Religious Journey Continued

 Part II

St Andrew's, New Plymouth

So Margaret began looking for another church, and went to St Andrews Presbyterian to a morning service. She was impressed by the sermon preached by Rev Tom Woods, and by the friendly and sensible welcome remarks she was given by one of the elders, Nigel Hayton. 

In particular, she liked Tom Woods’s summary of Christianity: what did Jesus say? “Follow me”. And so she joined St Andrews and before long was elected a pastoral elder and was visiting several parishioners regularly. Not being prepared to stay home when Margaret and Matthew were going to church, I accompanied them, though did not become a member of the church. 

I did pick up my old organ-playing hobby, however, and managed to get time to practise both at St Andrews and at the Anglican St Marys, both interesting instruments. So I became one of the reserve organists for services and other occasions, like funerals or weddings, at St Andrews. I also made myself available to assist the organ-tuners when they visited, which was an interesting side-line. 

A good deal of what went on I ignored, or translated in my head into my more humanistic and materialistic version of life. I concentrated on the music, and supporting Margaret and the children in whatever they were involved in. Around 1985, Margaret became the secretary to the minister, a part-time job where she worked in the church office in the mornings. 

A couple of years after that, Tom Woods took a trip to America and came back with a grand new idea for a youth activity. Margaret and I agreed to help launch this as a pilot scheme for Intermediate-age children at St Andrews. On Friday evenings we would all meet in the Church hall, with about forty children and several adult volunteers helping. We would play games for a while and then serve the children dinner, provided by a roster of church households. 

After dinner there were small group bible lessons, and then a craft programme, followed by a closing session about 9 pm. This programme became very popular for a whole year, but was so time-consuming I felt unable to continue the second year; Margaret however continued to co-ordinate it for another year, while I had moved to the Taranaki Base Hospital to work there. This youth programme really needed a 20- hour per week youth worker to keep it going, so a full-time Youth Minister was employed.

Around this time volunteers were needed to help at the branch congregation at Frankleigh Park, so we decided to move our effort up there. 

The congregation was small, around forty people, and it was advertised as a Community Church. The leader was Dr Ron Hamer, retired Elder Care Specialist, who became a good friend. Margaret was asked to start a Sunday School, and I took a turn at the organ, a small electronic model. 

Soon after our shift, a new  part-time Assistant Minister was appointed; Rev John Hodder, who was already a Prison Chaplain and Polytech Tutor. His main responsibility was looking after the Frankleigh Park congregation, taking the services, and supporting the parishioners in that area. John became a good friend. He was less conservative in practice than Tom, but theologically less liberal. Not that that worried him or us.  We were able to work together easily, trying to make the congregation a source of support for a variety of people in the locality. 

In 1988 the 125^th anniversary of St Andrews was celebrated; I contributed the words for several hymns and an anthem, with music provided by Ron Smith and Lionel Hall.