In the big clear-out I came across the notes I made for the first sermon I preached in a service. I think I was seventeen at the time. The Youth Fellowship had been given the opportunity to lead evening worship. Afterwards people were encouraging and there then began a dawning that this was what I was meant to do. Shadows were to fall in the years ahead. Uncertainty, disillusionment, doubt, perhaps even resistance. But the call was strong and eventually I came to the place where I could not imagine a fulfilled life apart from the Ministry of Word and Sacrament.
People around me expressed doubts. Was this really what I wanted to do? But I had enough insight and experience to know that God did not call a ‘type’. In fact, in the early 1970s when I entered a fuller Christian commitment people were emerging as preachers and evangelists who in style and presentation were a long way from what had come to be seen as the norm. When I saw Nigel Goodwin standing in the pulpit of St George’s Tron in his floral shirt and knee length purple suede boots, I began to think that maybe I could fit in! In then end you accept that God knew what he was doing when He put this pressure on your will.
It has never been anything less that than challenging. When I was inducted to Stevenston: Ardeer a senior minister gave the ‘charges’ at the Service of Induction. He was generally encouraging but he said that in the end there was one thing I could be sure of: ‘You’ll never win!’ I had enough experience of Church life to know what he meant but as I face the prospect of retirement the sense of incompleteness, even failure, is far outweighed by the privilege of having the opportunity to serve as a parish minister. To be with people in their most heart-breaking and vulnerable times is never easy but it has been an inspiration to see God’s people finding a way forward in the promises of Christ. This is not to mention days of celebration when Gabrielle and I have been included as part of the family. Baptisms and marriages come with a sense of new hope and ministers experience this more than most.
It all comes together to make a final parting very hard. Especially at this time in the Church of Scotland when the future of many congregations is in doubt. It would be less than honest to say this does not weigh heavily on me. But as there was a sense of beginning all those years ago so there comes a sense of major change. I can’t bring myself to say, ‘the end’. I am not convinced that 25 September will see the end of ministry for me. I continue to hope and pray that I will have the health and strength to be available to serve in some capacity however limited. Whatever else has to be set aside I’ll be holding on to a couple of clerical collars. And maybe the blogs will be more frequent!
‘You’ll never win,’ he said. Well, we don’t in this life. Not completely. But Paul said: ‘I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.’ (Philippians 3: 14). Whatever the future holds for us we are united in this faith that we are part of the Great Project to bring heaven and earth together, a renewed creation in which God’s people see the fulfilment of all His promises. Nothing more to cry over and greater opportunities for service.
Yours pressing on,
Fergus.
