followed. This unique action would have repercussions for funerals all over the country just five or six years later.

I was conscientious about baptisms. There were very few and when they took place it was only after at least one full evening's discussion with both parents. I was very firm about the link between church membership and Baptism. However, one event that was a profound learning exercise, involved an infant at Patetonga community church. The parents attended worship sporadically so I went out to see them a couple of times and we went through the church's understanding and expectations and a date was set.

A couple of weeks before the event, the infant's mother phoned to say that her sister would be visiting from down country and would like her two children to be "done" at the same time. Yes, I fear that's the word she used—so much for my baptismal instruction. I was not at all enthusiastic about this proposal and explained that her sister was not part of my pastoral responsibility and she could not expect the Patetonga congregation to take vows on her baby's behalf. I laid it on quite thickly, I thought, and, while my refusal cast a shadow over the meaningful event planned for Patetonga I felt it was the proper response.

In a pleading toll call from Taranaki the sister herself explained that their own minister had given permission for her to make the approach so the cousins could all be done together (there you go again, I thought). Eventually, on the proviso that she and her husband come up a day early and attend an instruction session with me at the parsonage, I agreed. They sat dutifully through the session and we had what everyone agreed was an absolutely lovely service.

A couple of weeks later I received a letter from a Methodist colleague in Taranaki. He had been attacked by his Presbyterian counterpart because of the lax professional ethics of this Methodist up north who had baptised children of one of his Presbyterian families. It seemed that their parish had laid such demanding requirements about church attendance before agreeing to baptism that the family had looked elsewhere for what they obviously regarded as a purely private rite. And they found me. The letter writer, through the course of six or eight passionately hand-written pages, said that I had set the cause of Church Union back by several years in this appalling breach of pastoral ethics.

A highlight for our circuit began when it became evident that the Schultz Estate share-milker would be moving on. This estate had been left to the local church some years earlier and was managed by the Public Trustee. We asked if he would let us try to find a replacement worker first. We placed a carefully worded advertisement in the NZ Methodist Times. It was clear that we were looking for a couple who would have a sense of calling to work the farm as well as contributing to the circuit. We eventually welcomed Ralph and Zeta Corlett from the Wairarapa. They made a tremendous contribution to the little parish and community and in 2010 are still doing so.

Reflections on leaving Hauraki Plains —1963

This was a small-church appointment and I relished the strengths of the small congregation at a time when the church's regard for "neighbourhood" churches was beginning to diminish. I developed a view that you can't really preach unless you can "see the whites of their eyes!"

I reflected a lot on the changing nature of the church and what it meant to be in membership. The "gathered" nature of the congregation took precedence in my thinking over the "geographical parish" understanding of church.

This thinking led to a much more rigorous view on Baptism, a subject that would lead me in some interesting paths over the next decade.

I was not in the least convinced of the usefulness of probationary studies as they functioned in those days.

I had discovered a wide range of gifts in myself and would have to discern how best they might be used in my next appointment.

I had complete confidence, however, that the Conference and its Stationing Committee would do what was best for both the church and me. I was not comfortable with the "invitation" system.

I was allowing myself to work very long hours and this style of work was impacting on our home life. The term workaholic hadn't been invented and I don't believe I was aware of the problem at that time.

# 8

# Panmure

"A prince among secretaries"

(LRM Gilmore, asking for my reappointment)

Although this appointment was to the sprawling Auckland East Circuit which had four ministers for the four churches, my pastoral responsibility was to the congregation at Panmure. Here there was a cross-section of ages but also a strong family spirit which bound everyone together. The suite of buildings was rather commodious for a congregation of only a few dozen. There was an excellent core of leadership, with all ages and interests being catered for. In many ways, ministry in the Panmure congregation would be a fairly gentle responsibility.

There were only three or four dozen people on Sunday mornings, but they faithfully maintained a Leaders' Meeting, and several sub-committees, most of which met once a month. There were the usual two women's meetings and one for men.

Also, there was a regular group of half a dozen who called themselves the Order of St David. They had formed under my predecessor, David Besant. It was joked that my appointment was facilitated by the fact that the name of the group wouldn't have to change. They had been meeting once a week for a meal and an evening under half a dozen strict evangelical disciplines.

However, as the 1964 meetings opened, the one thing that was very clear to all was that things were not clear. The former regulars were not of one mind about their pietistic expectations. Within a month, two of the newest members – both women only just admitted to the otherwise male domain – resigned. One said the group was too conservative; the other that it was not conservative enough. Lacking both the continuing involvement of these two and some solid support from me, and plunged into confusion about its very reason for being, the group went into a voluntary recess from which it never recovered. I guess I saw the Panmure congregation as what the sociologists would call a single-cell unit. Sub-groups are as likely to be divisive as unifying. Hence I was slow to whip the group back into shape without their own clear commitment.

* * *

The circuit preaching plan rotated us around the churches so that we were not always at our "own" congregation. I found it difficult to make the transition from the relatively small Panmure building to the larger churches. My preference for smaller worship centres remains to this day.

Generally, I stuck to the lectionary rather than recycling last Sunday's sermon as I moved from pulpit to pulpit. When there was talk of withdrawing Methodist chaplains from military service because of the Connexion's resistance to the Vietnam War, my exposition of the importance of the chaplaincy role, to be with the troops as a pastoral support, drew quite a bit of sympathetic and complimentary response. One respected elder at Mt Eden said, "You've helped me stay in the Methodist Church."

In the 1960s the absolutely essential tool for selecting hymns was the Subject, Textual and Lineal Indexes to the Methodist Hymn Book. It offered three hymn lists: one under topics, one for biblical passages and the third included the first line of every verse except the first. All were regularly used. To track the natural tendency to limit my choice to very familiar hymns I drew up a large sheet in squares in which I could check off hymns that I chose for worship week by week.

I kept all my sermon notes, such as they were, and indexed them. I have kept the only three that were prepared in full manuscript but historians had better understand that they are hardly representative of my preaching.

In Panmure Val Alexander was my voluntary secretary and gave the most careful attention to records. She maintained all the official pastoral records. There were, of course, the new Register of Members and the Electoral Roll. There was also a pastoral card for each family under pastoral care. The latter held basic information about each family—though never any details that had been disclosed in the pastoral context. These cards were later punched with holes which could be clipped out to enable quick sorting and re-sorting on a number of different categories by pushing a needle through the whole pack and shaking out the clipped cards. I found it invaluable to have access to a comprehensive record of everyone who held the slightest connection with the parish when strangers phoned up seeking help for, say, a funeral.

To manage the pastoral ministry I printed up a small set of 6x4 cards which I could carry with me easily, as a quick reference visiting record. Down the left of each card were listed all the families in a given locality and across the top were the months of a year. In the appropriate square for each family I could enter v for a significant visit in the home or workplace, c for a brief pastoral word in any setting other than the church, p for a phone call that had pastoral overtones, and a for a home call when no one answered the door. A quick flick through these cards could give me an overview of how the pastorate was being covered by routine visits.

Another really helpful tool was a pastoral action card. This was one long card with tear-off portions that could be handed on to anyone else who was maintaining any kind of list. When a name had to be added to the system, all we had to do was write the details once on the first section. The voluntary secretary would repeat the entries in the card's various sections and distribute the torn-off pieces to whoever needed them.

Hospital admission information including church affiliation provided significant opportunities to widen the pastoral network and the action card made this easy to achieve. In the 1970s we were beginning the recognise people "on the fringe" as the church's best opportunity for mission in caring service and outreach. Every now and then, there was an appreciative response and an opportunity for disciple-making. In these days of careful privacy we have lost this kind of pastoral opportunity.

* * *

In Auckland I was Adult Counsellor to the young people's East Auckland Christian Youth Movement Methodist committee. I gave a great deal of backstage assistance as well as some up-front leadership. Our group ran Easter Camps and schools and other weekends. Organisers of an ecumenical youth venture invited me to prepare some material on the future church. Inspired by Colin Williams' Where in the World and and attending seminars with Hans-Reudi Weber, my effort met with a very warm response among the participants. It led to a series of articles that was published in the new Methodist free-to-all newspaper. There is nothing much in those forecasts of the future that I want to recant nearly forty years later.

Among the many interesting projects was sprucing up Camp Wesley at Henderson. East CYMM young people raised money to buy new bunks and mattresses and organised a painting weekend. We started painting as soon as people arrived from office jobs and schools on Friday afternoon. Around ten pm there was a discussion and it was agreed that those who wanted to go to bed could do so but the rest of us would keep painting. And we did. When relief volunteers rolled up in the morning we were still at it. Some of us will never forget the sight of Secretary Heather Beaton sitting on the floor and painting steadily. In the same spot. Over and over again. With a dry brush. She was asleep.

The CYMM committees organised some good district events which drew together most of the local church groups. But the times were changing and they were perhaps the last gasp in organised district young people's work.

* * *

One Easter I was pressed into preaching at the district Good Friday service. I wasn't looking forward to this event overmuch. A whole pew of visiting church dignitaries was going to be present. And in those days Pitt St still had the high "poop deck" pulpit raised up centre stage behind the choir. It was a lofty and forbidding setting for my rather intimate style.

When the church interior was completely re-designed a year or two later the pulpit section found its way to Northland. The timber was eventually used for the neat lectern that now stands in the Paihia Uniting Church.

* * *

The end of my first year in Panmure brought serious reflection on the unstructured nature of parish ministry and the huge range of extra-parochial demands that went with my position. I remembered that in the Forest Service I had been obliged to write a report every couple of months on everything I did. There was no requirement on a Methodist minister to write any kind of report on the use of time and talents. So I wrote myself an annual report for the year. Deliberately couched in the formal impersonal style of the public service, it makes interesting reading these days:

> ** I claimed to have made over 500 pastoral contacts that year and only one home in ten was unoccupied when I called.

> ** I declared that 90% of this visiting was of highly questionable value.

> ** I resolved to give no more time to Religious Instruction in schools as I felt it theologically and pastorally inappropriate.

> ** I had done 5000 miles of travelling just within this small pastorate; much "outside" travel was not reimbursed.

> ** I had recruited excellent voluntary assistance but much of my own work was still simple stuff that could be done by a relatively untrained person.

> ** I noted that among my non-parish activities, university work had featured "obtrusively".

> ** I had managed to take an average of one "day off " in nine.

> ** I thought that the (parish) role of the minister would continue to be important. But I wasn't sure just how.

For a first year, and only my fifth year in parish ministry this was—and still is—an interesting collection of observations.

* * *

The large home at 36 Kings Rd was not so much a house as a nuclear bomb-proof shelter. It was constructed entirely of reinforced concrete—event the internal walls between rooms—and was hard to heat and cool and keep dry. We did a lot to improve it with redecorating and heating. It at least had plenty of room and it was well situated with very good grounds.

Early in our first year at Panmure we yielded to the temptation of television and bought a semi-portable set. It kept the kids pretty quiet for long periods at a time and that was no bad thing in our kind of household. We also bought a secondhand piano and it gave us a good deal of pleasure.

Even while the children were quite small Bev continued to be involved with a great deal of our church work. She attended both our local Methodist Women's Fellowship Groups. She also came in for a good deal of church work because I was so often absent at committees or even out of town altogether. Sometimes she felt the role of "the minister's wife" a little heavy on her shoulders. But for the most part our own Panmure people were sympathetic and appreciative. At the urging of our doctor who was dealing with stressed spouses of a couple of other clergy, Bev also joined the local tennis club. Here her identity as the spouse of a minister did not become apparent for some time. By 1967 she was playing inter-club tennis as well as regular friendly games at Mt Wellington. She also took up badminton in the evenings at Otahuhu and played occasionally at Badminton Hall at Epsom.

MA lectures in Education and Psychology all took place between 4pm and 8pm and this put great pressure on both family life and church work. It was a busy and stressful time and I didn't see much of the children at the ends of their weekdays.

Bev and I paid a reasonable per-mile allowance for all our mileage not covered by the allowance into a special car fund. This, after running expenses for both the car and my Tigress scooter were deducted, produced a good sum towards a new Cortina estate car in 1965. Unhappily, this was stolen before it was run in. A gang calling themselves Crime Inc were chased up the motorway by the Police at 100mph. Nevertheless, in spite of this abusive start, it gave us lively and reliable service for several years.

* * *

In 1964 my sister Barbara and her husband Bruce Smith were in Munda. He was treasurer of the Methodist Mission headquarters in the Solomon Islands. This gave us more than usual interest in this former mission field. We became acutely aware of the growing need for independence in the Islands church but also for ongoing assistance. Our congregation was therefore well in touch with some of the issues when independence from NZ Methodism was taking place across New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

At my suggestion Panmure congregation threw themselves into production of a promotional slide and cassette tape programme to help NZ Methodists understand what was happening. We obtained the support of others around the country and made up a story about people who were asking what all this Solomon Islands news was about. As well as learning a lot themselves, our people were greatly involved as actors, creators of sets and graphics, camera and audio operators.

Over the years I would make a lot more audiovisual programmes of various kinds, but Project Melanesia has a very special place in my heart for its effectiveness and huge volunteer involvement.

* * *

As assistant to the Secretary of the District, I found that Rev Les RM Gilmore was a meticulous yet relaxed secretary to work with. When he was pretty desperate to have me elected for another year, he kindly described me to the Synod as a "prince among secretaries". We were both paid-up members of the same mutual admiration society, of course.

Auckland Synod at that time consisted of all the metropolitan circuits and normally met every month for an evening. Les and the Chairperson, Eric Clement, prepared the agenda and my role was to keep notes of the meeting and draft the minutes for their approval and distribution. I did the work in a lonely office in Pitt St Church in the small hours after the meeting while it was all fresh in my mind. My main chore was to create a district newsletter out of the announcements that needed to be disseminated to all circuits and ministers. This was a double-sided sheet which—like the miniskirt of that era—set out to be long enough to cover the subject and short enough to get attention. It was, of course, a great advantage that I was able to type the drafts of most of these items more quickly than I could possibly have hand-written them.

Annual Synod in those far-off days was a two- or three-day event and all reports for conference had to be discussed. But in a large district like Auckland there were also vast numbers of district reports, all on separate sheets of paper of various sizes and shapes. We called for all of these in advance – what an innovation! — and a Panmure team stapled them in a folder that also accommodated the conference reports. The whole bound and indexed publication made a formidable amount of material but it was infinitely better than loose sheets of paper.

The official table for the Synod was at the stage end of the Bicentenary Hall and up to 80 representatives sat in serried ranks for about half of the hall. The supernumeraries usually attended and on one occasion William Walker and AH Scriven, right in the front row, had a shouting match with each other. They were quite unaware of the Chairman's "Order! Order!" and didn't even desist when Eric rose to his feet. This should have been the signal for silence but it was some time before they became sullenly silent. I made a note in my little book of Things to Remember in Later Years, "Supernumeraries, like little children, should be seen but not heard." I didn't have to worry, actually—by the time I became one, the Conference didn't particularly want to see quite a few of their former leaders never mind hear them.

* * *

One of my interesting extra-parochial appointments was to represent the Methodist Church on the Religious Film Society. The Methodist Church had made considerable use of the 16mm film medium since the 1940s and gave significant leadership in setting up this ecumenical Society. Being asked to take the Methodist place on the board was something of an honour.

Society Director Bill Mouat was an able manager of the staple business of renting out 16mm movies and 35mm filmstrips. But he was also a passionate advocate of all the developing aspects of audiovisual technology. By this time I owned an Olympus Pen F—the only single frame single lens reflex camera ever made —and Bill encouraged me in devising a way of producing filmstrips. We first made a very neat little programme to promote the use of audiovisuals through the Society. We got the rights to imported productions from overseas and inserted NZ scenes in place of the US ones and re-manufactured them in filmstrip form. At that time there was no technology available to do this work nearer than Japan so I soon had a steady trickle of small hobby projects.

The Catholic Education Centre in Meadowbank were very creative users of the filmstrip medium and commissioned a number of conversions from me at various times during the Panmure and Taumarunui years. With a small team of volunteers from Panmure, I produced "Mr Painter", an excellent programme on stewardship education and the new Methodist Connexional Budget. Working in slides and filmstrips was a challenging and enjoyable hobby and the enthusiastic involvement of Panmure people was always a pastoral plus.

A project that didn't catch on to any great extent was making hymns available as slides on colour photo backgrounds. Designed to be used when filmstrips or films were already being used in darkness, these had potential that would not be realised without a major marketing campaign. There were some interesting technical challenges but we finished up with a beautiful quality product. It was overtaken by overhead projectors and video projectors later, of course.

* * *

Bible Week was a major ecumenical programme that took place throughout the country in my first year at Panmure. Our Ministers' Association appointed me as director. We first held a day's bible study retreat for the organising committee and seven weeks of sermon discussions. We distributed householder leaflets and I created some professional-looking advertising slides that were shown in the local cinema.

A hundred lay people met in home groups over seven weeks and two daytime meetings also attracted good numbers. The main events of the week itself were three meetings for worship, exposition and discussions. Seventy to a hundred people attended these. There were forty-two discussion groups and four hundred attended the wind-up Sunday evening service.

Ecumenical Christmas services were large and musical occasions with combined choirs and excellent speakers. With the local Returned Services Association and the Mt Wellington Borough Council we pioneered an Anzac service which was a truly community affair. We prepared a liturgy that sat more comfortably with most of the community than the usual "God-talk".

* * *

In the middle of the Panmure term I was one of half a dozen people who were invited by the Methodist Church's Education Department to draft the original Helping Conversations course. Our congregation piloted it and it was later marketed as Creative Listening. For beginners at listening to others with care and compassion it was an eye-opener. It paved the way for all kinds of further learning opportunities in basic helping of disturbed people.

When Education Director Mary Astley returned from study in the USA she gave me papers on the Theological School Inventory. I begged the necessary overseas funds from the government to import the materials to do research on students in theological colleges in this country. I visited all the NZ protestant colleges and over about four years 160 candidates for the ministry completed the instrument and provided data. As a comparative group fifty ministers who had entered the ministry in the 1930s also engaged with the material. It would be a long process but there were some fascinating findings that contributed a great deal to the developing emphasis on assessment rather than selection for the ministry during the late 1960s and 1970s. The TSI produced two sets of very revealing scales:

Strengths of Motivation

> **D**

> **NL**

> **SL**

> **CC**

> **FL**

> personal and intellectual flexibility?

Components of Motivation

This second set of scales was at least as interesting.

> **A**

> **I**

> **F**

> **L**

> **E**

> **R**

> **P**

Motivation to ministry is of enormous importance. The "call" is vital, but it is not a totally secret and mysterious matter. The TSI provided candidates with significant opportunities to gain insights into themselves and their sense of call. I was able to show that several of the TSI scales offered important information which the church could choose to take into account when assessing candidates. Among many interesting findings, the study showed clearly that Methodists in this country had more in common with Presbyterians here than with Methodists in the USA. As this was the largest piece of TSI research ever done outside North America, our work here was of great interest to the developers of the instrument. I was made an honorary member of the Board of Management for the TSI when able to attend a meeting in the USA.

* * *

In a six month period in our 45 member congregation, we had marriages of three key leaders collapse. None of us had seen any of them coming. Was this highly vigorous and caring little congregation quite blind to the realities of life for some of its most vital members? Had our pastoral care failed? I had been schooled in Doc Williams' concept of pastoral ministry as tending the sick and binding up the wounded and solving problems of the psyche by competent counselling or expert referral. Those things are, of course, all involved but I have come to see that as a sort of "sickness model" of pastoral care. I was coming to see pastoral care more as a ministry to the institution, the fellowship.

I see that my sermons from the mid-1960s were hinting that huge waves of change were about to break on the local church. It seems to have been comfortable for me to speak of what I saw to be quite radical change in the wind. Change overtook that congregation quickly enough. One or two problems in ministry appointments after mine, one or two families moving away to suit their children's changing needs, a growing Samoan community and a few other circumstances would change the congregation beyond recognition within a very short space of time.

Countless times I found myself prevailed upon to respond to an emergency call-out for Lifeline emergency service. I discovered that I was on a special list to be called because it was known that I would actually respond and go. I certainly had calls all over east Auckland at all hours of the night. There were other callouts, too, of course. Some involved our own people. One of them had a crush on a charming Australian girl who was with us and he broke into her neighbour's flat one night looking for her. He'd been recognised, so the Police were called and they dragged me around in their E-Car for half the rest of the night looking for him as well as answering other emergencies. Once they found him they handed him over to Bev's care and between other commitments that day, we got him the psychiatric care he needed.

The wife of one of our Sunday School Teachers rang for help one night. The Police were looking for her husband who was alleged to have bashed a detective with an iron bar. He'd disappeared but a couple of days later phoned from Australia. The police said this was probably a phony call to put them off. But he was in fact located at Mordialloc and brought home. I got a ride to the airport in attorny Peter A Williams' Jaguar to collect him. Then followed a lot of time with him and the family during the subsequent investigation and court case. He had a whole garage full of stolen goods. He'd never attempted to sell them, he just took them.

A favourite family story from this episode is that when Bev and I were visiting the prison, toddler Christine, as the doors clanged behind us, observed, "Anyone would think we are in gaol".

Bev got involved in the occasional emergency herself. One woman wandered right inside the house past her one day and observed that it was a very nice home and she had decided to move in. I was away from Auckland doing my stuff with the army at the time and Bev had to call up some clerical assistance from the local vicar, Rev Bruce Moore, to deal with the situation. The poor soul had suffered a breakdown and it was a lot of trouble to get her into care. It transpired that she had worked as a machinist at the Wellington Woollen Co when Bev was handing out the staff wages years before and she had recognised Bev. It was a scary time and we were grateful that local clergy of both our own and other denominations gave ready support on the odd occasion.

In Panmure I first contributed to the mid-morning devotional service on radio's National Programme. With the help of Panmure people—again—we did a series of semi-documentaries of interviews on religious issues for elderly people. The novelty was not warmly welcomed by my producer. When she and I got to the point where she was trying to control the editorial input—as distinct from the technical side of things—I had to seek the assistance of the Chair of the local religious broadcasting committee. As a result, the redoubtable Ms Barrell was reminded by her masters to leave the content to me.

Later, in Taumarunui I pulled some strings and got my contributions recorded at the local radio station instead of having to drive up to Auckland. The local staff enjoyed the challenge and a certain amount of innovation wasn't a huge problem for them.

* * *

Before I left Ngatea in 1963 the Methodist Church's Senior Chaplain Eric Clement had approached me about a possible appointment as Chaplain in the Territorial Force. He explained what was involved and said that one needed to feel a call to this distinctive work. And the pay was £3.7.6 a day. I remember responding, "I think I feel a call coming on."

So on a summer's day just before we were to leave Panmure I joined the ragged convoy that was No 1 Transport Company heading for its annual camp at Helwan Camp just north of Waiouru. Within an hour I survived the complete loss of steering on my Landrover and trailer while driving at 45mph. And things went downhill from there. The unit was poorly equipped both as to vehicles and officers. Half the tents were blown down the day before the main body arrived. Rain spoiled a lot of the programme and totally ruined the ground, our gear and the unit's morale. The latter, of course, was the responsibility of the chaplain. Apart from that observation, my CO had not the slightest expectation of my role.

I found ways of making myself useful and at the same time keeping out of the way of officialdom. Some of the drivers were suitably impressed when I got right round the rough-driving course in an ancient GMC without wrecking it. One bunch of attached engineers commandeered my services for unofficial padre's hours. And I had plenty of good conversations with individuals. These were a few cheerful moments in a fortnight where my work was pretty much sabotaged by the ignorance and unprofessionalism of the unit's senior officers. But the Army's world was changing and these individuals would be eased out soon, along with the ex-desert war trucks.

I paraded for each annual camp over the next six years and most of the officers I worked with after that first year—particularly Major Ken Cooke—reflected a much more sophisticated understanding of the role a chaplain could perform. We had some absolutely first-class training camps and weekends. Once I was given every platoon for Padre's Hours two or three times during the fortnight. That was demanding work but wonderfully stimulating. I usually invited written questions and they came on all kinds of subjects. For the first time I realised how much easier it was to talk religion to people who had no understanding of the Christian story than to those who had picked up a Sunday School idea or two and had rejected that as teenagers. The NZ visit of Dr Ronald Goldman and his concept of "readiness for religion" was perfectly illustrated for me in these Padre's Hours.

One weekend I was with 1 Transport Coy at their annual qualification "shoot" on the rifle range at Whangaparaoa. They could shoot only in "sections" of eight at a time. So each group coming off the firing mound was allocated to me for a padre's hour. This was a very lively series of events as that weekend the government announced that 161 Battery would be sent to Vietnam. It was stimulating stuff for all of us, that hot afternoon and at the end of half a dozen Padre's Hours on end, I was absolutely exhausted. When I was invited to join a few officers on the mound for a shoot I threw aside all my principles about Chaplains not being armed. I picked up the big self-loading rifle of those days and shot a very satisfying Marksman Class One. I wonder if it went into my Chaplaincy record.

I represented the church at Army formal dinners and celebrations and parades. I attended mock battles and once an overnight truck-driving exercise run on car rally lines. Many men commented on the fact that the padre not only bothered to turn out for these events but was seen at all hours of an overnight one.

At one of our occasional Chaplain's Courses there were map-reading exercises. Instead of working out where the desired objective was located by studying bearing and distance and taking the easy roundabout route, two of us just plunged off on a compass course straight across the tussock. My partner stepped through the tussock right up to his armpits in a snow-fed stream. He was a Baptist.

On another course, a hot Waiouru classroom was the setting for a boring lecture on being on the lookout at all times for Viet Cong. You might find them any place and at any time, we were warned. At a knock on the door, the instructor asked Frank Glen to answer it. Frank gathered his sleepy wits and shambled over to the door which was kicked open by a black-overalled, balaclava'ed, armed figure that fired a short burst of blank rounds into the air. I tell you, Frank died of fright. We all did.

* * *

The children enjoyed quite good health and were pretty well behaved. However, in 1966 our Christmas letter says that "Paul runs the school". We should have been grateful as his initial days in school were pretty traumatic. Christine, however, took to it with aplomb except that sometimes reality and fantasy did not easily distinguish themselves in her devious mind.

Notwithstanding the busy work schedule involving both Bev and me, we had quite a few family outings around the Auckland region, especially when there were visitors. We got to know the metro area reasonably well and found many places for picnics.

* * *

In my final year at Panmure I was involved in organising the first meetings to try to set up a formal industrial chaplaincy movement in this country. Lawrie Styles came to NZ to promote the Inter-church Trade and Industry Mission and an enthusiastic committee was assembled in Auckland. Among my collection of fairly demanding secretaryships, this promised to be a really worthwhile project.

At the end of my fifth year in Panmure, university lectures and examinations for MA were mostly behind me. After five frenetic years I could have reasonably initiated a move to another appointment but I had not responded to any proposals. Ahead was the prospect of more discretionary time to put into work in the circuit, the district and community service projects such as ITIM.

My own intentions, however, were not in the forefront of what suddenly developed at Conference in November 1968. Quite without warning, we found ourselves "on the skids".

Reflections on leaving Panmure —1968

My sudden move prompted vigorous doubts that the stationing system was ideal and that the judgment of conference was always and invariably perfect.

If some in the Connexion felt I was working too hard and should be moved from Panmure for my own sake, I didn't share that view and felt that what I had been doing had been at least worth doing.

However, I could see that better quality family time would need to be integrated into my next appointment.

I saw a need to identify and work at what were the core essentials in parish ministry and find ways of giving less priority to what was not.

I decided to continue with some university work, preferably related to the ministry selection procedures work I had commenced.

# 9

# Taumarunui

"I won't live in that bloody house"

(Someone who heard she was to move to Taumarunui)

At the end of 1968 I had church-related responsibilities on no less than sixteen committees and organisations. In a matter of weeks I had to shed all except one. When I phoned Bev from New Plymouth Conference to break the news that we were being pulled out of Panmure to go to Taumarunui, she retorted uncharacteristically "I won't live in that bloody house." We both knew that six years earlier a District property inspection team reported that the condition of the house was so bad it should be demolished.

District Chairman Eric Clement admitted to me that he felt he'd sort of fumbled his cards. "Fumbled them!" I remember saying, "I think you dropped the whole pack." Dad was Wellington's lay representative on stationing committee that year; he could hardly protest on behalf of his son. He made some noises about me working too hard and perhaps this was a welcome opportunity to ease off a little – obviously culled from the Committee's deliberations. But I didn't recognise that I was what we would later call a workaholic.

I have always preferred the Methodist system of a conference that, presumably with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, would tell you where to go. But this appointment seared the soul, tested the spirit—and brassed me off no end.

In a feverish round of work over the next few weeks I wound up some seventeen responsibilities with all kinds of groups. I had to find many replacement congeners and secretaries; once or twice just dropped files on others' desks with a frustrated apology. I packed up my study before Christmas and went off to January camp, leaving Bev to do most of the household packing. When I got back everyone was in a complete flap because our successor had just that day collapsed and died on the way to Panmure. That tragedy did nothing to ease our own trauma at our untimely removal and it was certainly hard on the people we were leaving.

* * *

My induction at Taumarunui was a pleasant affair. This was especially encouraging because I began my response to the induction charge with one of those throw-away remarks which I have never quite learned to avoid: "Well, you didn't ask for me to come here and I certainly didn't ask to be appointed here." I tell you, they paid attention.

From those first words of mine in Taumarunui, things could only get better. And they did. It was a great place to live. The locals, both church members and neighbours, made us wholeheartedly welcome. The children soon settled into the school a couple of doors along the road and Bev – after an unpleasant rejection for a secretarial position at the next door timber mill "because she was a minister's wife and might be offended at the language" – soon found plenty to do. Making the house more livable was a big project, of course. But children, tennis club and light opera and some substantial printing contracts kept her busy. Not to mention the enthusiastic and very competent Women's Fellowship catering group which was raising some $1000 for parsonage furnishings.

There was a very strong team of able and dedicated leaders of our own age. Several people attended both morning and evening Sunday services at Taumarunui but these didn't continue very long. The people were looking for an opportunity to close the evening service; the change of ministry, as it can often do, prompted a new conviction about it.

Our three qualified Local Preachers got quite a share of Sunday duties because I was out of town much more than the average minister. My sermons stuck closely to the lectionary but with a growing sense of the "gathered" church as against the "catholic" church.

The core membership at Taumarunui were people of great commitment and down-to-earth spirituality. On some significant teaching occasions we used the church hall instead of the church and had small discussion groups as part of worship. Once the annual church picnic was held, not after church, but at church time with the service, including communion, on a grassy riverbank.

There were still a few children attending a small Sunday School and we encouraged adults to "adopt" them so that they didn't have to sit up the front by themselves. I believe ours must have been one of the very first congregations to invite the children to join me at the front for the "children's talk" in 1969. My intimate conversations with them were not shared with the adults—they were invited to do some theological reflection by reading the hymnbook or the pew bible! Was this the first introduction of a new practice that seems now to be quite widespread?

At Otunui, a fortnightly country congregation on Sunday afternoons, there was another group of farming folk. They were, as they farming people so often are, the salt of the earth.

Memorable events were shared with neighbouring Ohura parish. Our people travelled up to an hour on indifferent roads for combined harvest festivals in a hay barn. We also shared a joint membership reception service and picnic.

Excellent relationships were enjoyed with the clergy of the other churches. The national community discussion programme interView 69 exploded into an astonishing success. It drew together nearly 40 discussion groups and over 400 people in Taumarunui and the lower King Country. Not, however, without a lot of pushing and prodding from the Methodist minister.

* * *

Much had been spoken and written of the Taumarunui parsonage before we got sent to live in it. We didn't find it grossly uncomfortable but it was very hard to heat in the brisk King Country winters. We chopped a hole in the concrete hearth under the kitchen space heater and put a big fan under the floorboards to make the heater more efficient.

One cold morning I lit the study fire and noted the temperature at the desk was around 4°C. A roaring fire over the next three hours brought it up to barely 14°. I wouldn't say the house was cold—but most of the year you wouldn't need a refrigerator. I wouldn't say the house was jerry-built—but in two rooms the studs were installed sideways to save space and the floorboards were not tongue-in-groove so their cracks showed the ground beneath. I wouldn't say the guest bedroom was small—other parsonages had beds that George Laurenson couldn't lie down in but we had a whole bedroom wall that was shorter than him. The house really was a source of embarrassment to all concerned.

There was about $15000 available from an estate for a new home. But the architect's rather grandiose plans called for $23000 and there was a stalemate. Roy Ginn and I eventually sketched a simple design that would technically meet the requirements and a new standard parsonage was built around the corner without debt. After I left.

* * *

Part of my concern about the Taumarunui appointment was that I felt it did not merit the services of an expensive (even in those days) full-time minister. I had not formulated the kind of theology of the laity that was already appearing in the literature but I was already beginning to sense that the church ought to use ordained people only for such roles as could not possibly be performed by lay people.

The circuit was the only country Methodist service in some 600 square miles and there some scattered families on the rolls. But by early 1970, I had visited all round the parish list two or three times and was filling my time with university work and a growing list of other commitments.

Recognising that I would have plenty of time on my hands after I had done what was necessary to keep the parish's mission ticking over I thought a great deal about how I would occupy myself. I commenced work on an extramural Diploma of Education from Massey University. I continued work on two or three connexional committees, all of which involved travelling to other centres for meetings. I saw to it that I played a full part in District affairs. I committed myself to a little more involvement in Army chaplaincy than before. And I took up night classes in Maori at the local college.

* * *

Taumarunui was in the heart of the King Country, of course, and Methodist Maori work was represented by Sister Betty Yearbury at Te Kuiti. Once I received a request for help with a tangi before she had even heard about the death. I phoned Betty and she made it very plain that I should feel free to respond. The days had not yet come in which the Maori work was encouraged to draw itself apart to establish a clearer religious identity in the context of their own tikanga.

My developing confidence working with Maori led to several appearances on three or four marae, particularly at Kaitupeka pa. Once I was contacted by a Maori family who had lost their connection with their roots and could name no turangawaewae. I managed all aspects of the tangi for their toddler, including carrying the tiny casket in our estate car. This kind of occasional ministry among Maori was a great privilege and a very worthwhile opportunity.

* * *

Taumarunui township was large enough to have several dozen people who claimed some remote link with the Methodist Church. They expected that the church's services would be fully and freely available when they needed them. The phone call that got quickly around to "Mum says I have to get the baby done," seared my soul again and again. This prompted me to write a major paper advocating an alternative ceremonial for people for whom the high expectations of the newly revised service of infant Baptism were not appropriate. JJ Lewis kindly read my 50 page expostulation and wrote that it was very well argued but, of course, my whole thesis was wrong. I never did get to ask his views when, after about fifteen years, the Faith and Order Committee proposed exactly what I began to do in Taumarunui in 1970.

Funerals presented the same sort of problem as baptisms. Right from my first year in ministry I was frustrated by the careless mixture of emotive wording in the regular funeral service. So I worked hard to provide specifically for a funeral that ministered, in two separate parts, to the reality of death on the one hand and the reality of bereavement on the other.

Similarly, in my view, the funeral for a family who were active in the faith (the funeral is for the mourners, not for the deceased, of course) required a different approach from one prepared for people who had no Christian profession to make. So a "secular" funeral was a very early development and was warmly received. Working with the bereaved to prepare and conduct an appropriate celebration could take anything from six to twenty hours. It took a heavy emotional toll on me.

Again, very few weddings came my way in this small congregation. But these also were occasions where I needed to know the degree of Christian commitment in the ceremony so that I could prepare appropriate wording for the service. I developed a "kitset" style of wedding ceremonial in the early 1960s, long before such things became fashionable.

The circuit was not much interested in my efforts in this regard. For many of the people the really important issue relating to weddings was whether or not the Women's Fellowship should cater for a wedding where alcohol was being served. They agonised over this question for ages and the Leaders' Meeting didn't give them a lead. Bev was heavily involved in the excellent catering team and they raised a lot of money.

* * *

Our family enjoyed many picnics and some walking trips into Tongariro National Park. Paul and I climbed Ngauruhoe when he was about eight. One long bush walk all of us were bathing nude in the Ketetahi Hot Springs when a tramping party came down the stream. A very special trip was into the Tatu State Coal Mine just after it closed – no women had ever been in it before our family were given a private tour. The family bach at Taupo was a favourite overnight visit. We probably used the runabout there more than anyone else but were never much into fishing.

Somehow, we inherited a mean-tempered old goat named Roy. He was a very large specimen and when goat meat for export rose to 7c a pound he mysteriously disappeared. There was an aviary full of finches, and an aquarium full of fish – until a contretemps with the house's electrical wiring froze them one night. Ducklings had the run of the house for two seasons. Thomasina was a gorgeous Paradise Shelduck and a charming pet which we raised from just a few days old to maturity.

* * *

Audiovisual work continued to be a substantial hobby for me. I joined the local camera club and enjoyed meeting others who shared photographic interests. But a major commitment for my discretionary time was to tackle the substantial theory examinations for learning to fly. I went solo in 6.6 hours and got my Private Pilot Licence in six months. I gained a lot of cross-country experience flying to official meetings. At that time it was cheaper to hire a plane than a rental car for the many journeys and I could make a substantial tax claim on the cost after any reimbursement was deducted. There were some wonderful family trips and one or two, shall we say, stimulating incidents. From the beginning I was aware that pilot error was the most common cause of accidents. I promised myself if ever I flew less than three hours in a month or forty in a year I would ground myself. That commitment would challenge me in exactly ten years.

* * *

In the light of my work on motivation of candidates for the ministry I was asked to convene a small group from the Board of Examiners to review our candidate selection procedures. I think others besides me were coming to see that the multiplicity of comprehensive examinations and hearings and decisions made at every level was too cumbersome. It also did not produce just results, especially as at any stage a candidate could be rejected.

JJ Lewis chaired the small group. Supernumerary George Goodman, and layperson Charlie Fenwick and I completed the modest but very hard-working team. Because of distance we met infrequently but a great deal of material went to and fro by mail. In 1968 we were given permission to conduct an experimental residential assessment weekend at the intimate Bryant House – a stunning venue for what was to be a most exciting trial. There were only four candidates and four of us. It was a gentle start but in fact was quite intensive work for all concerned. As well as individual interviews, candidates did short prepared presentations and off-the-cuff talks. And the personal testimonies which had always provided a basis for candidate selection in time past were given extended time and depth to very good effect.

As the Board of Examiners considered our final proposals for new procedures, one respected elderly cleric ponderously queried a term I used thoughtlessly, "Could Mr Mullan tell us, " he said—and by his tone he might just as well have said, "the young Mr Mullan"– "What he would regard as a successful minister." There was only the shortest of silences before I responded, "One who is still alive and hasn't resigned." It wasn't a very tactful answer but it eased tension between the old guard and the new as this dramatically new approach to assessment of candidates was put through.

A major principle of the new procedure was that every candidate would have the right to go to the national assessment course. Counselling and advice might encourage one to drop out before then but nobody could be stopped. Dad recalled people telling him that they agreed with his negative vote against a one local candidate but, "We wanted to give the boy his chance." In a sense, they were right, Dad.

Another important principle of the new procedure was that the assessment course staff could only offer assessments of candidates. These could be:–

> A—Confidently recommended

> B—Recommended with reservations

> C—Not recommended

All recommendations had still to go before the Committee on Ministry which would make the final decision. (This body had succeeded the ponderous Board of Examiners about this time). To preserve the right of the conference Committee to have the final say, candidates who were not recommended were given the right to appeal against the judgment of the assessment staff. It gradually became apparent that far more candidates in the C category were passed than failed if they appealed. History has sadly revealed that many of those successful appeals created far more problems for the college, the parishes and the church at large—not to mention the individuals and their families—than any other group.

* * *

Perhaps it was a consolation prize for allowing me to snatched out of Panmure but when he was elected President, Eric Clement asked me to be his Conference Chaplain. This was a fairly new appointment at the time. My predecessor in that office apparently led a conference devotional service which dwelt on the question of whether or not Jesus had a penis. Eric's invitation to me was along the lines that at least I couldn't fail to make a better impression.

However, Eric didn't want a Chaplain just to be responsible for the devotional and worship life of the Conference sessions. What he had in mind—as Senior Methodist Chaplain to the Services, I suppose—was, he said, a sort of batman. So I became a driver, purchaser, secretary, aide-de-com, liaison officer, presidential minder, and hands-on manager of a wide range of activities of the Conference. I attended a couple of meetings of the Conference Arrangements Committee in Wellington where we worked out this new role.

Most morning and evening worship events were to be taken by selected people recruited by me. We prepared about sixteen people to convene discussion groups to introduce people to the Conference and the business. This had never been done before and involved a good deal of explanation and managing. The groups were considered a very effective addition to the conference programme and have been emulated many times since. I also recruited and managed a large list of individuals who gave two-minute talks between items of business. I had to prepare them to come forward and speak as some item of business was finished. Each was predicated by conference chaplain creeping about the Wesley Church aisles trying to be unobtrusive while also getting the attention of the individual who needed a two minute warning to speak next. To indicate this, I held up two fingers...

Another innovation at this conference was that we provided sandwiches and fruit for those who did not wish to go out to find their own lunch. Day by day, we took orders and brought in a range of finger food which was shared in Wesley hall. This also set a pattern for some future conferences. I arranged interviews and organised invitations to Presidential morning teas. And I drove Eric and Zilla to and from sessions in true military driver/batman style.

A most significant hope for our conference was that perhaps it could finish decently and on time. Usually conferences concluded with only a tenth of the representatives still present. We planned a short covenant service after the close of business at 1pm and people were asked to see it through. At least half the membership was still present as we crowded into the sanctuary and stood shoulder to shoulder for very brief prayers and the covenant declaration.

* * *

Summer camps saw me regularly at work with 1 Transport Coy and HQ of the NZ Army Service Corps. Often my charges were spread over half the North Island, necessitating a lot of personal travel to be with them. I conducted padre's hours and personal interviews in all kinds of localities. Sometimes there were personal grievances about the injustices of the ballot-based selection for military service. Now and again there were problems at home and I was able to have a man repatriated at short notice. I don't believe I ever had a pastoral recommendation turned down by a CO.

There were plenty of lighter moments. On one long, hot and boring day the company adjutant and I had been driven all round the Rotorua Lakes region where various units were exercising independently. There would not be food rations for our little party to spend the night with one group that had kept us out late in the day. So, notwithstanding the distance and the night drive, we agreed that we would head back to base camp. But as our respective drivers had been behind the wheel all day, we made an executive decision and decided that the two officers would drive the little two-vehicle convoy back to base. We did it at non-regulation pace. Our drivers sat there hanging on and saying never a word. It was an exciting hour.

Also exciting was a certain flight in a Sioux helicopter. The pilot knew I had a pilot licence so he demonstrated what the Sioux could do. We tore along a remote Wairarapa coast beach while he made a routine report that he was flying at the regulation 500 feet. Actually, he had to lift the skids over small logs on the beach. At nearly 100 knots.

By and large my Army service was a stimulating time and gave a sharp edge to my ministry. I appreciated this at a time when a minister's focus was very much on the local church and countless meetings involving the institutional and ecclesiastical issues of the day. But the upcoming move to a much busier role in Dunedin would make it unlikely that I could continue. To keep my options open, it was agreed I would request to go onto the Reserve of Officers. Unfortunately, what was posted in the NZ Gazette, without my knowledge, was that I had "resigned". I decided not make an issue of it though I was within months of completing enough service to qualify for the Efficiency Decoration.

* * *

A really interesting challenge in the Taumarunui years was to convene a Conference Commission on Communication. I had commenced the work in Panmure with a core of very good people and we had begun drafting a number of possible proposals to put to the Conference. My removal to Taumarunui slowed the whole process down somewhat but in my first year there I kept the work flowing and coordinated a large consultation at Trinity College. This included a number of invited experts such as the redoubtable Colin Scrimgeour or "Uncle Scrim" of radio fame, as well as the large membership of the full commission appointed by conference.

For two full years our material was drafted and refined and floated through Synods and Conferences. No recommendation was outrageous and none completely impracticable. All were directed at existing organisations and could be funded from existing budgets. But a private examination of subsequent events showed that not one was really seriously taken up by the conference, its departments or the parishes.

The most important missing link in the whole enterprise was any commitment to work towards some kind of formal Connexional structure for communication. The concept has never been revisited. Even the outgoing Prince Albert College Trust's gift of a capital sum of some $800,000 for "communications" several years later did not prompt the connexional memory.

* * *

Although my extra-parochial activities were pretty extensive while in Taumarunui I took the opportunity to attend an ecumenical Group Life Laboratory in our third year. This was a ten-day affair with a couple of days' break in the middle for participants to take a weekend at home. The list of nearly forty participants included twenty-six people whom I would meet again in various parts of the country over the coming decades. The intensive feedback sessions were a revelation about myself. I was helped to see very clearly some quite significant characteristics in my behaviour that were impeding good relationships. People felt:-

*—I usually conveyed an impression of competence which concealed an unresolved sense of insecurity;

*—My very blunt approach was not necessary to convey authentic feelings about real issues;

*—My real feelings did not come across in everyday situations;

*—I gave the impression that I readily engaged in power struggles;

*—I seemed to find it hard to accept friendship and yet to be seeking acceptance myself;

*—I might have issues about working with others in a team.

Many of these points continue to remind me about the less attractive aspects of my personality and behaviour. Others have perhaps been addressed to some benefit. The laboratory was an invaluable experience for me and I remain indebted to those who helped me along the way at that event.

* * *

In parish work I never invited volunteers for personal secretary. Each time I looked around carefully for someone who would find some fulfilment in routine work and do it reliably and confidentially. Elsie Curd was that person in Taumarunui and was a wonderful help, especially when I was all over the place. Also in our home for most of our last year was Rochelle. The High School was desperate for teachers and persuaded one to return after having her first baby. Bev took Rochelle on for a few hours of her day from just a few weeks. Of course, these were the best hours of her day and our children loved having her. She went along with everything we were doing, even to flying over to Taupo once or twice.

* * *

I took an occasional lecture for the School of Nursing that was functioning in Taumarunui in those far-off days. I obtained Berne's Games People Play and put together a series of simple and very entertaining workshops on Transactional Analysis. These were very enthusiastically received. I was still doing some hobby work with filmstrips and hymnslides for the Christian Audio Visual Society. A series of audiocassette lectures on marriage enrichment by an American Catholic provided the basis for some hilarious groups that were much valued by the couples concerned.

In May 1971 a meeting of the Methodist Church's various District Chairmen was informed that the Dunedin Central Mission was having trouble finding a successor to Bruce Gordon. He was being designated to move to Auckland Mission to replace Everil Orr who would retire in 1973. My District Chairman put my name forward. This was apparently received warmly by all present. However, he was briefed to give me some warning so that I would not make what Bruce Gordon was to call "a hasty decision" in a covering letter he sent as well. They must have thought I was some kind of prima donna.

When the official letter came from the Mission, I put through a very rare toll call to Bruce Gordon and suggested that they should fly me down for a visit. This was a very unusual step for those days but it quickly clarified that the appointment might be a good match. I had some discomfort about then having to give the Conference a lead by formally accepting an invitation. The system of designating Connexional appointments by negotiation was—and still is—somewhat foreign to my understanding of the meaning of being in Full Connexion.

However, the Dunedin invitation was finalised by July 1971 and we put the matter out of our minds for another eighteen months. However, within just a few weeks, Auckland Superintendent Everil Orr died very suddenly. It was immediately obvious that, with Bruce and me both now virtually designated for Auckland and Dunedin in 1973 the simplest thing for the Stationing Committee to do was to advance both our moves by a year. So for a second time in three years our family was obliged to terminate a ministry and move without time to prepare adequately.

If I felt a little unstretched by parish ministry in Taumarunui, I had made a significant contribution to the wider church in many ways. And our family life in Taumarunui was a very good experience for us all. We had more time for each other and the nature of my wider responsibilities work gave us some opportunities to travel.

So we left Taumarunui with much sadness. We knew life was going to change for us all as I took up this totally different kind of work situation. But we looked forward with a lot of anticipation. We enjoyed an extensive camping trip around the North Island, even driving down Ninety Mile Beach in the Maxi. We coped with the unexpected arrival of my successor a day early and we managed to take in my grandmother's funeral as we passed through Levin on our way south.

Finally, after nineteen days on the road we were glad to settle down to a warm Dunedin welcome.

Reflections on leaving Taumarunui —1971

I had come to terms with parish ministry to some extent but had grave concerns about its future for small congregations because of what I confidently predicted would be an increasing inability of parishes to pay what it cost;

I had thought a great deal about alternative ways of "being" the local church and providing ministry for its mission;

I had identified a need for "secular" styles of celebration of life's significant moments of birth, marriage and death;

I had learned a lot from the personal feedback obtained at the Group Life Laboratory—I was perceived as aggressive, coming over much more strongly than I realised;

I was finding a balance between official duties and personal interests, between work and family;

I was looking forward to the possibility that the Dunedin appointment might offer a much more clearly defined distinction between "work" and "home".

# 10

# Dunedin

"You're the man for the job"

(Dunedin Mission Board, dredging the bottom of the barrel)

After the Taumarunui house we were delighted to find a really substantial home waiting for us in Dunedin. It was both generously practical and unostentatiously stylish. There was a distant view of part of Anderson's Bay, the peninsula causeway and the city, against the skyline of the western hills. The kitchen and living room lay nicely to the sun and were easily isolated from the rest of the house for maintaining warmth in the living areas during the winter.

With the addition of some cheap panel heaters in the lounge and hall under a master thermostat we made it very comfortable. The Board gave us a free hand in purchasing new furniture of our own choice. This would become ours under new rules for parsonage furnishing.

* * *

Rev Ken Russell was our new District Superintendent and offered a warm and pastoral welcome in my induction. Dean Timothy Raphael of the Anglican Cathedral preached—significant ecumenical gesture reflecting the times.

Soon afterwards, I appeared in the big office. Bruce had left a full set of briefing files on every committee—and there were legions of them. Some of these appeared to have been set up just to see the "new boy" through the works. True, at 36, I was relatively young to find myself in such a position, so that was understandable if just a little patronising.

Mindful of Bruce's enthusiastic post-stationing letter that "everyone felt that you are the man for the job", it was with some wry amusement that I opened one file. It contained a complete dossier on every one of the sixteen ministers who had been considered for the position. My name was not among them.

I took advantage of being a fresh face to assist the Board to deal speedily and firmly with one or two serious staff issues that they had not been able to address. A significant one was inviting the Matron in charge of the large Eventide Home and Hospital to resign.

* * *

Stan West was the newly ordained associate minister in the appointment and was primarily responsible for the congregations of Trinity and Maori Hill. He stayed on and was a great deal of help through the first year. Russ Burton followed and threw himself into the Trinity work with great enthusiasm and a pastoral heart that never ever lost its keen edge. Well, actually, it took a bit of a beating when we had to dissuade him from visiting his flock at 9am.

Shirley Ungemuth was deaconess at Eventide Home and Hospital. In the next few years she would develop a chaplaincy style of ministry that was a fine example of what made the difference in the church's care of the aged. With most of the other deaconesses she was first encouraged to be ordained and then to transfer to the ministry of presbyter. She made an increasing contribution to the Dunedin churches and Otago-Southland District as well as the Mission.

Shirley and Joan Carter, who arrived from England to join the nursing staff at the home just after we moved to Dunedin, were destined to become intimate extensions of our family. Shirl and I worked together on some really worthwhile projects, we all sometimes holidayed together and the four of us formed a bond that is still regularly nourished by extended visits at each others' homes.

Frank Wilson, as Secretary of the Board, was in charge of the office and accounts. Over my first year or two the Board re-defined administrative relationships to encourage key people like Frank to take on more responsibility. Frank's wife, Peg, was the office typist and so much more. Her vast experience of the Mission, her incomparable wisdom, patience and charm held the administration together.

I relied greatly on all of these people, especially in the early months in Dunedin and I tried not to get in the way of their just getting on with the work.

* * *

Trinity Church was the central church of Dunedin Methodism. Earlier, it had united with the Mission in a comfortable, if ill-matched alliance. In 1972 there was a good and loyal spirit between the two different traditions represented in the congregation. I made it clear that I would not exercise a pastoral role among the congregation. I would take a share of the services but Stan or Russ would be to all intents and purposes the "minister" in the pastoral setting. But with their most assiduous care the congregation numbers continued their gentle downward slide. Soon there would be no more than 130 members on the membership roll and 30 to 50 in church on Sundays. The writing was on the wall; but Trinity's history of having been through one amalgamation would stand them in good stead for the profound challenges that were to come in 1977.

* * *

I was uncomfortable in the Superintendent's huge office from the beginning. It featured an imposing desk and big chair positioned so that as soon as the door was opened the visitor had to approach me across the desk. I soon moved the desk to the wall adjacent to the door where it was easy to half turn my chair away from the desk to meet and greet.

Over the next couple of years, the responsibilities of the Mission's fifteen or so management committees were gradually replaced by salaried departmental executives who were given a good deal of autonomy in areas of their own competence. They formed an effective staff meeting which met with me once a week for brief reports and to clear snags.

After some reflection and discussion about managing its meetings, the Board came to accept that I felt it inappropriate that I should advocate for a proposal and then call for discussion on its merits as if I were quite impartial as to the outcome. So early on we developed the habit of appointing another person as chair.

Accounting had been Bruce's particular interest but it was clear that I would not be doing that work myself. Frank Wilson was landed with that and mastered it in a year or two. However, we soon took the plunge and engaged professional computer services. This gave us the opportunity to improve accountability within departments and more flexibility in overall operations. We were also able to fund the Mission administration by allocating variable levies on the departments according to the measure of direct social service each rendered. For the first time the previously untouchable rents from the office block were budgeted to pay a reasonable share. This approach was much more appropriate than the arbitrary fee formerly charged

* * *

The most obvious feature of the Mission's existence in the centre of the city was the imposing Octagon Building. Of some eleven floors, it dominated the Octagon and blatantly competed for height with the adjacent Anglican cathedral. I inherited a list of over a hundred unfinished tasks left over from the construction contract.

There was persistent flooding in some of the arcade shops on the lower ground floor. We pulled up the carpet in one shop and dried it out more times than I like to recall. Somewhere in the archives there should be a terse letter from me to the architects suggesting, among other things, that it was just as well they weren't in the business of designing ships.

The lifts were another melancholy story. They were designed for only about four floors and were hopelessly slow for eleven. Worse, they were quite unreliable and frequently broke down, usually between floors. The "on-call" service technician was often in Christchurch so I obtained a key for opening the doors and getting people out of stuck lifts. I also learned how to hand-wind a lift that was stuck between floors.

Perhaps the thing that irritated everyone most about the office building was its heating system. No doubt it was a very economical design but it worked implacably against any satisfactory result. Offices partitioned around the outside were often too hot and those near the core were inevitably too cold. On a sunny winter's day the cathedral's shadow masked the lower floors but the sensor at the top cut heat off from the whole of that wall. Periodically, one of the dozen or so circulating pumps would fail but nobody would notice until the coldest day of the winter. I got to know quite a bit about heating and refrigeration. I think we were just plain lucky that we didn't have any cases of Legionnaire's disease.

Twice in my time we had to re-finance the whole project. On the second occasion, we encouraged some investment from church members at market rates of interest. This fostered the awareness of our own people in the Mission and its work.

* * *

Joe Moodabe, a cinema entreprenuer and Central Missioner Leslie Neal had set up the Octagon Theatre deal in the 1930s, and for nearly three decades it worked very well. All the cinema foyer decorations and poster frames were removable or reversible; what was a theatre from Monday to Saturday became a very comfortable church venue for the Mission on Sundays. By the 1970s, Amalgamated Theatres had it all to themselves and it was just a Mission investment. Periodical rental reviews passed off smoothly in the spirit of Moodabe and Neal.

* * *

The personal social work of the Mission was shared in the Anglican Methodist Family Care Centre. Bev was heavily involved with Social Worker Anne Turvey in initiating Thursday lunch-time meetings for lonely Mums referred from the Centre's counsellors. This would have to be one of the most cost-effective and worthwhile personal social service programmes I have ever seen. The couple of dozen or so women—and their preschoolers—who attended each week were encouraged to talk to each other and to share a simple cooked meal which they all enjoyed. They took each week's recipe home, confident that they could manage to reproduce it for their own families. For people of very basic social and housekeeping skills it was a wonderful growing experience. Bev compiled a recipe book of their simple meals, with quantities for one, three or ten people and they distributed a remarkable number of these over the years.

* * *

In the first year in Dunedin I finished Dip Ed with the presentation of a modest thesis on Ministerial Selection. It built on the work I had done for MA and my growing concern with the difficulties the Connexion was having in selecting candidates for the ministry. I presented a new programme of selection, ministry formation and theological education. In the conviction that it would really help the church I distributed some fifty printed copies throughout the hierarchy and the Examination Committee. The response was by way of a deafening silence.

* * *

Early in my time I spent a couple of weeks at Adelaide Central Mission which was felt to be closest to the NZ environment. The time there was very enlightening but I was not convinced that there was much about our two settings that was the same. At the conclusion of my in-depth visit, the key lay officers of their board asked if I would be open to an invitation to come to Adelaide as Superintendent some time in the future. I must have made my reluctance clear enough—or else I blotted my copybook—because nothing ever came of it.

At my first Australasian Missions Conference I had a twenty-minute private interview with Sir Alan Walker, formerly of Sydney Central Mission. The great man sat knee to knee opposite me, fixed his eyes on a point past my head and off to one side and preached at me for twenty minutes. Concluding this, he excused himself and left for the airport.

I was the final presenter at this conference, having been persuaded to offer a short report on my work on Selection Procedures. When my session was over, we remembered that Sir Alan was expecting us to release some great pronouncements of social service and evangelism. This was a "hot potato" that nobody wanted to handle because of the huge range of opinion in the conference. Since I was last on the platform, I was told, amid some laughter, to chair the controversial session. We found a compromise solution in a quarter of an hour and I was the man of the hour.

There were other trips to Australia for these two-yearly meetings. Our Board budgeted a fixed percentage of its total turnover for staff education and there was usually money to send at least two of us to these events. Specialist staff members could also go to comparable events relevant to their spheres of work or competence.

* * *

Bev and I arranged personal holidays around one or two of the mission conferences. After the first of these events, we took the children off school for a couple of weeks and they flew in to meet me at Sydney. We hired a car and toured down to Melbourne. It was a fabulous trip and we all came home with very clear ideas about the differences between our two countries and a renewed appreciation of what it meant to be New Zealanders. We also brought back some detailed advice for people contemplating such a trip and copies were provided for many enquirers.

Every third or fourth Trans Tasman event was held in New Zealand. After a Christchurch one I ran a mini-bus tour of four or five days back down to Dunedin for about a dozen of our visitors.

* * *

In 1972 the Dunedin City Council had a problem. The city crematorium chapel was too small and would have to be closed for most of a year while it was enlarged. How would the churches manage? I suggested the "kerbside" committal that our family had used for Grandad Thomas at Levin. Dunedin clergy, in a decision born more of necessity than conviction, began to include in their church funeral services a committal for crematorium services. People could immediately see the benefits of being able to keep the whole congregation together for conversation and refreshments and the practice caught on. By the time the crematorium was reopened expectations about its use had dropped markedly and the practice was developing throughout the country.

* * *

Every Sunday we were responsible for a half-hour radio broadcast that had claim to be the longest running continuous religious broadcast in the world. By the time I arrived, rattling collection boxes next to the microphone was no longer permitted. Radio Church just offered a mix of music, some news of the Mission, a short exposition on the lesson for the day and often a guest speaker or interview. The station was run by volunteers and their management was very anxious about the security of its licence. In 1954, I was in Otago and actually heard one of the Mission broadcasts. Frank Rigg was on air and he started off with "Last week I got taken off the air about this time..." and off he went again.

At the end of one of my half hours I jocularly said, "And now for something completely different..." It was Radio Bible Class of Grand Rapids USA and, take my word for it, it _was_ completely different. But I shouldn't have joked about it. I also caused consternation when we began to pre-record our slot to make our Sunday morning schedule easier. We used a modern machine whose heads didn't quite match the ancient tape machines used by 4XD. Consequently, there was a tiny piece of track not deleted by our newly recorded material. Worse, the residual material was running backwards and was just unintelligible "Mickey Mouse" noises. Scrounging a couple of retired but very reliable commercial recorders and a mixing desk from our NZBC tenants in the Mission building solved that problem. Both Shirley and I became quite adept at pre-recording an acceptable programme.

In Dunedin I was no longer on the regular schedule for morning devotionals on National Radio but 4ZB had an interesting morning slot called Window on Otago. Gerard Curran recruited me for a number of offerings, sometimes nominating the topic. It was not a religious programme in any sense and I enjoyed this different kind of challenge. I found opportunities to share a serious viewpoint on many a local issue as well as inviting the public to have a bit of a chuckle now and then. There was no humour the morning that the Teachers' College announced they'd appointed a European expert in linguistics to head up their new Maori language department. That was very insensitive and I believe I said so in fairly trenchant terms.

A decade later my name came up again somehow for the national devotional programme but my trial recording was judged to have "rather too much edge" to it. I could re-submit it if I wished but it was easy to make the decision not to go back on the air. If the gospel doesn't have some edge to it now and then, can it still be good news?

* * *

When Frank noticed an advertisement for a small offset printing press it wasn't long before an executive decision had been made and the small machine bought. We nearly killed Stan West when it fell off our trailer but it did a lot of work for the Mission and other churches. First Church sent along some volunteers to help with the church anniversary booklet we printed for them. Among the group was a printer who looked at our outfit and muttered "Now I've seen everything." Among a number of volunteers, Isobel McLelland matched excellent design skills with mechanical competence on the equipment. She later came onto part-time salary.

* * *

Trinity Church had a few younger families on the pastoral list in the decades before we went to Dunedin and some had pressed for a change in the time of morning worship. But 100 years of 11am is not easy to shift. All the right questions were asked but at the end of the day there was never going to be a solution that would satisfy everyone. When the appointed people finally made the decision, the change provided more impetus for the gradual migration of Trinity people to the suburbs.

The issue was a reminder of the problem of a conciliar form of church government, in which representatives of a body can make decisions on behalf of the whole. Methodism is not congregationist but doesn't always balance the needs of the whole against the aspirations of the elected few. The balance would be a delicate one in decisions that were to come in Dunedin during the 1970s.

* * *

In the early 1970s the city boasted a strong team of Methodist clergy of more or less comparable ages and interests. There was a growing morale and it was not difficult to encourage a strong sense of identity as "The Southern Connexion". We were happy to do things our way and were not intimidated by the rest of NZ Methodism. When asked to invite and host an annual Conference, we did a careful and realistic assessment of our resources of leadership and hospitality and declined —a very unusual step in those days.

However, we played our part in ways that we could. Under Evan Lewis' enthusiastic editorship (he of Rotorua Forest office in 1953), we launched a very worthwhile "occasional" magazine for Methodist ministers—almost inevitably called Minimag. We also managed the connexional Welfare of the Church Committee. At that time, this was the only Conference committee that was authorised to initiate business itself. All the others were supposed to act only in response to directions from the annual Conference. We raised many thorny issues and offered some bold proposals which had real merit. One was a proposal to have Conference only every two years. We were encouraged to do more serious work but when our report went back the following year the whole concept was unceremoniously thrown out. Ah, yes, "one conference could not bind another".

In 1975 the five Dunedin circuits came together to form one single circuit. At that time some of us began to wonder if there were any possibility that the Mission "Octopus" (as a few called it) might merge with this new body but the time was not yet quite right. So the Mission's two churches, Trinity and Maori Hill were made more independent from the Mission administration. As members of one of these congregations, Bev and I now became a little more visible in congregational and circuit affairs.

* * *

The new Methodist procedures for candidate selection were well established by the early 1970s. As soon as I arrived I was consulted extensively and was invited to convene a Joint Assessment Committee for all five negotiating churches. There were stimulating meetings of this small group in Dunedin as our Methodist experience was enthusiastically capitalised on by the other churches. Through the 1970s this group ran assessment weekends for several denominations of up to 40 candidates and 30 staff at one time. Sadly, the programme became a victim of the general retreat into denominationalism after the failure of the Plan for Union in 1976. For a few years it was a most significant ecumenical project.

One evening I was on the phone to Watson Roseveare at St John's College in Auckland. He had to excuse himself and hang up in a hurry. He said, "Sorry, I can't talk any more—someone's just set fire to the college." Now that was a conversation stopper. It was during the Springbok tour and the college had been very visible in the protest movement.

* * *

A personal research project in 1976 resulted in some rather more specific criteria on which to report assessments for candidates. I listed all the possible elements that could possibly be reported on and then sorted them into a profile consisting of two sets :

Five General Scales

**G** —General ability and intelligence.

**Ac** —Ability to undertake academic studies.

Ps—Personality development.

**Cm** —Communication.

**On** —Personal organisation.

None of the foregoing scales is, of course, especially related to ministry. But the fact is that a vast amount of work done by the average minister does not necessarily require "religious" abilities or characteristics. These I categorised as follows:

Five church-related scales

**M** —Motivation..

**T** —Capacity for theological thought.

**Ro** —Understanding of the role.

**In** —Inner life.

**Sp** —Support.

A profile of estimates of these ten categories on a scale of one to ten could be entered on a prepared sheet and compared with other candidate groups. The scores were not divulged to the Committee on Ministry. But they helped the staff to sharpen their conversations with candidates and with each other as they formulated their final recommendations. Often we invited the candidates to rate themselves on the same scales. This helped them to gain more of an understanding into recommendations affecting them.

I think this attempt at quantifying candidate assessment was one of my most useful contributions to the process over the years of my involvement. I published a paper on this profile and a decade later I found it being used in Australia. Well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

* * *

I knew my Board members felt it would be helpful for their superintendent to be in Rotary so when a deputation waited on me with an invitation I was prepared. I put it to them that the social service nature of my position meant that I would not be looking for more opportunities of getting involved in hands-on community service. Nor did I see myself as a sort of honorary grace-sayer. I could perhaps help the Club by identifying areas where its members could make a contribution.

The Rotary Club of Dunedin in those days took itself very seriously. There were no fewer than eleven knights of the realm in its membership. Until I came along, virtually everyone wore three-piece suits and ties. I was among a very small minority who influenced a slow move to less formal dress. There was always a song or two and, of course, there was always the national or the New Zealand anthem at the end. So the cleric who wasn't keen to be a professional grace-sayer made his contribution becoming the back-up pianist to the redoubtable Arthur Dixon.

And grace? Well, week by week, they found plenty of people to say grace and the task rotated around among quite a number. The club was probably quite religious. In fact, one meeting the collective fine was: "All those who weren't in church last Sunday, please stand up and pay 20c". My surprise at the temerity to use religion even as a basis for a Rotary fine was quickly overtaken by my astonishment that the number standing to confess to this heinous wickedness included less than half of the Club.

I did agree to speak at the Rotary Christmas dinner one year and I began with "I hate Christmas...." I went on to express what I suppose were probably rather trite concerns about its commercialisation and so on. It was appreciatively received by many.

* * *

I was appointed to the Programme Committee of the Cameron Centre which was the education and retreat arm of Otago Presbyterianism. We ran several series of the Creative Listening course. We brought out Jerry and Elisabeth Jud to introduce their Shalom Retreats to NZ and Bev and I joined a group of leaders at the first one they conducted. It was a powerful experience for our own lives and Bev became part of the Cameron Centre trainer team which ran several retreats a year around the district.

* * *

In Taumarunui I had gained considerable expertise with family budgeting and as soon as this experience became known in Dunedin I was approached to get involved. The Rotary Club had been trying to introduce this for some time but without the benefit of anyone with hands-on experience. They were also somewhat intimidated by the indomitable Phyllis Turnbull of the Society for the Protection of Home and Family. I popped down the road and met the lady and was told that she could handle any clients who needed financial guidance. A public meeting was called anyway and fifty people turned up, representing as many organisations. A steering committee was formed forthwith and I did a short piece on local television to recruit volunteer advisers. What we got was an absolute flood of people wanting help.

The Mission Board was keen to have me involved directly in some form of social service and in no time flat I became Mr Family Budgeting in Dunedin. I made up a short audiovisual presentation on budget advice and addressed service clubs and other groups all over Otago and Southland and in later years many other parts of the country. Family Budgeting groups sprang all over the region. It was a movement awaiting its time.

Details of my work on the national family budgeting scene are in A Small Qango but suffice it to say that in 1974, Alan Mayall of Christchurch and I called a Wellington meeting of all the budgeting groups we could find around the country. With the encouragement of the incoming Director of the new Department of Social Welfare, we moved towards incorporation as the Family Budgeting Services of New Zealand. I became the Federation's second national president and held that office for several years.

The real turning point at the national level was when the DSW published a major policy document of some 120 pages entitled Family Finances—Can We Do Better? The idea that simply helping families to do better with what they were already receiving was dismissed in half a dozen lines about budget advice. Our Dunedin Committee offered a stinging submission that drew attention to the potential that could be released by the injection of modest public funds to support the voluntary resource that was already available. An appendix stated that our Dunedin group, after only about a year, was handling about 80 client families in total household debts of some $72,000. Annual income of $350,000 was being supervised. The whole programme was run on out-of-pocket costs of only $270. 60 volunteers put in some 3000 hours a year, travelling 6000 miles. Our submission urged Government to think about subsidising administrative and travelling costs and promoting the volunteer model.

This stiff submission resulted in an invitation for me to join three others on the new Home Budgeting Advisory Committee to the Minister of Social Welfare. Again, I ran this demanding proposal by my Board but there was unanimous support for me to accept.

Nobody could have guessed what would be entailed. Between 1978 and 1988 I would attend over 120 meetings in Wellington and be involved in a couple of dozen all-day seminars and other events all over the country. It was a huge boost for the movement that I was available to travel so readily but some weeks it swallowed up half my working hours. Two of us on the HBAC were particularly sensitised to minority concerns and were able to bring some influence to bear on the DSW as it made early moves to a greater appreciation of tangatawhenua issues.

Ministers from both governing parties over the ten years I attended their offices, were sympathetic, supportive and usually very appreciative of our work and our advice. We established a good reputation for ourselves as a committee that got things done and was making a real difference in an area of great concern.

When Geoffrey Palmer's qango hunters first struck down many of the government's advisory committees, we survived the first round. So there was no great surprise when the Committee members turned up for a routine meeting in Wellington and were told it was all over. The Department would assume direct responsibility for funding the budgeting volunteers. In years to come the amount of public funding would beggar the imagination. The Mission Board could have had not the slightest inkling of the prodigious results of their decision to support my involvement in this work in 1973.

To encourage our two children to take up genuine budgeting, we gave them a substantial allowance while they were in upper Secondary School. At around $120 a month it was big money, but it had to cover all their education, entertainment and clothing needs. Month by month they had to account for everything to the nearest dollar on a very simple cashbook statement. The method was later published nationally by the Home Budgeting Advisory Committee as the Teenage Budgeting Programme and I introduced it in quite a few High School classes around Dunedin.

* * *

**planTalk 76** was another really worthwhile—if rather shorter—project for which the Mission made a major contribution with my time. Building on the national experience with "interview 69", some of us met to discuss the City Council's strategy for developing its Ten Year Plan. A committee of interested people informally represented Rotary, Radio NZ, the Council Planning Department and other organisations; as ever, the Mission provided administration.

A team of phone-volunteers recruited several dozen hosts who invited neighbours and friends to home discussion groups. Each Tuesday night for four weeks, Radio 4ZB broadcast a short documentary on the topic at 7.45pm. Study booklets suggested questions for discussion from 8pm. At 9pm 4ZB hosted talk-back radio calls from groups reporting their findings.

Some groups continued their discussions long after the talk-back was over. About 80 groups involving several hundred people met regularly for the four weeks. The planning issues were well aired. There were also very significant local outcomes in some communities. A group on the Otago Peninsula continued to meet and mobilised some magnificent landscaping work in their bays.

* * *

In Dunedin I began to do some serious thinking about how to help people move away from the puritan work ethic that appeared to say unequivocally that work was good and leisure was bad. I aired my concerns in the "town and gown" University Club and the Mission Board and the latter began to take more seriously a kind of **ministry to leisure** through the holiday camp at Kawarau Falls. We could see that the property offered more potential for ministry than we had hitherto exercised.

From the mid 1970s, some of us went up to the camp for several weeks over the busy summer holidays. We assisted with the chores during the high season when up to 600 guests might be on the site. But we also injected an element of service into the work. I conducted short Sunday celebrations on the lawn. A few hours a day I briefed visitors on how to get the best value for their holiday dollar. And there were, of course, occasional personal or religious needs for which a chaplaincy model of ministry was appropriate. Throughout these weeks I kept my administrative work up to date in a makeshift office.

* * *

Methodist people from around the vast Otago-Southland district were invited to come to Kawarau Falls at Easter. A great attraction for parents was that we all ate together and while everyone helped, there was always a caterer in charge. Brief services were held at significant points during the weekend. Formal and informal groups provided opportunity for discussions and sharing that usually bordered on the radical and unconventional. Considerable stimulus was given to the people who lived in remote corners of the largely Presbyterian south. They called themselves the "Methodists of the Dispersion" and **Easter at the Falls** was the link that kept them together. Many are still in touch with each other three decades later and we run into them all over the country.

Increased awareness of the importance of the camp as a ministry to leisure helped the Board to decide to make some major improvements. We designed and built, within our own resources, a very functional amenities and accommodation block and later an office and residence.

Towards the end of the 1970s the Otago-Southland district held many of its synod meetings at Kawarau Falls as residential events. The four or five-hour drive from Dunedin was not considered too far to go for the benefits of the location. Routine denominational business for Synods was relegated to some spare hours here and there. Fellowship was built up, spirits were refreshed and another distinct community of people came to regard "The Falls" as their particular turangawaewae.

However, the enormous value of the land itself would remain a problem for us even in the 1970s. The rocketing cost of oil and rates, combined with the seasonal nature of the camping business, would sooner or later make it impossible to continue. When the Board bit the importunate bullet after I left Dunedin there were many regrets. But the cost of a few acres of lakeside property in 1959 had returned a great gift of service and funding over the three decades.

* * *

One of the gifts of the NZ Methodist Social Services Association to the wider church was the visit of world-renowned counsellor and writer **Howard Clinebell.** Each of the main centres was invited to gather an ecumenical committee to manage all aspects of his visit to their centres. Dunedin soon pulled together a keen committee of enthusiasts with the Mission providing the usual secretarial resources and promotional materials. A large team of volunteers not only sent out hundreds of letters but followed them up with personal phone and toll calls around the region. We achieved the largest attendances in the country; no fewer than 220 people registered for our events. Howard delivered a very satisfying series of workshops, a great contribution to the counselling community throughout Otago and Southland.

Howard's wife and co-author of books on marriage guidance and counselling, Charlotte, travelled with him. I met them at Queenstown and offered them the usual twenty minute local tour by air. As we walked out to the plane I suggested to them that I was not going to adjudicate as to who should ride in the front seat. But it was a no-contest. Howard made a dive for the front seat and Charlotte got in the back and I have to say that she sulked. Later in Dunedin I met them again at the airport and we did the half-hour flight over the city and peninsula. As we walked to the plane this time Charlotte just looked at Howard and he stepped aside and she rode in the front.

* * *

As part of its evangelistic outreach the Mission encouraged me in some innovative ways of sharing faith experiences. An outcome of this particular series was **Ecclesia Breakfasts** , held weekly in the seasons of Advent, Lent and the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Shirley Ungemuth and I hosted up to 20 people from inner city churches in the Friendship Centre for a light breakfast and brief but significant worship and conversation. A fine fellowship developed in this informal group and twenty years later, with Shirley still playing a convener role, the group was continuing steadily.

Another more cerebral activity was connected with the showing of the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The Methodist newspaper of the day had published a review that hinted that the film would be worth some discussion. We arranged with Amalgamated's manager, Owen Kenny, to have group concession tickets which we could sell in conjunction with an evening meal or supper in the Mission's Coffee bar. We didn't know quite what to expect but with more good promotion out of the Mission office the programme really caught people's imagination. On sixteen occasions we gathered a dozen to twenty people in the Friendship Centre and gave them a short briefing on the film. Then we watched the movie and returned to the Friendship Centre where Bev's cheese rolls or a more substantial meal were eaten over conversation loosely based on a printed **film discussion** guide. People came from as far away as Alexandra and from all denominations. These sessions clearly helped some to "do theology" in a new way.

Prof Jim Glasse of USA was in Dunedin as visiting lecturer in pastoral theology at the Theological Hall at the time. We were gob-smacked when he told us that he had paid his way through seminary forty years earlier by serving as a nurse aide in the psychiatric hospital which was used as a set for the film. He had held patients down for electric shock therapy on the same table that had featured in the movie.

* * *

One evening an ecumenical congregation met for worship in Knox Presbyterian Church. I was to deliver the short meditation. The lesson was from the little apocalypse of Matthew and concluded with that rather horrific description of the Last Things. I'd been through plenty of earthquakes in Wellington as a child, so I wasn't greatly troubled by this one. But **earthquakes** in Dunedin are as common as feathers on a frog. As I got to the lectern I saw that the congregation was very upset. Certainly, the building's roofing timbers were creaking and groaning with a lot of noise, a large piece of stone fell to the footpath outside with a huge crash and there was a lot of shaking and rocking. As the quake rumbled to an end I quipped "Actually, I have preached in a Presbyterian Church before..." and everyone laughed and the tension eased.

That would have been that if I hadn't returned to our offices afterwards and casually mentioned the incident to someone in the TV2 news room. They ran the story, no doubt somewhat fluffed up, on their late evening news. Next day the BBC re-broadcast the piece and I was interviewed live on air by ABC radio from Australia.

* * *

After some persuasion, the Mission bought a very comfortable ten seat minibus. In a day when this kind of facility was rare Shirley took little groups of our oldies all over the place. It also made many trips up to the Falls for Mission weekends and district events and even as far as Auckland for church Conference.

* * *

In our first year in Dunedin Bev and I bought a rear-engined Hillman Imp. It expired spectacularly in a carburetor fire and was replaced with a rather weary Herald 1200 estate. Paul and I did a complete engine and interior trim job on this, even to a new headlining and sold it off. We bought Joan Carter's Ada, a cream Morris 1000 in lovely order.

The Austin Maxi which we brought from Taumarunui stayed with us for almost all the Dunedin decade and gave very good service. However, for several of the Dunedin years I used a ten-speed bicycle to get to and from work. It was known as the Purple Panter, not so much for its paintwork as for the colour of the rider's face after pushing up the Octagon and into the office car park.

* * *

"Head Office" of Methodism has been in Christchurch since Methodist Union in this country in 1913. It was founded in fairly traditional ways of doing things and an equally conservative investment policy. By the 1960s the real capital of some of the major funds was quite drastically reducing. In 1976 the whole operation was restructured into the **Board of Administration** which, for the first time, included a couple of members from outside of Christchurch. I was one.

Alan Woodley was the new General Secretary and, with the sound administrative advice of Eric Heggie, newly retired from the Public Service Commission and the imaginative financial drive of Dr Denis Janus, he took hold of the show with both hands. Undoubtedly, the Conference wanted a new broom. What it got was more like a small cyclone. Month by month we of the Board listened breathlessly to new proposals for structures and operations. I think that Geoff Peak from Auckland and myself from Dunedin said as much in most meetings as the other members put together. We were fresh, new and confident and what particularly mattered, we were not based in Christchurch. I was usually on the radical side, advocating the new strategies and policies; Geoff, the solicitor, was rather more measured and reflective. But together we made our presence known.

I proposed the system of internally funding the office by adjustable levies on the various departments, as we had done in Dunedin. I championed the plan to bring much of the office's printing and publishing in-house with purchase of a substantial offset printing press for Board of Admin printing press. I also cheerfully admit to the Board decision that every report to Conference should consist of just one page. Now that was a good proposal but it was fated to be honoured as much in the breach as the observance.

When I left Dunedin to go Auckland in 1981, I was quietly dropped from the Board. Alas for my overweening pride, there was no mention in the Minutes of Conference of my sterling service and my loyal and sacrificial attendance and all the usual flattery. But the work had been its own reward: in a lifetime of sitting on committees and boards I found this chore to present the most stimulating challenges and worthwhile experiences.

* * *

Twice in the 1970s I was drawn into the Department of Labour quarterly survey of working hours in the labour force. I protested that the hours a minister kept were not a legitimate statistic for any general purpose. But the department insisted. I dutifully filled in a time sheet hour by hour and day by day for the prescribed period—I think it was a week at a time on two or three occasions. For one of these weekly returns I logged over 80 hours which could be appropriately described as "work". That was a busy week. In reality, none of my returns had less than 65 hours on them.

The survey certainly made me more conscious of how I used my time. Later I refined the department's time sheet into quarter-hour segments for my own use. From that I developed a useful format which I later passed on to many of my students.

* * *

I did a little work with black and white photography and devised a way of making screened prints for illustrating our publishing and **promotional work.** I continued developing better techniques for mass production of colour slides. By 1975 I was buying colour film in 1000 foot rolls – some 30,000 slides at a time. I wound this off into 100 foot cans and then into cassettes in our walk-in hot water cupboard. Part-used developers from Mission tenant TVNZ's movie processing tanks were worked into my system. An excellent copying rig was made up from my old slide projector and I commissioned a beautiful adaptor which was engineered to make my Pen F cameras more efficient.

One year the MSSA asked me to prepare a major audiovisual presentation for church conference. We wrote a script and commissioned specific slides from the six or so social service centres around the country. In the week before leaving for Conference we mounted some 1150 slides of multiple images for screening on three synchronised projectors with a recorded commentary. The presentation was made particularly difficult by the use of borrowed projectors with which we weren't too familiar. But we spread the multiple images right across entire width of the large stage at St Paul's Centre, Hamilton and finished the evening with one of my hymnslides. Wilf Falkingham said, "You've put the Social Services on the Conference map".

* * *

When Dad made further share distributions to me and my siblings he created quite a problem for me. I had already asked to be paid a little less than standard stipend and had some discomfort about receiving unearned income. There was no way we could handle so large a supplementary income with any sense of sacrificial stewardship. One of the Mission's solicitors, Jim Lewis, developed an innovative **trust deed** that would receive the future share distributions. It would merge charitable giving with cash grants to Bev and the children. Jim and Russ Burton became the first trustees and I made suggestions to them as each year's income came to hand. The Trust made anonymous donations to individuals and organisations and directed grants to the Mission and the Administration Division for audiovisual and office equipment that facilitated my work. Later, the mixture of charitable and personal objectives in the same trust deed would not stand up to changes in trustee law and the trust was wound up.

In the context of Conference discussions on **stipend levels** , I attempted to get allowances paid as a specific percentage of the standard stipend. At that time Bev was providing a vast amount of hospitality as she was the only non-working Methodist minister's spouse in the region and tended to get all of the official visitors to the district. Some of the out of pocket cost was a legitimate deduction from our taxable income and the Mission was always generous. But the principle was another matter, and the church was slow to manage it with sensitivity and consideration. In any case, the whole matter was overtaken by a government tax review.

Along with other members of the Welfare of the Church Committee, I gave considerable thought to the vexed issues of **retirement housing** for clergy. In a day when it was still very desirable that a minister live in an area appropriate to his or her parish it was not going to be satisfactory to just open the floodgates and let all ministers gain housing equity by living in their own homes. I suggested that all the clergy in the Connexion should collectively own shares in the total housing stock of the church and have the benefit of its appreciating value. Well, it was only one of many rejected suggestions on that theme.

* * *

Stationing strategy in the large Dunedin Circuit fell apart all at once in 1977. In an emergency re-shuffle of pastorates I was drafted in to assist with some short-term **parish work** in Trinity congregation. There had been a lot of minor reductions in staffing over the years but now it was time to set up a comprehensive parish-wide consultation. A remarkable amount of detailed information was collected from each congregation, from membership and attendance statistics to property values, community usage and so on. Ingenious ratios of cost-benefit were even calculated for each suite of buildings.

Over two days of discussions in June 1977 people came to see that one of their major problems was the huge amount of Dunedin Methodist property. The consultation ended with an agreement to draw all the churches of Dunedin Methodist into a single unit in partnership with the social service work of the Mission. This was a significant and major shift of strategy. There was also a firm commitment to reduce our overall dependence upon local church property by, I believe, one third within a year.

Everyone left the consultation wondering where there was a significant edge to get a grip on so large a problem. However, a merger of two congregations soon afterwards enabled the disposal of Caversham Church. No other major adjustments presented themselves—until the City Council phoned me one morning. They wanted to know who was responsible for Trinity Church. So my first task as a "minister" of Trinity congregation was to meet with a couple of Council staff and a couple of the directors of Fortune Theatre.

The first possibility that we discussed was that the theatre might use the church weekdays and nights and the congregation use it on Sunday mornings. This was considered by the appropriate committees and most people could accept that it was a realistic possibility. But when Fortune rolled up with their plans two weeks later – two weeks before Christmas, in fact – their ideas had taken a new turn. They proposed a seat rake of some 40 degrees. They also reversed the auditorium completely to face the other way. The 1966 renovations of the church, not even yet paid for, would have to be discarded. And nobody on our side thought that our elderly congregation could cope with Sunday worship in this kind of setting. It seemed that all negotiations would have to be called off.

However, some wondered if another home could be found for the congregation. I was thrown into another series of meetings and negotiations which resulted in Television One agreeing to vacate their News Room in our building so that Trinity could use that. The membership supported this proposal.

Now we found that, on the eve of Christmas, none of the usual national committees could be called together for official approval. Fortune had to have occupancy by the end of the month to meet their own deadline. The national church was not intransigent, it just had no mechanism to respond. One of our ladies said, "If they won't let us sign a lease we'll just send them the key" And on the unanimous vote of some nineteen people, that's more or less what took place.

Some members turned up at Trinity Church on Christmas Day a few days later and found that it was to be the last service. Others watching the TV news saw pews being hauled out of the church and tossed onto the pavement. All in all, it was a pretty traumatic affair for us all. During the thirty days of negotiations I lost six kilos.

Trinity at the **Good News Room** began with some tears at the Watch Night service on New Year's Eve 1977-78. Twenty-seven members formed the nucleus of a lively congregation whose ministry was sustained with input of just a few hours a week from Shirley and myself. It was an exciting ministry in this small community of really serious and committed people. A lunchtime group prepared the rosters for worship, education and a segment called Focus for Worship for every service.

The story of the new, lively congregation that was born out of the traumatic negotiations at the end of 1977 was told in **The Trinity Fortune Affair** , my first substantial book. I suppose I wrote it with some sense of needing to defend my central role in the matter. But my main purpose was to record the painful but determined decision-making of a few ordinary people who found themselves thrust into the limelight. Their growing understanding of the church and the changing times demanded an absolutely momentous decision of them. They courageously made the hard decision and they then carried uninformed criticism and undeserved abuse with dignity.

I have written other books since, but possibly not with the passion that still seems to ring from those pages. I have been told several times that anyone who really wishes to understand Dave Mullan would still discover a great deal from reading that book.

When it became known that Fortune wished to apply for a licence to sell alcohol in the foyer there was great anxiety among some Methodists. There was much searching of consciences but the Church Trustees resolved to make no submission at all. The liquor licence was granted and a very pleasant bar and refreshment area continues to provide a sociable atmosphere which is appropriate to the nature of the theatre. Occasionally, a few of us reflect on the fact that the area is exactly where the generous sanctuary once provided another focus for fellowship and eating and drinking.

* * *

I was invited to speak on various **ceremonial occasions**. There were graduations of the School of Nursing and Otago Girls' High, the University Club and various Rotary Clubs. Dean Raphael asked me to preach at the Cathedral on "The Church in the Next Ten Years". By this time we were in the Good News Room and working hard at an alternative style of future church so it was a good opportunity to evaluate what had been achieved. This was so much of a challenge that I took care to see that a recording was made of this address and it makes interesting listening in these later years. I contended that most of the features of the church of that time would still be around but that we would see more variety in mainline churches and many more new church and para-church groups. By and large, I think I was pretty close to the realities.

* * *

By the late 1970s I was a reasonably accurate navigator and able to **fly myself** pretty much anywhere with a better than average hope of touching down within a minute or two of my pre-announced time. On landing at uncontrolled fields, after the official phone call to Air Traffic Control to terminate my flight plan, I'd then make a collect call home. Bev would refuse to pay the charges so we didn't have to pay for the call. But she would know I was down in one piece. If I needed to talk to her I would make another collect call straight away.

Three or four of the Dunedin Mission executive staff and board members visited Kawarau Falls Holiday Camp every few months, usually picking a good day when we could fly up and back the same day.

In 1974 I flew a brand new Cessna to Wellington with Bev and the children. All at once, a mile off the Kaikoura coast, Bev and I both smelled smoke. A heart-stopping moment, we realised, is not just a figure of speech. We landed safely in Wellington and mechanics found that some sealing tape near the exhaust manifold was not properly heat-proof and had melted.

In one month in 1980 I fell a few flying hours short of the number I had set ten years before as my personal minimum for safe flying and I brought my career as Pilot in Command to a firm conclusion. I had put up 520 hours in ten years and it had been a great ride. But I was not going to put myself and others at risk by becoming an "occasional" pilot.

So our family travelling life also went back on the road. We enjoyed some great camping trips throughout the South Island, as well as making some major trips up north to be with family on significant occasions.

* * *

Ever since the Religious Film Society Director Bill Mouat had told us about half-inch video tape in full colour I had been watching out for some form of "home" video. In 1980 the Mission Board gained an import licence for a VHS camera and portable recorder for educational work. Over the next few years we learned a great deal about basic "quick and dirty" **video work**. However, the Conference's Committee on Communication, in its wisdom, would not have a bar of these "sub-standard" formats. The committee asked the 1986 Conference in Manukau to agree that no video equipment be purchased for church use unless it were of fully professional broadcast quality. The outright foolishness of this proposal was demonstrated all through that Conference as we made our first properly edited video of the week's events. It was handed to about 60 people as Conference closed and buyers were able to screen it as soon as they got home. And, yes, the recommendation was firmly rejected.

* * *

From almost my first year in Dunedin I was District Ministerial Representative to Conference. Representing the district on the **Stationing Committee** was particularly demanding. Tradition was that while the District Chairman was expected to advocate strongly for the needs of the congregations, the ministerial representative was expected to have primary concern for the implications of stationing for the ministers themselves.

Thus it was that I found myself deputed to return from Stationing Committee one year to tell one of our ministers that Conference would not be able to find an appointment for him. The issue was not that there was a shortage of appointments, but rather, that no district would have him. He had "travelled" for a couple of decades in many different places and had not commended himself to even the most desperate district.

Up until that time there was an unwritten assumption that every minister would be offered an appointment. In effect, there was a kind of guarantee of paid employment through to retirement. The Connexion held its breath as this momentous decision overturned that principle. And I was the one who had to convey this apparent change of policy to the person concerned. There are some moments in ministry that sear the soul and this was one.

In my last few years in Dunedin I became **Superintendent** of Otago-Southland District. I saw to it that the Deputy Chair in Invercargill became primarily responsible for matters in the south. We both encountered a growing mood of resistance to an all-powerful Conference making decisions about people's lives. Our district was widely committed to union and cooperating parishes, many of which had little understanding or sympathy for the Methodist appointment system. The advent of the **Lay-Clergy Dialogue** programme enabled us to open up some important issues soon after the "honeymoon" period in new appointments.

Even so, there were dramatic moments. One was when a minister appeared in my office with his wife and announced he was leaving his new appointment. And the country. On Friday. With prompt cooperation from the Development Division he was on his way to meet with parish officials in another more sympathetic appointment within a week. Nobody, not even me, knew that the church could actually respond to a major problem of stationing that quickly.

* * *

As part of my work with Selection Procedures I spent a bit of time each year with the Methodist College Principal. JJ Lewis was usually present at assessment courses and made occasional visits to Dunedin for meetings of the Joint Board of Theological Studies. When Dr B Keith Rowe became principal and his position as Methodist Fieldworker in Education was left vacant there were discussions about an appropriate **staff strategy** for the college in the future. Keith and I drafted a rough job description for a new college staff person who would be responsible for —

> Convenership of the Committee on Ministry;

> Handling assessment of candidates for the ministry;

> Developing an education programme for the recently approved self-supporting ministries of presbyter and deacon;

> Continuing education for all ministers;

> Special care for beginning ministers just out of college.

As we looked at the results of our thinking, Keith said, "Dave, you could do that." This took me by surprise. I was not looking for a change. The mission board had already begun to consider a paper on the possibility of quitting residential aged care in favour of more appropriate programmes. I also had plans for some form of shared development of the magnificent Kawarau Falls property.

However, in a couple of years my second six-year term would be up. It was not a foregone conclusion that either the Board or the Conference would endorse a third term. Also, Frank Hanson had already come to Dunedin to discuss his Board's interest in me as Director of Stewardship education. By the middle of 1981 I had not agreed to either position but both Trinity College and the Education Division took my name to Church Council as their nomination.

As a District Superintendent, I was present in Church Council for this somewhat difficult discussion. One or two were asked to meet privately with me to try to ascertain my preference. I recognised now that if I fell back on my personal "I am in the hands of the Conference" this would not help them in the slightest. So I stated that I would prefer to remain in Dunedin but that if Conference were determined to pull me out I would personally prefer to go to the college position. It seemed to me that the stewardship education task was a commitment to the church as it had been. The college task, with its emphasis on alternative models of ministry, seemed to me to offer a more stimulating and hopeful track for the church that was yet to be.

On hearing my response the Council endorsed my designation for the position but the President was asked to convey "certain concerns" to me in private. About eight years later I reminded Loyal Gibson about this responsibility which he had never carried out. He confessed he couldn't remember what it was all about. He could have guessed though—he had been on the staff of the Group Life Laboratory which had been such a revelation to me in 1971 and some of which lessons I was, apparently, still only slowly learning.

Church Council and Conference respected my wish not to formally "accept" the invitation but the appointment went through all the same. My induction took place shortly afterwards in the setting of the half-yearly weekend with my future students. The Upper Hutt venue was also convenient for a few people from our home church who were able to be present. It was a warm and very significant occasion both for us and the college.

A few weeks later, when we were on holiday on the far north of the West Coast the College Council located us and generously flew us both up to Auckland to look at a house they thought would serve. We were all able to see the possibilities for its two separate flats.

* * *

As I was preparing to leave Dunedin, President Ted Grounds wrote a personal note including a paragraph of appreciation of my work as District Chairman. He made me a gift of the following:

> Sometimes one leads from the front; Sometimes one simply waits and holds on; And sometimes it is hands clasped over the head waiting for the roof to fall in; But we all get to midnight at the same time and God sees to it that tomorrow always comes.

Wilson Daniel wrote a fulsome appreciation of my work with the Cameron Centre Education Committee. My contributions, he said kindly, "kept us on our toes all the way!" Anglican-Methodist Family Care Centre sent their thanks for the contribution that both Bev and I made on their Board over the years. Another letter came from the Conference's General Secretary, Alan Woodley, thanking me for my contribution as a foundation member of the Board of Administration and my participation in "shaping the Board's life and work" and in the "decision-making processes".

The Board of Management of the Mission appreciated that I would have difficulty coping with a whole series of farewells. They organised a huge combined farewell dinner including all the people and organisations with whom I'd been involved over the ten years. Joan Carter put on a magnificent feast for this enormous crowd. It was a touching but splendid occasion.

We had come to Dunedin as a family of two adults and two reasonably dependent children. Ten years of settled family life, good schooling, and many interesting experiences had changed us all. Paul and Christine had both started work and a special phase of our family life was just about over. In many ways, the end of 1981 seemed not a bad time for Bev and me to face another move, especially since this one seemed better planned than a couple of our others.

We were looking to the future with a rather naïve confidence. We would soon find that we had not taken enough account of the difficulties ahead of us both.

Reflections on leaving Dunedin —1981

Although the social service work had offered many challenges I was not particularly disappointed to be moving out of what might easily have become a career track;

In my heart of hearts I wanted to be in the business of congregations rather than institutions;

However, the four years in the Good News Room had clearly confirmed my doubts about the appropriateness of unpaid ministry. I would not be keen to be a stipendiary minister in a congregation again.

I was sure that the church Social Services should negotiate new ways of working with Government in their programmes of care—the church should be an innovator and do only what it did best; it should not cling to traditional roles that might compete with the public and private sectors in institutional care.

I was becoming convinced that the church should enter into partnerships for property development but retain title to the land in significant centres like Lake Wakatipu and the Dunedin Octagon.

# 11

# Fieldworker in Ministry

"You're on the black list"

(One of my students)

The new position was going to demand a great deal of travelling, and it began with a combined holiday and working trip throughout the country. Over five weeks we visited most of the first-year probationers and eventually arrived just in time for the joint college opening for the year.

A fine office had been made available for Trinity College's use by St John's College in the basement of the Kinder Library. But our college hadn't done anything with it. There was a telephone on the floor but everything else had to be set up from scratch.

The move was traumatic beyond our expectations. I had plenty to do, of course. But Bev was often alone at home and sometimes tearful for no reason. Apart from the unexpected wrench in leaving Dunedin, she had to put up with building materials on the lounge floor for months. Voluntary work with Home and Family Society gave her a new and absorbing interest. Later she accepted a term on the National Committee for Women's Fellowship.

After lengthy discussions about alterations to the two flats which comprised our home, work started on turning the external stairs around and enclosing one carport to make an entranceway. But the work proceeded very slowly and the home looked like a building site. During this period we had six burglaries.

Eventually, in April of the second year, we had a very comfortable three-bedroom home upstairs with an excellent, roomy flat downstairs for guest accommodation. In the first year Bev hosted 287 person-nights of visitors in the downstairs flat. Guests such as the Albert Outlers and the Celia Hahns (if I can put it like that) appreciated the independence and comfort of the flat.

* * *

Over the road, we had great hopes for an ambitious programme for ministry formation outside of the residential college. But it was barely defined, never mind structured.

However, I relished the opportunity to develop the alternative model that would be required. Over the first two or three years I was very busy helping to give flesh to the dreams. And, of course, there were several other elements to the very flexible job description.

1—Home Setting Education

The main thrust of my work was to put in place what became known as the Home-Setting education programme. This was for students of alternative ministry as either Deacon or Presbyter in covenanted, part-time, volunteer service. A few students were already in place. Some were working through the Education for Ministry programme which was managed mainly by the Anglican church. Two or three attended lectures at St John's or other colleges. All came together once a year at a residential event hosted by Trinity College. The commencement of four new deacon candidates at the same time as I arrived in the college suggested that a more comprehensive programme for local education would be an early priority.

It was fundamental to the programme that the candidates were expected to have had up to a couple of decades' experience in the ministry for which they were offering. So Principal Keith Rowe and I felt that we should not treat them as if they were inexperienced and unsophisticated students. We developed new steps for determining their curriculum:

> We analysed the requirements of ministry that were specific to each situation: "What does this congregation need this person to do in ministry?"

> We then sought to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate's knowledge, skills and personal characteristics.

> Comparing these two sets of data we explored with each candidate areas in which education and ministry formation would be needed.

> We put much of the responsibility for developing individual educational goals and objectives into the hands of the candidates themselves.

> We also required them to identify specific measures against which their various objectives would be measured.

> Eventually we invited them to make their own assessments of their progress; these were reported to the Conference Committee on Ministry along with those of tutors and others.

This kind of approach was not heavily weighted in the core subjects of Theological, Biblical, Pastoral and Historical Studies. We were not convinced that these formal disciplines were central to the particular task the church had asked us to carry out. This novel view would be revisited before my time at the college came to an end.

* * *

We brought all the students together to a residential event every six months. There were often separate events for Home-Setting students, Beginning Ministers, and on some occasions, Lay Supply people. There was always some solid academic input on a theme but also much time for sharing and discussion. All individuals were expected to draft their own Learning Covenants against criteria based on their Ministry Covenants and the expectations of the college. Each student had a Study Supervisor, a Ministry Supervisor and a carefully-selected Support Group in the home setting.

Bev did the catering for many of the residentials and we offered meals and overnight hospitality to many who, because of distance, had to arrive early or leave late. We also did most of the airport pickups; one day I made four trips out to the airport. Taxis were not an option – we were acutely aware of the high cost of these events. But our costs were a fraction of the operational and personal cost of bringing candidates into residence in Auckland for full-time education.

2—Beginning Ministers

The Fieldworker in Ministry role involved me in visiting all our Beginning Ministers in their appointments. The availability of a college staff person to make these visits was a vital element of the programme and provided many opportunities for people in the parishes to put a face to the Connexion. I was reminded of the loss of the presence that used to occur much more frequently in circuits prior to the 1960s. Up to that time connexional staffers regularly visited the congregations to solicit financial support for their work.

Commercial flying was very expensive so my visits were scheduled by regions and Bev and I usually travelled together for days or weeks at a time, mostly using the caravan. This more leisurely availability seemed to be greatly appreciated.

Of course there was a huge amount of correspondence with individuals and I worked very hard at that. I used toll calls for quite a few personal interviews, especially after night rates were introduced. I collated all the reports on probationers and was sometimes their judge and sometimes their advocate at the Committee on Ministry where their progress was assessed. It was interesting to note that, by and large, the people I had seen through the system as candidates looked much the same at ordination. The college course and even a year or two in the rough and tumble of parish ministry did not extinguish the characteristics that we had identified at candidature.

3—Ministry Promotion

Another important part of the FWIM role was to promote the new styles of ministry throughout the Connexion. In this area—

> *—I published Diakonia and the Moa, which offered a theological and practical distinction between the two orders of ministry.

> *—We developed some specific criteria for analysis of the Ministry Covenant of a candidate for local ministry as presbyter or deacon.

> *—I engaged in a very vigorous programme of promotional visits to Synods and parishes. From short sessions to two-day consultations I was given many opportunities to offer practical strategies for the new forms of ministry.

> *—With a little technical assistance from our son Paul, I produced a short video documentary on the Home-Setting programme.

On a visit to Northland I offered an in-depth introduction to the ministries with particular reference to how they might work in specific contexts Subsequently, we received some eight enquiries about candidates and six people came into the programme.

These candidates moved through the assessment and selection procedures more smoothly and they arrived in the programme with much clearer ideas of what they were offering for than most. It was stressful to try to assist an individual who felt a call to ministry and a congregation who would do anything to help the candidate with the personal call except actually embrace it in a formal ministry covenant. As a result of extensive promotional visits over three or four years we had a record intake in 1988.

4—Continuing Education

The main thrust of my work in continuing education was in production of resources. A Ricoh tabletop offset printing machine had come up with me from Dunedin and we soon obtained a plate-maker and an Adler typesetter which gave a tremendous improvement in the appearance of our work.

I embarked on the publication of Field Notes, an occasional paper which was distributed through the connexional mailing system. This leaflet was distributed free to the full Methodist Mailing from the Administration Division in Christchurch. We assembled, copied and indexed resources of all kinds and invited orders; after some issues of Field Notes we received as many as thirty or forty requests for items. Somewhere in the second year funding was found for a part-time office assistant. Sherril Ewing, who was the last of three willing and enthusiastic assistants, eventually took over the whole task of creating and distributing resources. The spaces originally negotiated at St John's College were outstanding for the bulky equipment that a modest communications department required.

Under the brilliant and dedicated editorship of Len Schroeder, we produced a proper magazine of 24—32 pages. The articles were generally of an excellent standard even if the publication itself bore the signs of its shoestring production. Ardet made a very significant contribution to some serious debates in the church. In Issue #5 I expressed what I considered to be a scholarly concern about the proposal to ordain the first four deacons. My contribution was either completely ignored or else interpreted as an attack on the nature of the diaconate and a thinly disguised attempt to keep deacons in a subservient role to that of presbyters. But I am not greatly dissatisfied with the article even now.

An article on Full Connexion also raised eyebrows but I am unrepentant in the view that it is not about distinguishing deacons and presbyters at all. It is about being at the disposal of the Connexion. So bringing other clergy into Full Connexion because they are appointed for a time in a Methodist setting does not seem to me to be appropriate.

In 1988, after a lot of temporary versions, we put together a comprehensive handbook covering the whole of our procedures from promotion and recruitment and candidature. It did not touch on my controversial views about Full Connexion.

* * *

I was very frustrated as a congregational participant while in Auckland and on one occasion of "looking around" I attended Glendowie Presbyterian Church. There were 36 present that morning, including a deputation from Auckland Presbytery who announced during the service that it had been decided that the congregation was to be closed. The response was dramatic: an unbelieving moan went through the whole congregation and quickly turned to grief and anger. People leaped to their feet and began to shout. Many wept.

At Trinity College we had been talking of the possibility of some kind of education and retreat centre and this crisis immediately suggested a possible opportunity. An approach was made and some conversations began. The outcome was that Orakei parish took the congregation under their wing and the property was handed over to Trinity College. Some Orakei funds and college resources eventually provided a small chapel, a seminar room and offices. Wellspring was born and Loyal Gibson joined the Trinity College staff and moved into the former manse at the rear. Wellspring soon became the regular venue for the home-setting student weekends and many other memorable events, including some open lectures. It also became an occasional home for the Methodist community at St Johns-Trinity.

* * *

Under the charming Pat Carlisle of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I had qualified to use his material but changed the programme fairly significantly to meet our local conditions. It was for ministers in mid-ministry who were evaluating their vocation and perhaps considering what they might do next and planning appropriate continuing education. We called the programme Ministry Enrichment.

The course was run in small groups of three to five, sometimes in our flat but also in other residential centres around the country. It included an in-depth analysis of one's strengths and limitations and matching these against the requirements of the kind of ministry each was taking up. Some personal objectives for one's own continuing education were then determined from these data. It was a very worthwhile programme and received some very supportive feedback from the participants. Two or three would say it turned their vocational lives around. Many undertook specific challenges in continuing education to improve their knowledge or skills in areas that seemed to be deficient. I think over 50 of our clergy would have been through this programme in the six years it was offered.

* * *

I encouraged our probationers and students to think a lot about time management. Before it became a common tool for clerical time management I proposed that mornings, afternoons and evenings could make roughly equivalent blocks of time to a total of 21 a week. I invited people to think in terms of a specific number of these units as full-on work, another number to be blocks "on call", and a third number of blocks for "time off", for family or self.

When Northland Union District Council ministers came to the college for a residential school of theology, JJ Lewis delivered a series of five lectures on the biblical story. We made excellent videos of the lectures. But we also worked together to produce a full manuscript of his presentations and published them in book form as On the Boundaries of Faith. Another worthwhile result of a further offer from JJ Lewis was Between the Vision and the Word. This was also distributed quite widely in this country. The interest in these books was really gratifying for us both. Another major publishing project was the production of Doc Williams' life's work. In his declining weeks his family decided to go ahead with a private publication and I undertook the task. We hired a second Adler typesetting machine and no fewer than 27 students at the college assisted with the enormous task of typesetting, proof-reading, pasting-up, plate-making, printing, sorting collating and binding 200 copies of this substantial book. It was an absolutely astonishing operation, all done from scratch in barely four weeks. The first finished copies of How Should we Live were placed in Doc's hands just a few days before he died.

* * *

A minor but stimulating activity was developing audiovisual production skills; dozens of visiting lecturers at the college gave permission for their presentations to be recorded. There was a keen team of volunteers to do the work and sometimes there would be sales of a couple of dozen or more videos. We recorded video interviews of many visitors, often very useful introductions to a theme, a cause or the person behind the lecturer.

However, growing income from sales of this sort of material drew undue attention to these activities. When Principal Keith was overseas, a Council member noted a few hundred dollars' worth of sales of resources and asked "Are we operating a college or a printing house?" Ironically, the meeting of Methodist Principals that Keith was attending at that time offered congratulations that his was the only college with its own in-house publishing section. But Keith was not in the Council meeting, of course, and the question was not acceptably answered. From then began a shift in the support of the college for the communications work which I had been asked to set up six years earlier.

I was never a keen conference-goer but I always attended while in the FWIM position as I had on every other occasion when my responsibilities required me to be present. It was some small consolation that from 1986 for a few years a team of volunteers under my direction produced excellent fifteen-minute video documentaries on Conference as well as recording most of the debate and other events. A small subsidy from the Administration Division meant that representatives could pay a reasonable $15 for a ten-minute video to show to their home congregations, often as soon as the Sunday after Conference. These videos were greatly appreciated; they added vision and live audio to the first-person reports and conveyed so much more of the feel of Conference.

At that time nobody in the church or elsewhere had achieved delivery of an event video for people to take home with them as they left. It is not generally known that the PAC Trustees had funded the grants made for these video programmes. Nor that they hoped that their generous Communications Endowment would be used to implement a coordinated connexional communication strategy. In the event, the conference, in its wisdom or perhaps without much of it, has repeatedly elected to use the PAC Communication Endowment for other purposes.

5—FWIM and the Connexion

There was not much for me to do connexionally. Dropped rather summarily from the Board of Administration, I was not drafted into anything else, not even the Faith and Order Committee which had traditionally been strongly staffed from the college. I did attend meetings of the Committee on Ministry—but it had been decided before I was appointed that being its convenor was not desirable as the job would eat into too much College time.

Somewhere along the line, the role of Candidate Assessment convenor also disappeared from my draft job description. This was a considerable disappointment as ministerial selection had been my particular professional interest for over twenty years and I had developed distinctive techniques for the use of the TSI in this context.

I had also enjoyed the general committee work with which I had been entrusted over the years. It was hard to adjust to not having the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to my church's life through its central councils. However, there was plenty to keep me occupied. Juggling priorities was always the order of the day, as it is, in fact, with most ministry in the church.

* * *

I was a corresponding member of the Welfare of the Church Committee in Dunedin when they proposed an open invitation for people to register complaints against connexional officials on the grounds of abuse of power. I wrote to the committee urging that they not go ahead with the survey, suggesting that it would create extra tension and undermine confidence and damage relationships at all levels of the church's life.

I was not unaware that the mid-1970s breed of connexional officials were regarded by some as barely responsible "young turks" and that the term "mafia" was in circulation. But my view was that these leaders had been thrust into prominence with less experience, age and professional maturity than their predecessors because of the absence of candidates for the ministry in the 1940s due to the closure of Trinity College during the war. I felt we had to make some allowance for them and in any case a concerted and highly specific attack on individuals would not help.

Notwithstanding my impassioned advice the survey went ahead. And the Welfare of the Church Committee stopped sending me their minutes. At the next Conference, there were discussion groups on topics relevant to the Conference reports and the group that received the report of this survey on power sharing proposed that Conference hold a special residential consultation the following year to explore this issue further. I was told later by someone who attended this event that in the silence that followed the viewing of a film on contrasts of life in apartheid South Africa a quiet Maori voice was heard to say "That's how I feel in this church". The consultation, probably disempowered by the enormity of the problem and yet empowered by the impression the film had made, turned to listen to the interjector. Gradually the issue moved from power sharing by the connexional leadership to the lack of empowerment felt by the Methodist Maori community.

When the consultation reported back to Conference there was widespread resistance to its proposals, especially from the Pasifika peoples and their sympathisers. But the convenor of the consultation maintained an undignified filibuster until the conference voted to accept their recommendation about embarking on the Bicultural Journey.

I had studied Maori culture and language at Taumarunui and was deeply concerned about the problems faced by the Maori church and its people. But I was not convinced that the proposed solution was an appropriate way to deal with it. Methodism in NZ has often been quite good at identifying a problem but prone to produce a solution that addresses something else

Naturally, as a Connexional officer, I had to go off to one of the training weekends that were devised to promote the Bicultural Journey. That event, ironically, used the very techniques that we had long since abandoned in the context of persuading people to give themselves to Christ. It set about exposing ignorance and developing guilt; it then offered "The Solution" in the form of making a personal bicultural commitment. It was not worthy of a denomination with such a record in social justice issues. However, the writing was on the wall and at the end of the couple of days I did my mea culpa along with everyone else.

My "conversion" can't have been credited to me because at Conference a couple of years later, one of my students came to me and reported that my name was on the black list. Apparently there was a list of connexional staff who were felt to have not responded adequately to the indoctrination programme.

The bicultural working party became a kind of touchstone on which every matter which came before subsequent conferences would be tested. One such was the "ten year rule" which had never quite made it through Conference over twenty years of discussions. Although most people recognised the problem of individuals becoming institutionalised in connexional appointments, most also acknowledged the limited ability of our small denomination to find outstanding specialists to serve for short terms. In 1984, however, the bicultural work group short-circuited the normal consultation process and introduced a ten-year rule of their own. On this occasion there were only two discernible votes "against" and they were mine and Bev's. Our negative response was personal and selfish as well as deliberative: the new ten year rule would require that we move from the college just three years before I was due to retire.

* * *

In 1987 I was asked to convene a national consultation on ministry. I did not hold great hopes for the outcomes as all too often the Connexion's commissions tend to go out the same door they enter in. But this was a good and representative group of the Pakeha part of the church and the 24 participants worked very purposefully and produced good statements on a couple of dozen issues. These were circulated throughout the Connexion.

It was memorable for me, however, not so much for its outcomes, but for the fact that John Hamlin, a computer enthusiast in the days when computers were a real novelty, brought along with him a "luggable" computer. It was like a huge and heavy metal attache case with a full-size keyboard that unfolded along the front edge to reveal a six-inch monochrome screen which could display a paragraph or two at a time in bright green letters. With John's guidance I soon got the hang of the keyboard and proceeded to type up our findings as we worked through the issues. For the first time I realised the huge advantage of negotiating and finalising the exact wording of resolutions and minutes as the meeting proceeded. We closed the two-day consultation standing in a circle around several metres of printed paper spread out on the floor.

6—FWIM and "The College"

My place in the St John's/Trinity partnership was always a little ambiguous. I was a Methodist appointment for which the Methodist College Council took full responsibility for budget and housing. But I had no relationship to the Joint Faculty. Nor did I take any lectures for the college students. Indeed, I spoke only once to Methodist students in the whole nine years—and that was just to give them an explanation of the place of Home-Setting Students and Local Ministry. However, Bev and I were drawn into the informal pastoral group system which embraced the whole College community. We both valued that fellowship.

I was quite happy not to be on the roster for the 7am communion in the chapel—nor did I conduct more than two or three of the Wednesday worship celebrations. This separation from the regular institution across the road was to prove valuable when the constitutional crisis arose.

* * *

This volume is not the place to discuss in detail the difficult paths through which the Anglican-Methodist partnership passed in the early 1980s. But a brief summary of my impressions may be of interest. The theology department was headed up by the Anglican Warden, who followed a somewhat idiosyncratic line in managing its work. The other two members, one Anglican and one Methodist, had taken out life subscriptions in the protest movement.

All three found common cause around an approach to theology that always had to begin with an issue of social justice. They chose not to see any other point of entry into teaching the "Queen of the Sciences". While their lectures were no doubt stimulating and clearly produced lively discussions, the lack of structured theological content became bewildering for some of our students who no doubt would have preferred a list of theological propositions to swot up for the exams.

* * *

The issues were by no means simple and developed over a long period in which the social justice agenda was introduced into every possible forum around the college. It had some positive moments; no one will forget Prime Minister Muldoon walking very apprehensively into Wesley Hall to find the entire student community rising to their feet in respect. But when in late 1984, some of our Methodist students came to Keith and declared that they would not attend theology lectures the following year, something had to be done. Keith regarded me as a colleague on the Methodist staff team and, perhaps because I was not involved with the joint faculty and the internal networks of the place, met with me frequently during this difficult period. So we often talked over the issues as they were affecting his work. We approached College Council Chair Jack Penman one Sunday afternoon. We felt we had to say that our continuing in our positions in Trinity College was dependent on the situation being changed.

Our Council took the matter up very seriously and the first thing that was revealed was that the two churches, which had brought their colleges together only eleven years earlier, were not singing from the same hymnbook. In 1972, both parties had been highly motivated to move towards joint work. The Anglicans were keen to gain the particular academic skills of some of the Methodist staff and the latter, as JJ Lewis put it to me very much later, were being worn down the responsibilities of managing a university hostel as well as a theological college. The principal parties had worked together in many ecumenical settings in those heady days of Church Union negotiations, especially the Joint Board of Theological Studies. A Joint College seemed like the best possible arrangement for all concerned.

However, the almost unseemly haste to implement the cooperation on the St John's campus was not matched by adequate follow-up of the negotiations. The version of the agreement setting out the conditions of the joint work that was signed off by the Methodist Conference had been subsequently amended by the Anglicans who then signed that copy. The Conference assumed the agreement it had signed was current; the Anglicans failed to note that the version they had signed with amendments had not been returned to the Methodist representatives for further consideration.

The differences between the two documents changed the whole balance of how the two institutions sat together. And the central issue was that nobody had seemed to notice. For a decade, Methodist students understood themselves to be training at "St Johns" College. The lack of any defined identity of Trinity College as an element within the joint operation was never questioned by them. But that identity had never been signed away by the Methodist Conference.

* * *

In the process of beginning to explore these issues in 1984 Trinity College Council was accused of initiating a unilateral review of a joint arrangement. Through the deliberate actions of some Methodists who were opposed to what they saw as an undoing of the joint arrangement, items from the Methodist College Council meetings found their way onto Anglican and Methodist meeting agendas in other parts of the country before the Council meeting minutes were even written. One or two of our own district synods were co-opted into engaging in vigorous and critical debate with Trinity College Council and staff about our apparently uncooperative attitude.

A fortunate outcome was that almost immediately the Anglicans looked to their own understanding of the agreements and resolved to conduct a parallel review.

The negotiations for a comprehensive agreement probably took place at the level of Council and Board of Governors without great difficulty. The outcome was helpful in clarifying relationships all round. The position of Trinity College as a distinct entity was clearly affirmed, the Methodist Church began to contribute more realistically to the cost of its own ministry training. And the theology department was eventually rebuilt with new staff. But there were unpleasant recriminations among the faculty. It was a very stressful period. Keith and I were accused of getting our priorities wrong and putting denominational priorities ahead of ecumenical ones.

It would be easy to put sinister connotations on the events of those two or three years. It was not hard to identify what looked like an attempt to move control of St John's College from the hands of the Anglican church and set it up as an independent ecumenical institution. On the other hand, some voiced the feeling that the Methodist initiation of a review was a late grasp at regaining lost power. A charitable view might be that passion for a certain point of view and a certain style of restructuring society led staff in the Theology Department to a teaching style which, when arrested, had the helpful outcome of enabling some re-ordering of the combined institution's life.

7—Personal Continuing Education

In 1983 I was provided with a return fare to North America together with some extended leave for short courses and institutional visits. I attended the annual meeting of the Society for Continuing Education in Ministry where the North American formality of continuing education was very comprehensively demonstrated and the people were enthusiastic and friendly. I participated in two courses on "Evaluating your Ministry", receiving authorisation to use the material in NZ. In three places in the USA I met members of the Board of the Theological School Inventory on which I had spent so much time over the previous fifteen years.

* * *

The main study event was the Fourth Institute of Supervised Ministries. The group was small, the work intensive and it drew together the combined resources of the whole consortium of theological institutions in the Boston area. It was a demanding but very stimulating couple of weeks and I really welcomed the opportunity to integrate disciplined supervisory skills into my work. I later developed and printed a comprehensive tool to enable supervision to play a much more intentional role with our students.

There was enormous US interest in the models of ministry we were developing in this country. Many times I was asked to speak to hastily-gathered informal groups in seminaries and church institutions. But the American church was deeply entrenched in the traditional model. Small churches seemed to find retired clergy all over the country to do part-time supply ministry.

The whole experience of that four months had profound outcomes for the work I did in the college. I felt hugely affirmed in the steps we were taking to provide opportunities for ordained ministry outside the traditional model. I gained a number of personal skills and tools which I would use for the next few years in ministry formation and, especially, continuing education.

* * *

By the late 1980s, the Methodist assessment team had used the Theological School Inventory for a few years and there was a growing body of data dating back to 1966. In the interests of possible long-term research I had retained it all. In 1986 the Council agreed to my request for a few extra secretarial hours to enable me to undertake the huge research project that would be required to investigate what had happened to those who had completed the TSI over the two decades since it had been first used. I expected that we would be able to confirm that a candidate with certain profile patterns on the TSI could be predicted to be, for instance—

> A great success at parish ministry;

> Or a bit of a plodder;

> Or a "drop-out" into academia;

> Or a resignation within seven years.

Consistent outcomes that could be correlated with specific TSI score patterns would seem to be immensely useful material for the church in future selection of candidates. There was every reason to believe that, after two decades, these highly significant data would yield some most interesting results for the churches who had participated in the original study.

However, when our research was in full flight and hundreds of letters had been sent out to locate the original respondents in addresses all round the world, our Council required us to drop the project. Space, they said, was no longer available. We attempted to retrofit the operation into the parsonage garage but it was quite impossible and the project died. Eventually this most valuable body of personal material was carefully destroyed.

* * *

Although all matters to do with candidature had been stripped from my job description, I was sent to a Brisbane course on candidate selection. This was a most unconventional event. In the first place, the presenter, Dr Ray Carey, had made his reputation with selection procedures for the Catholic priesthood. In the second, his specialty was in the area of sexual concerns. And in the third, he conducted the event like no other I had ever attended.

We sat in rigid rows in school desks and he lectured us. For three full days on end. There was no overhead projector, no flip charts, only occasional use of a blackboard. There were no handouts, no break-out groups, no buzz groups, no workshops, nothing. But the event made a huge impression. He was full of jokes that were tightly apposite to his teaching points. His material was bursting with real-life anecdotes. And his theories, so precisely expounded, made a great deal of sense.

With the strictest injunctions as to how we ever would use his material, he gave us, blow by blow and event by event and statistic by statistic, the background to the sexual scandal that was just about to overwhelm Catholic Dioceses in New England and would shortly spread throughout the world church. He made it clear that even the most rigorous counselling and therapy should not permit certain people to enter pastoral ministry. It was a fascinating few days.

* * *

Given the large number of Pacific Island students in the Home-Setting programme the Council planned for me to go to Fiji, Samoa and Tonga in 1987. Some of our arrangements collapsed on the very eve of our departure when the Fijian government was overthrown by the first coup of Col. Sitiveni Rabuka.

We had ten days at Piula College and an overnight visit to the village of Satitoa in the Aleipata district. We were very warmly welcomed here and people responded to my modest attempts to use their own language and concepts in my formal reply. At Tonga I was given hospitality with one of the Sia'atoutai Theological College staff but left more or less to my own devices. I met a lot of people, visited the church offices and inspected the Catholic/Wesleyan printing business that doubled as the Government Printer. Preaching in Centennial Church from the lectionary for the day I noticed that King George Tupou V, who was enthroned on high over to my right, took off his glasses. I was told that this was considered to be a compliment to the preacher.

* * *

The last couple of years of my time at the college were not easy. Two Council members were particularly vocal in discussions about Home-setting curriculum. They contended that the core disciplines were a sine qua non for ordained ministry. While he was around, Keith's support of our distinctive educational philosophy in respect of our very experienced adult students was unequivocal. When he undertook a year's sabbatical in 1988 and then announced that he would not be returning to the college to complete his tenth year as principal, support for our position wavered. Jack Penman was drawn out of retirement to become Acting Principal. His appointment to this temporary position, by default, lent strength to the arguments for a reversal of the curriculum strategy that was in place for Home-Setting students. So in my last couple of years the carefully woven framework of the Home-Setting programme tended to unravel. This happened not by strategic discussions and formal decisions but by reduced funding for travelling, student study allowances and other items essential to an effective distance education programme.

Our Anglican friends were carrying out major alterations around the property at that time and space for the work I was doing for the Methodist side of the college partnership took a very low priority. My own Trinity College Council seemed unwilling to seek creative and workable solutions. During an eighteen month period my office operated in no fewer than thirteen different locations. For long stretches of time some of our basic records were not accessible to Sherril and me. The routine day-to-day work became very difficult.

Naturally the bulky printing operation was a total casualty of these moves. At my reluctant suggestion the AB Dick printing press was crated up and gifted to the Catholic-Wesleyan printing works in Tonga where it became a very welcome duplicate to one I knew they already owned. The audiovisual and publishing work of College Communications was brought to a standstill through lack of space. For a time this was salvaged by a group of about thirty-five supporters who created a voluntary group to sponsor its operations for two or three years. The book stocks and equipment were moved into the double garage under our house from where we continued distributions as we were able. But there seemed little point in continuing to develop resources.

* * *

Ironically, in those last very difficult years our student programme throughout the country was absolutely booming. The large home-setting student body was achieving very good results. In 1988 we had 32 students in training as well as the largest annual intake ever. Dedicated supervisors were becoming better skilled and coping with a wide range of challenges. And some very significant continuing education work was being done with Ministry Enrichment and other programmes. In just one week that year we distributed over 100 packages of individually requested resources for students, supervisors and others.

I chose to busy myself in working with my students rather than getting involved in the controversial issues around the shape of the programme. On the one hand, I felt it inappropriate that a major change in educational style and standards of the Home-Setting operation should be instituted in the absence of the regular principal; on the other hand, it seemed absolutely unreasonable to ask Acting Principal Jack Penman to explore the issues as they were affecting me. And on the other hand, if one may be permitted a third hand, I was only too well aware of the many times the Connexion has launched itself in some new direction only to falter after a few years and even to reverse direction altogether. Perhaps that was what was happening now.

* * *

Also, on the personal level, I was already having second thoughts about the whole concept myself. I had become aware that some of our women students were absolutely revelling in the opportunity of study and ministry after a couple of decades of raising families. But their enthusiasm and growing fulfilment was not always welcomed by their spouses.

There was also the enormous pressure that usually descended on local presbyters to fulfil all the expectations that people had formerly laid upon full-time stipendiary ministers. Some students lacked the skills to control their availability and were rendered helpless in the face of quite unreasonable demands. Others were only too happy to have their time soaked up in greatly extended hours of pastoral ministry that their grateful people didn't hesitate to affirm. Either way, I was beginning to see the local presbyter model as a less realistic alternative to the "professional" model of minister than we had hoped a decade earlier. At its worst, it was becoming only a slight variation on the principle of the "one person does it all" model of congregation ministry.

Gradually it dawned on me that the problem was ordination itself. The status conveyed by ordaining one person to be a local presbyter was what was causing members of a congregation to continue to "leave it to the minister". That's how it was that I conceived the possibility of a lay team of five or six people who would share responsibility for coordinating significant but distinctive roles of ministry in the congregation. This strategy would, I felt, free the ordained members of such a team to develop their ministry around more tightly defined ministry covenants. I was coming to view ordination as a narrowing of the focus of one's ministry for the sake of order in the church.

So, for at least those reasons, I was beginning to entertain my own concerns about the styles of ministry and education we were promoting. Arguing about the precise academic content of the study programme was a pointless exercise if the entire strategy itself should turn out to be flawed. Increasingly, this was my conviction, even as I shepherded the largest groups the church had ever seen into this work.

However, the new ten-year rule would exclude me before long. The only question was, would I initiate an earlier withdrawal or serve out the full ten years. The stress I was feeling in the middle of 1988 drew attention to itself in Church Council. The President and Vice-President were instructed to write to me offering –

> ...thanks and love... in recognition of the work you do, and our thanks to you, Bev for the support you give Dave and the Church.

It was an unexpected tribute that we both appreciated very much.

* * *

Perhaps as a consolation prize for the unsatisfactory situation into which my position had descended, Bev and I were given a round-the-world fare each and a modest daily allowance to take a second study leave. Under the circumstances, this was a generous provision.

Among other events and visits, we spent some days in the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada. This was a revelation. I brought back two hours of video interviews with people working in what was almost exactly the ministry strategy I was putting together in my mind. A dozen copies of the edited video were soon distributed through the Anglican Church in NZ and further afield. On this trip I also hammered away at a laptop computer in airport lounges in several places and in motels and homes. Each completed section of work had to be saved to disk and mailed home to Ian McKenzie who gave me editorial advice as well as secure custody of the completed work. By the time I returned home, the first draft of Ecclesion—The Small Church with a Vision was almost complete for publication later that year. This book was shaped by my experience of the previous decade and a half of alternative ministry experience. Though never acknowledged by the college or the Connexion, Ecclesion was widely read and nearly two decades later still makes a contribution in the growing movement towards small congregations without stipendiary ministers.

I wrote at the end of our short account of that trip: "We're optimistic about making a gentle ending to our work here and moving on to something new next February though what that might be is not very clear still." But it was not as gentle as it might have been. And it certainly wasn't at all clear.

In retrospect, I should have seen the writing on the wall and announced my intention to leave the college before the new Principal arrived. But when for the first time the position was to be filled from outside of the college staff, I felt I should stay around for a ninth year to see Frank Hanson into the role. There was every reason to believe that Frank and I would get on well as we had both come up as candidates from the same church in the same year.

I sent a detailed memorandum to him expressing some concern about FWIM issues that needed to be addressed as soon as we were both on site together. I also offered him some tentative views about College issues from which I felt he might be readily distracted in his early weeks. When he finally arrived he said that he didn't have time for my concerns just then — how about a meeting in three weeks? This was not the kind of working relationship that I had hoped to have with the new colleague. It was soon clear that Frank's main mentor and guide in taking up the new position would not be his staff colleague.

* * *

An irony was that in this year the Council found itself suddenly enveloped in a major funding crisis. In the Council, I urged members to see this as an opportunity to grasp the initiative to conduct its own review of its ministry formation and education strategy. I produced a fairly substantial and comprehensive document but the Council lamely invited Conference to set up a review.

The Conference Commission on Theological Education that was put together was rigorously representative of every conceivable interested party—except people who actually had some experience of the theological college enterprise in either classical or alternate mode. The review cost some $70,000 but nothing was changed except that the church again threw more money at the same old strategy. It was a golden opportunity lost.

* * *

So the 1990 Conference in Dunedin thanked me for my two terms in the college. Margaret Bryant, with whom I'd grown up in Waiwhetu Sunday School a lifetime earlier, was now a deacon in the programme and spoke touchingly on behalf of my students. Immediately afterwards there was a final residential with my Home-Setting students at Wesley Manor. As my induction to the position had taken place in a small residential weekend among the students I was to work with, my most memorable farewell was now among the student friends who would no longer be my responsibility. It was a very special occasion.

* * *

Throughout the preceding weeks I had given much thought to what would I do for the three or so years that would take me to the then age for New Zealand Superannuation. Four years of minimal part-time ministry in the Good News Room and nine years of experience in facilitating alternative strategies of ministry all round the country, left me completely disenchanted with the prospect of paid parish ministry. A number of appointments were informally run past me but I could not get away from the conviction that over the last century stipendiary ministry had done more to hinder the ministry of the whole people of God than promote it. I was no longer prepared to be what I regarded as a conspirator with lay people in moving mission and ministry from them to a paid specialist.

To say that I could minister as a "facilitator" seemed to me to be nonsense as long as I was present and paid. I was coming to the belief that most lay people would not pick up the challenge to engage in work that they saw as the responsibility of a minister unless the minister was actually no longer there. Nor was I willing to be subjected to the stationing procedures of profiles and face-to-face consultations of prospective minister and congregation. Both seemed to me to be against the principle of total availability to the conference. Neither gave me much confidence that people on either side would either tell the truth or be committed to a good result if they didn't get what they wanted.

My discomfort about the future was apparently well enough known to be the subject of another discussion at Church Council in mid-1990. President Eric Laurenson phoned and said that he had been asked to meet with me. When he asked me what would I most like to do in the church I replied that I would crawl over broken glass to have a part in some kind of Methodist communication structure. Afterwards I wondered if he knew that the outgoing Prince Albert College Trustees had set up the Communication Endowment with the dream of such a facility in their minds.

Eric noted that I had already put myself under regular and intensive professional supervision during this very stressful time. At the end of our discussion he agreed with me that the problems were more or less insoluble but would correct themselves in time.

Shortly afterwards I took matters into my own hands and accepted the offer of the Development Division for a part-time supply position for a year in Bay of Islands Cooperating Parish. Ironically, this was a strategy that was quite the antithesis of my understanding of what it meant to be in Full Connexion – I had to take an initiative that I had always felt should be taken by the church. I had to ask for a job! And there was a face-to-face – of which the less said the better.

* * *

Since the mid-1960s my name had been appearing in the long list of those for whom members of conference voted for president in the lengthy ballots-without-nomination of those days. But in 1990 my name came up, along with ten or so others, under the new system of formal nominations. A little-known sidelight to that particular year's election was that Bev had been approached that year to ask if she would allow her name to go forward as nomination for Vice-President. She still treasures the complimentary and touching letter proposing her nomination but it was not to her taste and she declined. The Conference of 1990 did not know that it might have had a connexional Mum and Dad!

There was a lot to think about as I finished out the year at the college. Then it was Christmas and everything was, to all intents and purposes, over. I have no recollection of the farewells that must have taken place in Auckland as Bev and I packed up our home and prepared to move on into a very uncertain future.

Reflections on leaving the College —1990

I was definitely glad and relieved to be moving out of the college situation. I had probably stayed at least a year too long for my own good though it had been busy and very productive for the large student body.

I was more than ever uncomfortable with the appointment system as it was working out in the current climate in the church.

For me, stipendiary ministry in most parish settings seemed to be a kind of conspiracy whereby minister and people agreed to let the clergy person do the work and the people pay the bills.

The model of a team of people with particular responsibilities in ministry support was becoming very clear to me and I was actively seeking an opportunity to try it out.

Fitting this strategy into the Methodist "system" was nevertheless going to be a major challenge for all concerned.

I was completely open about what might follow from the year of Supply in Bay of Islands. But stipendiary parish ministry would not be a high priority for me.

# 12

Bay of Islands

"Good idea, but it won't work here"

(Some Members of Bay of Islands Parish)

In the course of visits to the several students in Northland I had visited Paihia and became aware of the parish's particular features: ecumenical tradition, strong lay leadership and half a dozen worship leaders managing three services a Sunday at the same time.

During the summer of 1989-1990 Bev and I moved up to the parish for a few weeks and took our holidays there. At the same time I continued College paper work, visited all my students and gave the Bay worship leaders some assistance with Sunday services.

In late 1990 I was offered an invitation from the Development Division to undertake part-time supply in Bay of Islands Co-operating Parish. Although I had no other prospects of what I understood to be meaningful employment, accepting was by no means a last resort. I was enthused about the possibility of trying to set up some kind of lay ministry strategy.

The people themselves didn't have a clear idea of what they wanted and the Development Division was somewhat ambivalent about my expectations so I was informed that a "face to face" had to take place. That was not at all to my taste, but, well, I thought, you can't win 'em all.

This experience did nothing to persuade me of the value of such meetings but we eventually agreed on a match, probably for entirely different reasons. A day or so after agreement was reached, some members from Moerewa threatened to resign if I were appointed. Apparently the previous summer I had suggested that the "three kings" of the Epiphany story were possibly not kings at all. Anyway, the Parish Council met again, stood behind their decision and the people resigned. I received the most beautiful letter from three members of the Parish Council expressing their support for my appointment. Of such saints are small churches made.

The financial arrangement was that the parish would pay me 75% of stipend. The Methodist Development Division would find me three months' stipended work somewhere else. The Methodist and Presbyterian Churches would subsidise the parish, between them, a quarter of a year's stipend in grants-in-aid. In effect, the parish was to pay 50%, a concession to those who wanted a half-time minister.

* * *

In January of 1991, Bev and I came up to Paihia with our personal effects, a computer, about half of my books and some video production equipment. The parish had been receiving ministry from overseas ministers so the house was as completely equipped as we could have wished. Every borrowed item was marked with the name of the household that had loaned it and we got into the habit of referring to the items by their labels. So we made toast in Joan, we boiled water in Mary and made our tea in Jennifer and at night we went to sleep with the Jacksons.

On a warm summer's evening I was inducted among a large and enthusiastic attendance at Moerewa. I expect there were mixed feelings on all sides. The future was not at all clear to either me or the people. But we would make it work.

* * *

Sadly, neither of the two "parent partners" came up with the full amount of their promised grants. Probably someone forgot to tell the Presbyterians of the deal made on their behalf and their share never transpired. The Methodists managed less than they'd promised. Worse, they soon found they had to meet quite a lot extra expense that had not been covered by the agreement. So the parish was well in over its head. The promised three months' work for me elsewhere came to nothing so Bev and I were also in a difficult position.

I had been nominated as District Superintendent in Northland with a mandate to do some consultancy work in other parishes but by Conference time my nomination was not supported by the rather conservative district. One minister alleged that I hadn't attended to official correspondence when I was Fieldworker (I later asked him to what he was referring and he admitted that the item was a circular complaint that he sent to 119 addressees!). Not having the status of District Superintendent, I was rarely asked to provide any consultancy ministry in Northland parishes. Another Methodist project, setting up a small work group on Ministry in Small Churches also quietly expired. Within a year, the Parish and I were pretty much on our own.

* * *

There were three worship centres. Moerewa church was the former Presbyterian centre that had been optimistically established in the 1950s when the town was a growing centre. Paihia was the desirable, developing edge of the parish but some of the church growth there was at the expense of Moerewa due to our own members moving their homes across the hill to the more popular region. Russell was reasonably well established but because of distance over the water was not able to make a major contribution to parish life.

Each of the three centres had a weekly service so the parish had to find at least two people to lead worship every Sunday. It was a demanding schedule. The cadre of half a dozen very competent people who were prepared to take services was fairly busy.

Everywhere, people were used to fairly traditional worship. However, there was a supplementary song book and its rather conservative style was gradually changed with the introduction of material from the growing resource within this country. And the membership contained a fair sprinkling of people who had hopes for a more adventurous style of church life with reduced dependence on stipendiary ministry. All in all, this parish had more prospects for a move to a lay team strategy than many in the rest of the country.

* * *

The previous summer I had helped set up a network of personal caring and this was still in place and working very well. My pastoral role for the first weeks was to spend in-depth time with each of the parish members to try to discern their relationship to the parish, their understanding of their membership and their hopes for the parish's future.

I had plenty of opportunities of talking about the lay team strategy that I hoped to introduce. I was listened to with reactions between politeness and enthusiasm. Not often was I told bluntly that such a strategy wasn't what people wanted, or "Well, of course, it sounds like a good idea but it wouldn't work around here".

* * *

It was clear that finance was going to be a major problem. The parish was in deep overdraft and sinking rapidly now there was a regular stipend each month. The financial reporting at the time was inadequate and this affected us very personally in the second year. We were suddenly informed that our stipend had been overpaid for some months and we had to refund $700.

The financial problems were really birthed when the parish was re-constituted in 1982 after the Anglicans had been pulled out by their bishop. The remaining Presbyterian- Methodist component was not financially viable.

Furthermore, in 1987, at the height of the commercial property boom, the parish had been encouraged to see the advantage of disposing of its small church site in the middle of the business centre of town for around $400,000 or more. They could buy a cheaper section out of the CBD and have money left over for a new church. They found the Kings Road property and borrowed the entire $230,000 purchase price at 13% interest from the Methodist Trust Association and signed an agreement. In late 1987. But they hadn't actually sold the town property. A few weeks later, the Stock Market crashed and property values plummetted. The section would not sell for years and the total loss to the Methodist Church would be around a quarter of a million dollars.

When I came in 1991 this "debt" was hanging heavily in the air. There was no realistic prospect of a new church. Lively cake stalls, jumble sales and a regular op shop had produced several thousand dollars. Methodist parishes around the country contributed about $11,000 from a national handout made by the PAC Endowment, bringing the total to about $30,000. But, even with a promised dollar-for-dollar subsidy from the ASB Community Trust for a "community facility" this would not build anything like the plans that had been drawn up. And there was a small but staunch group of members who were absolutely opposed to going into any debt for a new building.

So there was a kind of stalemate. I was reminded of the story told in a parish manual some years ago:

There was a congregation which was talking of building a new church. Many were keen to proceed but some felt the old building was good enough. They were able, however, to agree on a three-point resolution that pleased everyone:

> 1—They would build a new church;

> 2—The design would incorporate all possible materials from the old church;

> 3—The old church would continue to be used until the new church was ready.

Bev and I soon settled into the temporary lifestyle. She found some work in Seahorse Souvenirs and would later go on to manage the shop during the owners' winter sailing cruises. I commenced serious publishing work with Christine marketing ColCom books from the home at Red Beach. One time-consuming project was More than Body, Brain and Breath, written by a former student. She sold several hundred books and the volume was subsequently published commercially in England. I wrote half a dozen books myself but most work was done for other people who had failed to find commercial publishers. In the Paihia years I would publish around 110 titles and eventually produce a DIY franchise by which nearly 300 people in a dozen countries could use my special short-run binding system. All these activities never produced a huge income. But the business partnership funded all our work expenses. And when the partnership made a loss, our personal tax returns provided refunds from tax paid on our modest personal income.

* * *

In my first year the Parish Council organised three educational seminars. One clarified the concept of membership and rebuilt the grossly neglected electoral roll; Thirteen people joined but a larger number of inactive and almost unknown people relinquished their active membership so the nett result was negative. But, for the first time, the parish had a realistic estimate of its membership strength. Rev John Langley had been a short-term visitor earlier, and enjoyed the confidence of most of the people. Parish Council agreed to engage him for a fairly low-key stewardship education programme which resulted in a 50% increase in commitments. The average giving for the whole membership was just short of $20 a week, more than twice the average in the rest of the country. Even this large increase would not be enough to pay for full-time ministry, so the issue of future strategy was still on the table.

* * *

We were to turn to ministry strategy next. But our plans were overtaken by a change in thinking about the grandiose new church plans. People began to realise that if we had $30,000 and the promise of a similar amount we could perhaps explore what could be built for that. From a basic sketch and costing, we moved quickly to criteria for a new building.

> *—The multi-purpose building would be large enough to meet the Paihia congregation's present and foreseeable needs;

> *—It would erected in such a style that it would be able to be recycled should it become redundant in the future;

> *—It would be completed without incurring further debt.

If the criteria appeared to have a degree of acceptance, it was not quite so easy to obtain consensus about the details. A Building Committee of about eight people was by no means of a common mind. There was a verbal stoush with voices raised at least once in every one of the twelve or so fortnightly meetings over the next six months. One or two people were particularly inclined to over-react to provocative remarks by others and it would have to be said that more than one person could deliver great provocation. It was as though there was an unwritten agenda that, one way or another, nothing significant should be achieved by the group. Seven people resigned in protest at various stages during the series of meetings which eventually involved fifteen people in all. Ann Pearson did a brilliant job as chair of these stroppy meetings and with the aid of detailed minutes hand-distributed to everyone by me the morning after—together with a fair bit of pastoring of the wounded spirits from each meeting's lively discussions—the project was brought to a successful conclusion. The ASB Trust came up with the promised subsidy and we registered the parish for GST and collected the GST refunds and proceeded to spend them as well. And then we spent the refunds on the refunds. The debt-free opening was just about six months from the decision to go ahead.

On one of the opening celebrations we counted 160 people inside the building but it is also very comfortable for just a dozen or so for midwinter worship. It is a much-appreciated venue for all kinds of events in church and community.

* * *

Now the ministry strategy study resumed, and for a few months after the Paihia church was completed there were special Sunday services and large seminars and small study groups all round the parish. Although the Connexion had no regulations to meet the situation, District Superintendent Jock Hosking encouraged us to proceed. In November 1992 the first Local Shared Ministry support team for Presbyterian or Methodist churches in the country was put in place.

It was a stimulating beginning and as my stipendiary time in the parish was progressively reducing from 50% to very much less, the team picked up more and more responsibility and developed in confidence and competence.

* * *

Now in our second year, Bev and I were bringing up more of our personal household goods. But the house was by no means an imaginative and practicable design. A terrible wood stove either smoked or cooked us. The carpet was turning to dust all along the extensive ranch slider windows. The study was more like a cupboard and had a very tiny desk. I tackled the leaking roof, the basement damp, the bedroom flooding and piped in a dehumidifier. These all reduced the damp and the smell in humid weather but didn't do much to reduce the huge backlog of neglected general maintenance nor to improve the basic design. For instance, the garden tools and lawnmower were kept in the main hall linking the bedrooms to the laundry.

* * *

At this time, to assist our personal cashflow, I took some initiative in seeking short term assignments in Australia. We were usually given an honorarium about equivalent to a stipend and put this through the partnership account which met a lot of expenses. We had some great trips, almost all of them through Sydney where there were two advantages. We got to spend some time with the two grandgirls who were arriving, making ourselves useful and enjoying the grandparent role. We were also loaned one of Paul's cars for our various assignments, usually down in Victoria.

I first "supplied" for David U'ren, the Ministry officer for Mallee Presbytery in northwest Victoria during his long leave. There were some twenty Mallee parishes where the Local Shared Ministry strategy seemed to be relevant for their small scattered parishes. We had about ten incredible weeks there, living in their little church retreat centre at Koraleigh just over the border in New South Wales.

We established a pattern of consultancy that would be repeated in other similar visits over the next three years. We visited each parish in the presbytery, usually starting out in early or mid-afternoon on a drive that might be up to 90 minutes or more. In late afternoon we would meet with the incumbent ministers. Then the parish elders or perhaps parish councillors would meet us over a potluck dinner. At 7.30pm or so there would be a meeting for all comers. Here I would do a 40 minute presentation on the LSM model and take questions. The interest was always very high. These rural parishes were under enormous pressures and had already tried mergers and reorganizations and knew that a more creative strategy was needed. Once or twice it was 11pm before we set out for home.

We also participated in a conference on Small and Neighbourhood Churches at Narrawong. I produced a half-hour video with study guide and discussion questions. While there we met Ministry Officer Lloyd Vidler and I later received an invitation to supply during his long leave the following year.

This second visit was particularly stimulating because as well as doing the parish consultations as before, the work included a very interesting half-time supply position at Allansford Parish. Being shown the former Presbyterian church at Wangoom, I noted five chairs behind the communion table and asked people if they were ever used. It took them a moment or two to recall that these chairs were for the elders who presided over communion before union.

I knew the fledgling Uniting Church in Australia had gone out of its way to introduce distinctively uniting liturgies rather than perpetuate former denominational preferences. This congregation had been solidly Presbyterian for five generations and after seventeen years was now committed to union. But it seemed significant that the elders' chairs had remained. So I tentatively suggested that perhaps we might have a "Presbyterian style" communion.

Some of the former Presbyterians on the Elders' Council presided over the celebration and we carried out as faithful an observance as we could manage. As the congregation came out of the church many were greatly moved. Not a few wept as they shook my hand and tried to find words to express their appreciation. No church must ever neglect its roots.

In another church in the same parish there were many shut-ins attached to the congregation and I enquired as to their access to the communion. I got out their own church's new worship manual and we agreed to use the service for "Communion Beyond the Congregation". After everyone had been served at the rail the elements from the table, the appointed elders came forward and received bread and wine. We had brief prayer for the people to whom they would go and then the elders went straight out of the church to the homes.

When I returned to New Zealand our Northland Union District Council tried for several years to get the Methodist Church to adopt this particular ministry. It was nearly a decade before the Faith and Order Committee came up with pretty much the same service. It should be used much more widely than it is. It should also make specific provision for the authorisation and despatch of the bearers at the table in the church. The wider distribution should not be a hidden or even secret affair. Perhaps that will come in another decade.

* * *

While on this second assignment, we attended a Rural Ministry Conference at the excellent UCA facility in the Grampian Mountains. Here we met the Ministry Officer for Nepean Presbytery and later he later approached us to do an intentional transitional ministry in the Brighleigh Parish, Melbourne, for six months.

We didn't want to be away from New Zealand for that long. The principle of my going away and leaving our embryo team to manage without me for two or three months at a time was an excellent one and they were growing in confidence with every trip I made away. But perhaps six months was a bit long for them. I certainly felt it was too long for Brighleigh – it would be too easy for them to feel that they now had a minister after all. Eventually we agreed on two months in Brighleigh, two months back in Paihia and two further months back in Melbourne.

The parish had two centres, barely a kilometre apart, both former Methodist Churches, the brand new Presbyterian one having been sold off because it was on the wrong side of the multi-laned and very fast Nepean Highway. Both the remaining congregations had Sunday attendances of about 35-40 and neither was open to the possibility of being closed. My job—they thought—was to tell them which one would get the pink slip.

It was a fascinating time. In the first two months I gave priority to meetings for conversation in people's homes. What came through was their deep commitment to their own congregations. In these meetings I made personal contact with all of the members in the two-month visit. I had previously asked for passport-style photos of each person and that was a great help in pastoral relationships.

We took the photos home and left the leaders with a twelve page questionnaire for every member. By the time Bev and I returned after a further two months, the Elders Council had collected and tallied 90 returns from barely over 100 members. This was a phenomenal rate of return for a long and complex questionnaire. I'd done my homework, too, and the first Sunday morning I was back I was able to greet all 96 attenders by name.

So the second two months flew along with everyone motivated to work at finding solutions rather than just discussing the problems. A final series of decisions encouraged each church to identify its own particular strengths of property, people and so on and build on them. It was an excellent outcome as these kinds of events go.

* * *

During this assignment we had a visit from my parents. Mum had just had both her knees replaced at 80 and was obviously not well. Within a few months she suffered major inflammation of all the vital organs. Even although the problems were controlled with good hospital care she was determined not to spend the rest of her life in care and slipped away. Dad wasn't too handy in the kitchen and had quite a struggle on his own. But he initiated positive steps for his future and lived to see his hundredth birthday. He made a real milestone of it by breaking his femur the day before; we had his centenary while he was in surgery. He died at 101 in 2010. A great life.

* * *

A year later, I had a very interesting assignment for about a month at the UCA's Centre for Ministry in Parramatta. I worked with the four constituent bodies of the Centre to prepare a single piece of publicity material that would demonstrate their relationship. This was a ticklish affair as the concept of a single centre which included the Theological College for the Synod's ministers together with the Aboriginal and Islanders' Congress, Continuing Education for Ministers and Lay Education was a novel one. The Director, John Pender, had an almost impossible task in trying to pull the structure into a single organisation with some sense of common purpose. Although the promotional material I worked on was laboriously vetted time and time again by everyone with an interest in the drafting process, the project largely failed to deliver what was hoped for. When the posters were printed some time after I left the country someone observed that the Aboriginal section was in a lower position on the leaflet than two other parts: "the black man is on the bottom again." This was undebatable and the whole printing was pulped. I continue to feel some guilt about this expensive loss as I was pretty well sensitised to minority issues and thought that we had come up with an outstanding visual concept using the Aboriginal and Islander Congress's own symbol for the basic design.

* * *

Another interesting assignment for the UCA was producing a book and video on a major conference on Evangelism. Organised by John Mavor, this event was a fascinating blend of various approaches to the subject. It was very satisfying work to have been a part in putting its insights into permanent form.

* * *

One New Zealand assignment saw us at Takapuna while Mary Caygill was overseas on study leave. Pastoral work was very interesting and rewarding—you can't go wrong in short-term or exchange ministries if you get out and around the people a bit. I had never had responsibility for worship in a congregation as large as Takapuna. Although I couldn't see the whites of their eyes, it was evident that there were real people out there somewhere. . The venerable JJ Lewis was in the congregation every Sunday, of course, and he was always most appreciative. One Sunday, I abandoned the planned sermon theme on the strength of a movie Bev and I had seen the night before, and recounted the story of The Rapture. I tied this is briefly to the abandoned theme for the day. JJ greeted me at the door with, "You're at the height of your powers", a quaint old expression that moved me profoundly.

Wesley Wellington, during a short vacancy, was a different experience with a new set of challenges. In the first place, Bev had to return to Auckland to see Christine through a health crisis so we were separated for the longest time in our marriage. The "10am" congregation was only three or four dozen somewhat scattered around the very large church. There were three other ethnic congregations and the cross-cultural communion service on the first Sunday of the month was an exciting if not quite familiar experience.

I really enjoyed the experience. On fine days it was good to walk down from Brooklyn to the church and I did this frequently. When Bev was with me we explored around the Wellington that we had never really got to know when we were working there in the 1950s. We had a little time for her family and other friends in the region. And we participated in congregational events such as an evening picnic at Day's Bay to farewell the autumn equinoxial sun.

* * *

While at Wesley I had a complaint of inappropriate behaviour brought against me. I'd told a toddler his braces were "sexy" and kissed him when I was leaving after a pastoral visit. The person who interviewed me made the accusation: "These are very serious charges, David". He offered absolutely no steps for the matter to be dealt with although a proper procedure was already published by the church at that time. In fact, he was supposed to be facilitating it. He simply declared me guilty. Then, as if he hadn't already outstripped the bounds of his authority enough already, he offered to forget the whole thing if I would apologise. The arresting officer became investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury, and offered me a bribe all in the space of a half-hour discussion.

Appalling though this procedure was, I wrote a letter of apology and sent it off with alacrity. But I decided I didn't want to continue offering pastoral care to people in the name of a church which had become so precious. It was an easy decision, a few weeks later, to retire early.

I once heard one of our leaders say that Methodism is a denomination that is always looking for a "cause". I think it's true. In my lifetime one big social justice issue after another has reared its head and a small section of the church has gone on the warpath. We have castigated governments, communities and institutions and even our own members for their shortcomings. Our stance on many of the more public issues has done a lot of damage to the church: the Demon Drink, Pacifism, the Vietnam war, the Springbok Tour, Nuclear Free Pacific, Bicultural Journey, Harassment... none of them was a cause that shouldn't have been taken up by the church. But each has cost the church members at the grass roots, presumably because people felt their dissenting point of view was not being taken into consideration by those who were making the prophetic statements.

There is a fundamental contradiction in the minister who seeks to be a prophetic voice in the context of the congregation but also acts as a pastor to the people of that congregation. The role of the clergy may be, as used to be said of newspaper reporters, "to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted" but the reality is that these two roles, when exercised by parish clergy in the most vigorous manner are not completely compatible in the same institutional person.

A postscript to my twelve years with Family Budgeting was written when, with the encouragement of the Director of Social Welfare I published A Small Qango. It seemed important to me that the innovative work of the Home Budgeting Advisory Committee and the unbelievable eventual outcomes of its imagination and dedication should be permanently recorded. I took considerable care with the detail, being aware that this would be the only popular account of the achievements of this quite remarkable committee. It is one of my most satisfying pieces of writing and publishing. One former Director-General, Ron McInteer, wrote "Congratulations on the completion of an excellent record of the HBAC. I could not put it down until I had finished it."

Another former Director-General had been present in a lesser capacity at the first meeting Alan Mayall and I had called in Wellington in 1973. He wrote,

>... the story relates well, is easy to read, and gets the message across that sometimes committees can be effective. Its value to me was in showing that a Govt Dept can work with the volunteer effort. Need I say I am proud to have been associated with the Committee.

> Na noe ,

> John Grant

* * *

The failure of the financial arrangements made for my original appointment to the Bay of Islands impacted on Bev and me as much as on the parish. But throughout the four years of part-time stipend the alternative of resuming full-time stipendiary ministry in a conventional parish never entered my head as a real option. If I really believed that stipendiary ministry was part of a kind of conspiracy whereby parishioners covenanted with clergy to have them do the work of mission and ministry as long as the people paid a stipend, then re-entering such a style of ministry would be wrong.

From 1990 my 50% of paid ministry time in the Bay of Islands shrank, annually, to 33% and 20% until, in the fourth year I was receiving 10% of stipend. But that 10% was after tax and to keep my church superannuation alive I had to contribute 10% before tax. In effect, I was paying for the privilege of working five hours a week for the parish. It was a silly arrangement and after some discussions with the General Secretary I superannuated in May 1996.

The government having moved the goalposts for retirement benefits, it would be four years before we qualified for NZ Superannuation. However, the government was by then offering a transitional retirement benefit for people who, like myself, had been expecting to receive NZS at age 60 but were now having to wait longer. Bev could take up full-time work during the transitional period. And with some extra effort in publishing, video production and consultancy on my part, we figured we could manage. We would remain in the Bay of Islands.

* * *

We now had a housing problem. In 1996 the Parish Council formally adopted the strategy of Local Shared Ministry as a permanent policy. It then resolved, not quite unanimously, to burn its bridges and sell the church house. It was not an opportunity that we had considered in our housing search. We were not particularly enamoured of the house but we did at least know its good and poor points. We knew of the list of about $17,000 worth of deferred maintenance work. And we all realised the difficulty of arranging an "inside" sale to the ministerial occupant.

When we expressed some interest in purchasing it, the Committee suggested that we each put down a price. If the two figures were not within a very close range the property would be put to auction. Serendipitously, we both put exactly the same figure and the sale was quickly and cheerfully negotiated. We would not have to move. The parish had an investment with the Methodist Trust Association and it returned better than 30% interest over the next two years.

Now we set about some serious work on the house. We tore out the wretched Little Dorrit stove and opened up the main living area, re-carpeted the lounge and hung new drapes all round. We gave the kitchen a make over. We erected a large carport and enclosed one end of the old one to provide storage and workshop space. We created a third bedroom and an extra bathroom in the basement.

All this work was done within the rather distinctive character of the 1980s style. We are still reasonably pleased with it. However, in spite of a lot of ingenious efforts, we failed to make a corner of basement totally damp-proof. One wall had not been properly sealed on the outside before being back-filled.

The four years of my paid ministry in the Bay concluded with a very formal severing of the pastoral tie in a church service one Sunday morning. For two full years after that I took absolutely no part in parish life beyond taking the occasional service and playing the organ. In particular, I declined to be involved in the complex discussions concerning the establishment of the Centre for Re-Creation. The whole project was managed from conception to opening without my involvement.

* * *

The new complex was a fitting way to re-cycle the financial resources that had been tied up in the parsonage and it was another major piece of construction carried through without incurring any further debt. It was very gratifying to sit off to one side and observe this demonstration of the competence and initiative of the members. It was confirmation that ministry belongs to the people and if they get a chance to engage in it without some stipended person calling the shots they can do it.

# 13

# Retirement

"I feel out of the loop"

(Not me!)

My last official act as an appointed presbyter in the Methodist Church was to respond to the greetings of the Conference on my retirement from active work.

It was something I could easily have avoided. I was aware that a couple of my colleagues had retired in the previous year or two and had taken the opportunity of their retirement speeches to put the church right on a few matters. At some length, I was told. That was not at all to my taste. I might feel some resentment about having been at a distance from the church for a few years, but I would not want to take this opportunity to appear to be trying to get my own back. So Bev and I resolved to offer a simple Thank You and then read a short scripted humorous dialogue on "Parsonages we were blessed with". As our first ever comic act it was a huge success.

* * *

My schoolboy interest in cinema and movie-making was somewhat related to a vague interest in drama. But throughout most of my active ministry, I had no great passion to continue with these acting ventures. Sometimes I was aware that my preaching was overly dramatic and I was uncomfortable, as if I had crossed some kind of line. But, in worship, neither the reading of scripture nor preaching should appear to be "acted" or some of their integrity is threatened. It was a fine line and throughout the years of active ministry I had tried to stay on one side of it.

In the 1980s I crossed it. In one of the Years of Matthew during my time as Fieldworker in Ministry, Keith Rowe was not able to do the usual biblical introduction for a Home-Setting weekend for my students. I boned up on the "narrative" interpretation of that gospel and wrote a short first-person background from what is known of that writer together with a modest amount of imaginative background. This was very well received by my students. I had so entered into the role that I found it quite difficult to de-role myself to continue with the studies that followed.

* * *

Nine years later another Year of Matthew rolled around and our congregation was looking for a special theme for a combined service in Paihia. I dusted off the Matthew manuscript, expanded it and put together a bit of a costume and presented it as a visiting lecture by the author himself from the first century. The response was very positive so I tentatively offered it to other churches and Matthew the Gospel Writer eventually ran to nearly 60 performances in four countries.

The compliment that touched me most deeply came to me in the chapel of Methodist University at Denver, Colorado. The Chaplain organised a stunningly intimate setting in which I delivered the talk during a meal with the audience seated at a continuous table in a hollow square. We concluded with a simple Communion liturgy. The chaplain wrote afterwards was, "What I really appreciated was the academic integrity of the presentation."

* * *

In the first part of 1999 we had a lot of significant family moments: all four grandchildren stayed at our place for a few days in January, there was a party for my Dad at 90 and we returned to Lower Hutt for a funeral for Bev's Mum. We also planned our 40th wedding anniversary in a series of candle-lighting celebrations in Sydney, Dunedin, Petone, and Red Beach. About this time we enrolled in the international peace and hospitality organisation Servas. For several years we offered free hospitality and occasionally we were hosted on our own travels. Later, indifferent health and overwhelming numbers of enquiries because we were the only host in the Bay meant that we had to withdraw from the active host list.

* * *

Soon after retiring, I was approached about some involvement with the international rural ministry conference that was to be held in 2000. I was a little doubtful that many people in this country would come—at that time NZ domestic flights were notoriously more expensive than trans-Tasman ones. However, I had connections with the movement and knew some of the international figures. I had been invited to the first truly international rural church consultation in the UK but being declined any financial support from NZ Methodism I forgot about it.

By the time I became involved, the Northland project was being shepherded along by a small Anglican group that welcomed the more ecumenical committee that we were able to set up. I convened the work of a strong and enthusiastic team. But three years' effort resulted in attendance of only about 40 – almost all from overseas. In just two weeks the whole shape of Country Conversations had to be drastically re-shaped and the budget revised to fit the modest numbers. But Northland people rose to the occasion quite magnificently and the re-jigged programme was very highly commended in feedback. In the weeks afterwards I edited and published the book which had quite wide circulation.

An outcome was an invitation for me to do a couple of seminars on local shared ministry in "rock rural" Ontario. Here, for the first time, Bev and I offered a joint presentation. The seminars were well attended by people in the two remote centres and there was a great deal of interest.

A year or two later we were invited to the English-speaking Synod of the United Reformed Church in Wales. We had a very stimulating session with all the clergy at a residential retreat. We provided the largest stall of more than thirty at their one-day "Takeaway" event at the Royal Agricultural Centre at Builth Wells. A thousand church members from all over Wales attended for the day and there were stalls, promotions, demonstrations and all kinds of presentations. This was a magnificent event that obviously has caught the imagination of the thousand or more who make the effort to attend each couple of years. I had about forty in-depth conversations on ministry strategy and we gave away over a hundred information packs to serious enquirers.

* * *

We also had several overseas visitors enquiring about the LSM programme in our parish. Dr Julia Wallace, who headed up the Small Church and Alternate Ministries department for the United Methodist Church in the USA came to Paihia and stayed with us for over a week. She listened to many people in the parish and was very impressed with what they had to say. Her visit prompted the six-week writing and publication of The Cavalry Won't be Coming and she took the first twenty copies home with her. This comprehensive introduction to Local Shared Ministry later ran to hundreds of copies.

Rev Eifion Roberts from Wales used a precious two-week study leave to come to Paihia. His parish work at that time involved oversight of about sixteen parishes with only a couple of clergy. Sharon Schwab is an American Methodist District Superintendent of 110 smallish rural churches where ministry costs were forcing them to revert to the old-style "patrol padre" model. Perhaps LSM would be a better strategy. Other international visitors have spent shorter periods with us to look at the model in practice. I could assemble quite a large mailing list of people throughout the world who have expressed interest in the LSM story encountered through my books and videos and personal conversations. It would be good to travel again and visit some of them in their home settings.

* * *

When the neighbours below us erected a large garage their excavation caused a major collapse of a retaining wall on our property. Then followed a couple of years of argument with the District Council about the approval for the cut. Eventually the Council and the Earthquake Commission met the full cost of reinstatement.

* * *

I had been an active contributor to the Paihia Residents' and Ratepayers' Association from almost as soon as I arrived in Paihia, having been persuaded, as a disinterested party, to chair a large and rowdy public meeting to set up a steering committee. In 1998, along with fifteen other outraged ratepayer groups throughout the Far North, we secured the election of a Mayor and Council who were actually disposed to listen to their electors. But the voice of Paihia was still heard by Council as being very divided. In 2003 I was persuaded to convene a new Paihia Planning Group. This ambitious body drew together all the parties who had an interest in Paihia planning matters from Councillors to the Fire Service. For three or so years, it worked very hard and the group reached a degree of consensus on over thirty planning issues.

However, it became increasingly apparent that not many of the Group's proposals to Council were receiving a very positive response. When plans for a fifteen-storey tower block on the waterfront were actually given the go-ahead by the Council's hearing committee without the Planning Group being invited to comment on it or attend any hearing it was the last straw. The group went into recess but authorised me to publish a booklet outlining the three years' work and listing the specific matters on which we had reached some degree of consensus. But for good political reasons, the booklets were not distributed until after the election with the result that even our final volley was effectively muffled.

Meanwhile, Bev had joined the Residents' and Ratepayers' Committee and they took the matter to the Environment Court. Endless expense was incurred over witnesses and their technical expertise. We sat through six working days of the court case in August 2006 and we heard that we had won in December. It wasn't until late 2007 that their claim for costs was allowed and handed over. The association's costs of around $90,000 were all covered, but not before quite a bit of strenuous fund-raising and a lot of sleepless nights.

A two-week five star tour into Vietnam, China and Malaysia was a rare opportunity for us. It was a very special deal put together for airline staff and their families and gave us some "up close and personal experiences" in those three countries. We had our own 767 aircraft for all the air stages and hardly had to pick up a bag the entire fortnight.

In home waters I got a lot of pleasure from our Delta sailing dinghy. There were many trips up the Te Haumi river and short sailing expeditions in and across the inner part of the Bay. Increasing trouble with my knees, not to mention a sudden dunking when the Delta went lee rail under on an accidental gybe, dictated that we let her go.

I took Dad, at 91, to Queensland to visit some of his childhood haunts and to meet distant and largely unknown relatives over there. To our astonishment, fifty-five people turned up to a Sunday afternoon get-together in Brisbane. Even Dad didn't know most of them. He was given a rapturous welcome and his revised life story was bought by many.

* * *

Early in the new millennium we both had influenza vaccinations. I was sick for about three weeks which was bad enough, but Bev immediately experienced widespread pains which were some weeks later tentatively diagnosed as polymyalgia rheumatica. She didn't care for the only treatment that medical science had to offer and she put herself onto a regime of homeopathic remedies that helped a great deal.

In 2002, indications of prostate cancer were picked up in a routine blood test when I had very severe abdominal pains for two or three days. Because of the distance from Auckland, we elected for a prostatectomy rather than radiation therapy. However, in the very week this was to take place I had another major abdominal problem with very severe pains and found myself rushed to hospital in Whangarei on a Sunday. They poked around in at least a couple of "keyholes", removed my perfectly healthy appendix, and then opened me up from breastbone to pubic bone and discovered a highly stressed small intestine. It had got tangled and completely blocked due to a congenital adhesion.

Six weeks later, I returned to the same ward to have the same incision opened up again and my prostate removed. I'd asked for a zip to be put in the first time but they refused. As part of my therapy I produced a raft of slightly smutty limericks on the whole episode and published these later as The Limerectomy.

Another year on, the cancer was active again and for a couple of years we "watched and waited" and then I went onto quarterly Zoladex injections. These kept the cancer under control for only a year so daily Bicalutamide pills were added to the mix. They are still doing the job in 2010 though the side effects are very stressful.

* * *

There was, of course, a problem with retiring in the parish in which I had been the minister. But after the first couple of years in which I resolutely refrained from any involvement other than worship, I became a little more relaxed. I continued to take monthly services. Not being on the payroll, I felt more freedom to say what I felt led to say without censoring every assertion. Two or three new people joined the worship team and offered an interesting variety of style and content.

One memorable service of mine was after Easter when the theme was the breakfast on the side of the lake. One of our people was going fishing on the Saturday and kept me a huge snapper which Bev and I secretly baked with a lot of herbs in the church kitchen on Sunday morning. As the sermon reached the point where Jesus called the disciples to breakfast, Bev came in with this steaming dish and chunks of hot buttered bread. The aroma instantly engulfed everyone and although there were only a dozen of us present that day we demolished the entire fish as we meditated on the significance of revelation in eating together.

An Easter Sunday membership service featured Helen Brew's Baptism and was a dramatic occasion. The seating was set out in cruciform shape and the candidates were drawn from the foot of the cross facing the "darkness of the west" through the waters of baptism to the head of the cross and incorporation into Christ and the Christian community. We have an excellent short video to explain and present the concept. Helen and Terry were also booked to be married in church at normal service time on Sunday morning in January. It wasn't until I came to prepare the worship that I discovered that the Gospel for that day was the wedding at Cana. I had a field day with that and it was another unforgettable occasion.

Bev and I often have some difficulty including worship in our itinerary when we are away from Paihia because we have so often been disappointed with the style or seriousness of the theological or liturgical orientation of the worship. We have high expectations after the routine services conducted by our people. I have occasionally been asked to lead worship in other places —especially in the context of promoting the Local Shared Ministry strategy. A notable occasion was a service at Manly Methodist on the first morning of the change from Daylight Saving Time. Yes, my watch was wrong and I arrived an hour early. So I adjourned to a local coffee lounge where I accidentally locked myself out of my car. All the family were on holiday in the vicinity and came racing to my rescue.

* * *

I think of all the offices I have held in the local church I enjoyed most the three or so years in which I was Chairperson of the Parish Council. There had been a crisis with the previous chair who resigned very suddenly and nobody was inclined to take on the position. I was invited to step into the breach and indicated I would be prepared to be chair of Parish Council facilitate its meetings as long as team members were prepared to "front" for the parish.

I enjoyed helping to prepare detailed agendas with suggested resolutions. I felt there was little at stake for me in the issues and that I was able to be a quite impartial chair for the business. I think that most would say we had good meetings during those years.

* * *

One project I took up at that time was a multiple-choice questionnaire designed to help people describe how they felt about their role on a committee or council. It had about five scales that attempted to distinguish people's perceptions of the purpose of the meeting from "to meet purely individual needs" through "to maintain the community" and to "to make efficient decisions." Some practical testing with this instrument confirmed that members of any meeting bring widely differing attitudes concerning its purpose.

My hypothesis was that if a meeting is set up mainly for making decisions then those who attend it would need to understand that its primary purpose was not about giving priority to any personal needs that they might happen to bring along. Conversely, a meeting for prayer and fellowship might not be the place for conducting debate and making precise decisions about the life of the parish. I have seen many meetings frustrated by the appointment of as few as just one or two people who actually came to the task with a different understanding of the way the meeting was constituted, its reason for being and how it should function. The instrument I worked on would have provided a profile of, say, a parish council. Intending members could check out their own expectations against the perspectives of the group in deciding whether or not to become involved.

I think the instrument had considerable possibilities; perhaps someone will take it up one day and do some serious research with it. It could have been really helpful in 2008 when one new person called onto the ministry team found that her understanding of the team was somehow different from that of the other members. She said she felt isolated and "out of the loop" and was frustrated that the others could not understand her problem. The difficulty resulted in some hurtful exchanges which persisted for some months and drew in far more people than those originally involved. It was quite challenging for the parish and its membership.

* * *

I was invited to join the team at one calling but declined to accept. There was no ministry enabler at that time and it seemed inappropriate to me that I should be on the Team as a team member but also be used as a de facto enabler. Later, when an experienced enabler had been appointed, I accepted the next calling for Business Administrator.

It was a fascinating and enjoyable experience to be one of the members engaged in the model of ministry which I had promoted for more than a decade. I enjoyed playing a parallel role to the others in ways that were relatively undemanding and yet provided creative outcomes for the parish's mission and ministry. I particularly enjoyed the chance to work with Bev in a collegial relationship as she continued heading up the parish's outreach and community service.

* * *

A policy decision, arrived at with much patience over a year's discussions, declared that all surpluses in the parish account should be split 50-50 between reasonable reserves and free gifts to needy causes. More significantly, we invited people who made a definite commitment to regular giving to designate up to forty percent of their intended giving to any of six or eight projects nominated by the parish. The result of these two decisions was that by about 2000 more than half the offerings income was being devoted to causes outside the parish.

The Centre for Re-Creation was also a most significant piece of outreach. The two cottages provided free holiday accommodation for people who were sponsored by a caring organisation. In addition, many church people gladly paid to stay in our units, knowing that their fees were subsidising the Time Out ministry. We also participated memorably in the Candlelight Vigil for Iraq. With some persuasive email and telephone work around the town churches and other contacts in just one busy day, we mustered nearly sixty people for an evening vigil at the Stone Church.

* * *

During our personal health crises we still managed two or three good trips away, mainly to Australia but also to Canada and the United Kingdom. These trips were related to family research for books on my Dad's life and on his distant cousin, John Roulston or my maternal grandfather TW Attwood. Four or five very satisfying book projects were brought to publication over four or five years.

But there was plenty of time for relaxation. In 2005, half a dozen of our church members became seventy and we threw a joint party on Darryl's Dinner Cruise. The trip was up the Waitangi estuary, of course, and began with the safety announcement:

> If by any chance you should fall overboard, please stand up and walk around to the stern of the boat and we will help you back on board...

* * *

We were loosely involved with the rather informal Paihia Players and at one point I wrote a modest one-act comedy. This was offered in two produced public readings in September 2007 and was very well received. It inspired me to tackle writing a murder mystery specially for the 2007 national meeting of the Uniting Congregations. It was a massive amount of work but provided a hugely entertaining evening for the final night of the conference. It's been used by twenty groups of 30 to 100 around the country in the three years since. Another plot, based on shenanigans in a seaside town that looks suspiciously like Paihia, was put together in 2010 and has been done three times already. A hastily convened function raised $1500 for earthquake family assistance. This one is also scheduled for 200 people at the Variety Club Bash in Northland in 2011.

* * *

As part of my voluntary involvement in video work I had attended the Upper Hutt meeting of the Co-operating Ventures in 1991. The gathering put in place a new and flexible organisation to link the CVs and their former "parents". Five years later I was elected to the Standing Committee of the new organisation. There were three to four meetings a year, usually for two or three days at a time. It wasn't an exhausting chore and I was able to bring a good deal of experience in church institutions.

During the latter part of my term we began to take steps to draw the CVs together more firmly and I contributed the suggestion of the name that now identifies them. I also argued strongly for an elected President person to be the "front person" for the movement rather than the salaried Executive Officer. It was a bold strategy as the movement had now made two significant decisions about its corporate life without first seeking the approval of the five partners.

I finished out my permissible three terms on the committee and unexpectedly found myself approached to accept nomination for a further two years as chairperson. This was something of a surprise as I was now about to be 70 and made no secret of the fact that my prostatectomy had not been completely successful and I would be going onto therapy with fairly severe side effects. However, I was passionate about the movement and allowed my name to go forward and at the Dunedin Forum in 2005 I found myself elected to the chair. It was an exciting two years. I managed to make a number of visits to regions and parishes. I produced a video that invited people to think about "turning around and going against the stream". This screened to large audiences six or eight times and DVDs were passed on to interested parishes.

The main work of chairing Standing Committee meetings went reasonably well. There was a good spirit and mostly harmonious discussions but the whole process was not as productive as I had hoped. This last major chore in my formal ministry was quite a challenge because my understanding of the impartiality of the Chair limited my ability to advocate for change at the very time when I had gained enough experience to be able to suggest some more radical developments.

People with whom I confided my frustration at the limitations of the chair led me to understand that there would be an opportunity for me to lead some dreaming at the 2007 Forum which I—and they —had assumed I would chair. However, the office not only took over the programme, but the Executive Officer fronted the whole event. My role was just to say a few words of introduction at the opening service. It is likely that I will be remembered not for launching the UCANZ on a new journey of discovery and commitment, but for the murder mystery dinner which I devised for the Saturday night entertainment. It has gone on to twenty highly entertaining ventures in various parts of the country.

I think that the UCANZ needs to find a better balance of day-to-day decision-making and representative meetings for policy-making. Standing Committee often seemed to be falling between these two stools and may always have that difficulty. But it was a great privilege to be a part of it for eight years.

* * *

Our Townace was great for touring as we could hang a substantial wardrobe in the back and still have plenty of room for a double bed. But with not so much personal mobility we bought another caravan and that, with a grunty Subaru Forester towing, has made us more mobile for many trips in recent years. Of course, the advent of ridiculously cheap fees for flying and rental cars has also given us more opportunities for economical travel. We've even relocated a couple of rental motor homes from Christchurch to Auckland.

As 2011 dawns, we are both immersed in daily management and supervision of the church's holiday homes. This is the peak season and we have a large number of bookings but the parish is going to have to think deeply about the future of the work. It is not economical for even a half-time employee and these days the congregation doesn't have many people who can put in the voluntary time that three or four of us are doing at present. But it seems that the need for Time Out is still there and as long as there's a trickle of church people who are willing to pay a reasonable fee to stay in our units that will subsidise the main thrust of our mission.

* * *

These days we're also doing active duty on the pedestrian crossing when large cruise ships visit – they just continue walking and on really busy days we used to have cars held up for more a kilometre. We also do "ambassador" shifts on the street, answering questions and pointing visitors to the toilets or a good beer or fish and chips. And we occasionally do a routine night shift in the Community Patrol car.

We enjoy the Whangarei concerts of the Operatunity company and were recently blown away by the first performance of a full ballet in Kerikeri's magnificent performing arts Centre. It was a local performance of absolutely astonishing standard and well deserved the standing ovation.

In 2010 I had unicompartmental knee replacement on the right and in early 2011 the other was done. These have considerably improved my mobility. With the prostate cancer still apparently under the control of two medications, we think that we may be able to do more active living in the coming years.

So there may be some more to write here. But for now, this is more than enough story. It's been a great life. I hope this modest account conveys some of the privilege and satisfaction that it has been.

# 14

# Reflections

"Say something to end on"

Graham Langton, Kindly Editor

As I bring this writing to a second close, our parish has been going through a really bad patch. Some who used to pride themselves on our congregation's ability to accept one another's differences have found the differences have become too great and have left us. It's been a very painful time for many of us. We have gained much acceptance from this adventurous and vigorous little community and this feels like rejection.

I suppose this sad episode is a reminder that nothing is permanent in the life of the church. No matter how we try to hold together the best of the past, we are always being alternately challenged and renewed. Every time we face a change in the road, we are inspired to dare—and yet also scared out of our wits. And for everyone who is either excited or hurt by the prospect of change there is at least one other in the congregation who doesn't notice a problem. In fact, many of us just enjoy the worship and fellowship on Sunday morning and are blissfully unaware of the undercurrents. That's how it is in most congregations.

I guess my connexional life has been much the same. I was greatly stimulated by involvement in the institutional life of the church and I think the record shows I made a significant contribution at some critical points. But the style of innovation which I was encouraged to initiate in the 1960s and 1970s was no longer acceptable by the 1980s. Strong leadership was not at a premium. It was also easy for people simply to dissociate themselves with what they chose not to understand. By the 1990s the Connexion and I seemed to be mutually pleased not to have to deal with each other very much.

But sometimes my heart was troubled by the lack of opportunity to share in active involvement in the cut and thrust of serious change. I had appreciated the privilege of sharing the pastoral responsibility of people who were committed to making the system work instead of quietly letting go its traditions. I had enjoyed initiating change—but never for change's sake or just because of some latest overseas trend.

However, I was by no means always at the forefront of change. In the days when we used to have formal votes I often voted firmly against issues on which I was not completely convinced. I didn't hesitate to raise my voice as part of the minority. I never felt the voting procedure was oppressive or abusive merely because most others didn't agree with me. To me the much-maligned Standing Orders were a means to achieve a consensus. Once a decision was made I usually was able to give it appropriate support even if I had not voted for it.

Hearing erudite speakers at the rostrum never left me feeling resentful or marginalised. When I spoke, I tried to make my contribution count for something, to enlighten the topic or to lighten the mood. I certainly never felt obliged to say something on each and every issue. Indeed, the record shows that I attended conference only in those years when official duties required me to be there. Conference always seemed to be the least effective part of both our decision-making processes and our connexional pastoral expression.

Mostly, however, I suppose I was seen as a radical reformer. Was I not at the heart of an understanding of membership that half the church still doesn't understand? Did I not lead the charge to thrust aside traditional procedures for selecting candidates for the ministry? Have I not advocated a way of conducting meetings that has been condemned as not being "pastoral"? And did I not pour several years of my life into developing the alternate styles of ministry that Conference had asked for in 1976? Ironically, I'd voted against them at the time because I thought the church hadn't done its homework and was being unduly swayed by supposedly imminent prospect of Church Union.

I'm not the least sorry for the reforms in which I was involved, either in voting or in acting. But I am a little anxious about the possibility of being remembered only as a bit of a stirrer. I would like to think that the changes for which I strove were consistent with some very hard and creative work in the day-to-day business of helping the church to be church. And for me, being a radical (whatever that is) is about the true meaning of reform—which is to get back to the fundamentals of what the organisation is all about. That was where my institutional heart was, and is. So, sometimes these days, it is still troubled.

* * *

Editor Graham suggested I write something about myself and my faith to end on. That's been an interesting challenge. The intensely personal faith that pushed me towards the ministry was not for long expressed in the traditional disciplines of the devotional life. I read the Bible from cover to cover before I was 13, but never again. My understanding of intercession is far from traditional and I choose not to use the "language of Canaan" to describe my spiritual experience. But, essentially, deeply, at the core of my being, I have a sense of belongingness and rightness to my living and dying. Centred in the Christian story, that is my faith. That is all I need in life or in death.

However, that sense is not just personal and individual; it is inextricably bound up in my place in the community that meets at my local church every Sunday. It is caught up in the wonder of the Story in scripture and in the history of the church. It is fuelled by the privilege of being able, in some small ways, to re-shape and re-tell and re-enact the Story in new contexts. It is charged with the excitement of sometimes being able to help others discover the essence of faith and how they can be free to live in their own.

Sundays are essential stops along the way for me. All my own ups and down are mirrored in the people I meet on Sunday, as together we ask God—as each of us understands God—to inspire and strengthen us. All my own energies in contributing to our lively mission of hospitality are reflected in them, as together we produce mission outcomes that are out of proportion to our strength and numbers.

I remember my mother saying not long before she died that she didn't hold to anything that she believed when she was sixteen. I know just how she felt. But I don't want my belief system to be based on what I don't believe. Unfortunately, it's so much easier to make a list of what one doesn't believe these days. And it's so much easier for other Christians to judge me by throwing at me all their faith questions which I must either lie about or offer them unacceptable answers. I'm certainly not going to do that now. I'm still "out of sync" on those kinds of questions!

To say something more positive is not easy. I have sought to live my faith rather than explain it, to act it out rather than to dissect it. In less active years, with terminal cancer knocking at the door, I guess I should be able to give a more reflective view. Perhaps that will come. But for the moment, I am content with a faith that both supports me and lays demands upon me, a life that is full of meaning and satisfaction, and a partner whose life and faith have become deeply intertwined with mine in a relationship we treasure.

And every Sunday, there is the comfort and security of friends who, even if they express their faith differently, even when I seem unappreciative of their support, will be there with me and for me, "in and out of sync". We do this for each other because we have aligned themselves with the Christian story and the Christian community.

At the end of the day, we're all human and our human failings and foibles will occasionally trip us up. The story of our congregation, as of my own life, is full of ups and downs. Sometimes there is great frustration, sometimes great sadness, often moments of sheer delight and satisfaction. But whatever we are feeling in any one moment, we must press on in faith doing the best we can. It isn't always enough. But it is what we offer. And in God's gracious providence, it is accepted.

Who can ask for more?

# Afterword

I need to acknowledge all who became involved in my life and story and are now gone from us, whether or not their part is recorded here. I suppose some of them thought I didn't take too much notice of their advice. But I have to say that my thinking has been enormously influenced by those I have met and lived and worked with. I hope the memory of some of them lives on in these pages of my life.

This book owes special thanks to Graham Langton, who had read the lengthy version, noticed my long-winded and often inconsequential details, bad jokes, rambling sentences and over-generous typos in that original family volume. We were both disinclined to change it but that unwieldy volume is not for sale. Anyone desperately keen to read more about matters alluded to here may asked to borrow a copy.

The stylish cover design of this more user-friendly version has again been put together by grand-daughter Lauren. Bev has once more resigned herself to having a downstairs spouse for a few weeks and has continued to provide nurturing support and practical house management beyond all reasonable expectation. She might well have anticipated that we would have shared those latter roles more equitably in this stage of our life together.

So this edition, too, is, especially,

Dedicated to you, my love

Dave Mullan

May 2011

About the author

Retired Presbyter of Methodist Church of New Zealand. Passionate pioneer in Local Shared Ministry, consultant in small churches, publisher of niche market books, producer of prosumer video, deviser of murder mystery dinners and former private pilot.

Dave trained for the Methodist Ministry at Trinity Theological College and eventually completed MA, Dip Ed as well. He and Bev married just before his first appointment in Ngatea where their two children arrived. They went on to Panmure and Taumarunui. Longer terms followed at Dunedin Central Mission and the Theological College. During this time he was also involved as co-founder and second national President of Family Budgeting Services and adviser to the (government) Minister of Social Welfare in Home Budgeting.

Dave's final four "working" years were part-time, developing the first Presbyterian or Methodist Local Shared Ministry unit in this country and promoting the concept overseas. Retirement has brought a whole lot more opportunities and challenges including publication of over 100 books of which he wrote about ten and a blog in which he tries to write fairly seriously on a range of topics.

An ongoing adventure with prostate cancer brought Bev and Dave to the Hibiscus Coast Residential Village near Auckland in 2014 but in early 2015 his prospects seem much improved.

Contact Dave  
 **colcom.press@clear.net.nz**

davemullan35@gmail.com

Visit Dave on **  
http://dave-mullan.blogspot.com  
http://www.colcompress.com**

Dave's other general books

**A Small Qango** Dave's account of the Home Budgeting Advisory Committee to the NZ Minister of Social Welfare, 1978-1988. This small committee had 120 meetings and ran seminars, consultations and training events. It functioned like to no other Quasi-Autonomous Government Organisation with a degree of independence that left some of the Head Office boffins breathless. It achieved huge financial support for family budgeting volunteers throughout the country. A5, ISBN 978-1-877357-17-6. (Shortly available as epub, 2015, at Smashwords)

**Attwood of Hepburn Creek**. The life of Thomas William Attwood, who settled in the Mahurangi 1907, initiated the NZ Fruitgrowers' Federation and represented NZ fruitgrowing interests in South America and UK 1923-1925 and then went on to found the NZ Alpine and Rock Garden Society. Lady Anne Allum of Auckland was his daughter. A5. 134p. ISBN 1-877357-01-4

**In and Out of Sync.** Dave's life story up to 2013. Extracted from a more substantial text, this book presents Dave's personal family background and professional life and ministry. Reviewers have said it offers a significant and insightful view of the Methodist Church of New Zealand in a turbulent and challenging time. A5 220p. ISBN 1-877357-10-3

**John Roulston, Grazier of Calkill & Runnymede**. With Val Mullan of Brisbane. Our attempt to trace the life of the mysterious and very distant relation from the Upper Brisbane Valley. He left a fortune to family members in four countries when he died in 1929. Most of them had never met him. A5. 122p. ISBN 1-877357-00-6

**The Almost Attwoods.** Ed Dave Mullan. Personal stories of the 143 descendants in the first three generations from James and Emma Attwood of Lewisham. A5. 220p. ISBN 978-1-877357-4-9

**The Saga of Wasp.** Revised and enlarged collection of Dave's short stories, 2014. Some include significant historical material from his early working life with the New Zealand Forest Service. But all were written mainly for fun. 180p ISBN 978-877357-12-X (Also available as epub, 2015, at Smashwords)

These books are available from ColCom Press stock or printing on demand. Some are soon to be made available in eBook format through Smashwords

Contact Dave

colcom.press@clear.net.nz

http://www.colcompress.com

Dave's books on church and ministry

**Diakonia and the Moa**. Although published in 1983 this book offers a distinctive understanding of the role of the "permanent" Deacon in the modern church. A5 170p From: Trinity College, 202 St Johns Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz ISBN 0-9597775-0-4

**Ecclesion — The Small Church with a Vision.** Reflections on the contemporary church and suggestions for revival of the small church in vigorous new styles of Sunday church life, mission and ministry. This book introduces the thinking behind the Lay Ministry Team concept developed for Methodists and Presbyterians in the Bay of Islands Co-operating Parish in 1992. It is being completely revised and updated for e-publication in 2015. A5 140p 978-908815-08-5 (Also available as epub, 2015, at Smashwords)

**Fresh New Ways — Emerging Models for Mission and Ministry in the Local Congregation**. Ed. Dave Mullan. Papers and reflections from a significant Australian conference, this book details (a) new structures for the church or parish and (b) innovative styles of ministry. A5 130p From: Trinity College, 202 St Johns Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz ISBN 0-908815-76-X

**Koru and Covenant** : With J J Lewis and L.W. Willing. This book offers biblical reflections in Aotearoa and note some links between the Christianity of the 19th Century Maori and the religion of the Hebrew Scriptures. Warmly commended by authoritative reviewers and some years after publication still very relevant. A5 120p. 120p From: Trinity College, 202 St Johns Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz ISBN 0-908815-60-3

**Mital-93—The Church's Ministry in Tourism and Leisure.** Ed: Dave Mullan Presentations at an Australian Conference are supported by dozens of flax roots ideas that have helped. "A fascinating study... an enabling resource" (Pat Gilberd). 82p. 220p From: Trinity College, 202 St Johns Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz ISBN 0-908815-22-8

**The Cavalry won't be coming**. Dave Mullan. Introduction to the concept of Local Shared Ministry in which a team of volunteers spearhead the mission of the small church which is discovering that all the resources for ministry are held within its own membership. A5 134p, From: Trinity College, 202 St Johns Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland. trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz ISBN 0-908815-99-1 (Also available as epub, 2015, at Smashwords)

As indicated, these books are available from Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland.

trinitycollege@stjohns.auckland.ac.nz

Other ColCom Books

During the last 25 years Dave has published well over one hundred titles for other writers under the imprint of ColCom Press. Most were done in very short runs for niche markets and were delivered to the authors. Some may be still retrievable in some form in 2015.

