Mentors & Heroes

I have just completed reading a very worthy biography of one of my seminary lecturers, the Rev'd Professor Dr Athol Gill. He was Professor of New Testament studies at Whitley College, the Baptist Theological College of Victoria from 1976 until his untimely death in March 1992 aged 54.

Pidwell, H A Gentle Bunyip: The Athol Gill Story Seaview Press: Adelaide 2007

Athol was a marvelous NT scholar but he taught in both Testaments, having a love for both the Gospels and the Prophets. His passion for these texts inspired in him a passion for a radical approach to living the Christian life inspired by various social and theological meovements of his day.

Before he came to Melbourne, he had somewhat controversially started the "House of Hope" in Brisbane where he and others began to explore this radical new kind of Christian discipleship. The authorities in his beloved Baptist Church were certainly perplexed by this and though his counter-cultural approach to the Christian life would undermine the established church structures too much.

On arrival in Melbourne, and in tandem with taking up his duties at Whitley College, he initiated a search for a place to start another community house. Within weeks he had identified the Clifton Hill Baptist Church where its remaining 10 members were willing to gamble with Athol's promise of new life. Before long, "The House of the Gentle Bunyip" was born and eventually the Community Church of St Mark.

"New and prospective members were taught a theology of mission through careful study of the Gospel of Mark." (p103) The mission of the community took three basic forms - serving the churches through training, camps, ministerial support and theological education; serving the community in which it was situated with a coffee house, street theatre, concerts, special events and publishing; and engaging in social issues such as providing counselling, forums, supporting indigenous issues, services for single parents, the homeless and political lobbying.

All of this was to happen out of a community of people, single and married, who lived together, where possible, and shared a common life. Patterns for their life together were very similar to those followed by monastic communities, although Athol never drew attention to this. They were bound to meet for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer each day, following a pattern for The Office found in the Anglican Australian Prayer book, and following a lectionary of daily Scripture reading created by Athol that ensured that the whole of the NT was read each year and the OT was read in a three-year cycle.

Members engaged in 5hrs of ministry a week, tithed their income for the community and generally contributed to the common life.

This extraordinary life was incredibly attractive to many idealistic young people during the years I was in seminary and a number of those who studied with me were members of "The Bunyip" as it was affectionately known.

I enjoyed being reminded of the people and times of my Seminary training as I read through this book. I was also encouraged to ponder these things in relation to a dream we have been nurturing of establishing an intentional community as a place for spiritual formation and Christian mission.

One of the issues that are raised in "A Gentle Bunyip" is the nature of leadership in such communities. Clearly, someone needs to be the driving thinker that shapes the vision and mission of the community, someone needs to be the bearer of the story that originates the community, someone needs to create the myths that inspire others to join. Athol did all of these. He sought to do it collaboratively, using a leadership team, but at the end of the day his death left such a gap in the leadership that within a couple of years people had drifted off - the community died.

On Tuesday I will be attending the 80th Birthday bash of another friend and mentor who has known me since I was born, but I did not notice him until I was about 15. Brian was a secondary school teacher before training for ministry in the same seminary I went to many years later.

He had a passion for engagement with young people in the church and despite a disappointing experience as Director of Youth Ministry for the whole state continued to work with young people through the church's camping programs - which was where I came across him. Having returned to teaching he took an early retirement option so that he could take up an honorary position as chaplain in the secondary school in which he had taught.

In his latter years, he developed an interest in and passion for the ancient traditions of spirituality in the church - Christian meditation in particular. He also came to the view that the struggle of many in ministry was related to a poorly formed spiritual life.

Thus began a journey that would lead to him encouraging ministers in his church more widely to explore the possibilities of the ancient Christian traditions as a support for their ministry, and the establishment of a Centre for Christian Spirituality in his local church - a place for training in and the practice of spirituality.

There is no doubt that Brian was the driving force for the establishment of this centre, although he clearly did not do it alone. He, too, was the forger and articulater of the vision.

He was smart enough to recognise that there was a need for succession planning and quite intentionally groomed up another to take his place, but I am sure that he would reflect that even so, it has been the hardest part of the life of the community - passing the mantle on successfully to new leadership that can maintain the evolutionary development of the community in a manner that is consistent with the original vision.

I will be interested in seeing how much of this he shares on this milestone occasion on Tuesday.