After 28 years as minister in Aghada and Trinity Cork Presbyterian Churches I have put together these “bits and pieces” as something to leave behind with friends inside and outside the congregations, as we move back North into the new phase of service which is retirement. (April 2017)
FIRST A BIT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY
I was born in Belfast in 1952. We were a church going family, in common with many at that time in both parts of Ireland.
My father taught Philosophy and my mother Latin at Queen’s University and they felt that Greek as well as Latin was a good thing, so I was one of a class of four learning Greek at Royal Belfast Academical Institution [commonly known as “Inst.”]. I memorised for a play some hundreds of lines in Greek, of which I can now recite the first two. Familiarity with Greek and a rigorous training in voice projection proved to be helpful in my future as a Presbyterian minister.
But the reasons for becoming a minister go much deeper.
In 1968 I found the Bible to come alive, reading the prophet Isaiah, and made a personal commitment to Christ. One trigger for that was watching my grandfather (my mother’s father) lose hope or purpose in his life, and not long after that he lost his life. He had worked until age 70 as an electrician in the Glasgow shipyards. Shortly after he retired he lost his eyesight and could not mend clocks and fix electrical things the way he had loved to. Life for him became miserable and shorter than it might have been.
Tragic as that was, I believe God used that to speak to me about having hope in my life and about that time I came to know his reality, through a risen Christ with a living hope.
1968 was also the time when the ‘troubles’ began to shake up the settled patterns of Ulster society. Before I left school I had a sense of a call to be a minister in that context, to promote reconciliation vertically and horizontally [with God and with each other].
I studied Greek and Latin classics at Oxford [Magdalen College] and then “Divinity” [aka Theology] at Glasgow University. I then did a final year at Union Theological College Belfast combined with the start of an assistantship in North Belfast, quite different from the leafy suburb in South Belfast where I had been raised.
What a learning curve! I sum it up that it is one thing to know the reformed doctrines of grace, it is another thing to live by grace, to love others because you know that you are profoundly and undeservedly and eternally loved by God. So easy to be ensnared by the desire to be seen to perform well and be successful.
MARRIAGE AND MINISTRY IN FERMANAGH
Heather McDowell was a social worker for the Presbyterian Women’s Association and was taking classes in Practical Theology at Union College. I have a vague memory of those classes and of meeting her but it was on a group visit to Israel in 1982, that I got a great blessing, not so much the blessings of the ‘holy places’ but because it brought me together with Heather and marriage to her in 1983 has been a great blessing. Early years of ministry and of marriage were spent in rural Fermanagh, where we were blessed with the births of Naomi and Peter.
The violence of those times was an ever present shadow and brought with it the challenge of how to bring comfort to grieving and angry people, along with the demands of “another King”. During the reaction to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, I preached one Sunday on the theme of appropriate obedience to the state, that while it was acceptable to protest against what many Protestants considered to be a wrong agreement, it was not all right to protest by blocking roads. I got quite a bit of quiet encouragement at the door, and although no doubt there were those who did not agree with what they heard, they did not say so. One man did write to the local paper to express disagreement, signing it 'Back Pew of Newtownbutler Church". It was as if at that time anyway the office of the preacher of God’s word was respected. A few years later in the Cork context I found that people would voice disagreement at the door and that took some getting used to, as well as the perception of some that I was an Orange preacher from the North.
I remember vividly the day of the Enniskillen bomb. The bomb planted near the War Memorial on Remembrance Sunday 1987 would have gone off as I was coming into Lisnaskea for my second service [of the routine four each Sunday]. Someone came in late with a troubled face whispering that there was trouble in Enniskillen. By the time of the third service, it was clear [even without mobile phones] that lives had been lost. A grown man wept at the back of the church. A phone call at lunch time brought home the enormity: eleven dead and we knew six of them and others seriously injured of whom one died later. I conducted the afternoon service in a blur, changing what I had intended to preach on. One of my elders kindly said I did well. I hadn’t thought so.
We went to the evening service in Enniskillen Presbyterian Church. My abiding memory is of the opening hymn:
“My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand,
all other ground is sinking sand.”
It gave a profound sense of light in darkness and I often think of that when I hear folk affirm that they get a better sense of God on a forest walk than in church. They don’t get the agony of the Psalmist in Psalm 42 that he was cut off from the strength that can come from being with God’s people.
The following days were of course trying and yet I had a profound sense of being in people’s prayers as I took part in some of the funerals. It was time of agony and yet of good triumphing over evil. Although the bitterness of some grew deeper, for others it confirmed their desire to be at peace with their neighbour, whatever the cost.
I add this further memory during the pandemic of 2020, conscious that my younger colleagues may be struggling with the burdens and uncertainties they carry, with the encouragement simply to do the next thing and God will bring you through.
We gathered in the Enniskillen hospital for the removal of the body of one of the victims, Johnny Megaw. Someone began this hymn and its words remain so apt for a crisis when we don't know what to do.
How good is the God we adore,
our faithful unchangeable friend!
His love is as great as his power,
and knows neither measure nor end.
For Christ is the first and the last,
whose Spirit shall guide us safe home.
We’ll praise him for all that is past,
and trust him for all that’s to come.
CULTURAL CHANGES IN CORK
Not long after our experience of the Enniskillen bomb, we moved to Cork, actually to the church [Trinity Cork] where my grandfather (father’s father) was a member before he became a minister in the North. Things are so much different from his time and my ministry there was one of trying to manage change in times of increasing secularism and where there is little prospect for a church that only looks to its past. One significant blessing was the arrival since around 2000 of many ‘new Irish’ from different parts of Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia as well as people passing through from USA, Pakistan, Mexico …
I also observed the change from outward respect to disrespect for institutional churches; a significant moment was the Bishop Casey scandal which seemed to give people permission to make all sorts of jokes even before the arrival of ‘Father Ted’. [Bishop Eamon Casey resigned in 1992 after it was revealed he had fathered a child and had used church funds to provide for the child’s support and cover up his involvement.] Christians in Ireland are learning that that respect has to be earned and that we must give reasons for faith and Christian values “with gentleness and respect” [1 Peter 3.15]
MEMORIES OF MINISTRY IN CORK
I preached in the spring of 1989 on the meaning of the cross. There was a stillness and quietness after I finished. It was simply a statement of why Jesus died, as a substitute for our sin. It may have been the first time in a long time that a sermon like that had been preached in Trinity. Some days later I got a letter from a couple from Dublin, Billy and May Hull, who had been visiting that Sunday. They thanked me for the sermon and wanted to encourage me that they thought there was a sense of God in the church that day. A few years later Billy and May came to live in Cork and became a vital part of our fellowship. Billy became one of our elders. I treasure the memory of him, small in stature but large in heart, carrying the communion elements with a dignity and a reverence I don't think I have ever seen in such depth at any communion time anywhere else.
Mrs Willis was the caretaker's widow and lived in a house in our grounds beside the Little William St. gate. After her husband died she carried on as best she could, including lighting a wonderful coal fire in the hall every Sunday in winter and getting up very early on Sunday morning to press the switch for the church boiler. A time clock eventually removed the need for that but even after the overhead heaters had been installed in the hall the fire was still being lighted until I went to inform her that there was no need. I always found her very respectful and deferential and so a person hard to get close to.
One Sunday we had a time of high drama. I had noticed in calling to the church on some errand earlier before going to the Aghada 10 am service that she had not opened up the church main doors and put the lights on, as was her custom. I put it from my mind but when I came back to Trinity for the 1145 am service someone pointed out that there was no reply from her house and a number of milk bottles had not been taken in. I said to knock and see if she was all right. I had actually started the service when someone came up and whispered that there was no answer from her door and should we do something after the service. Decisive for once, I whispered 'No, go and do it now!' A few minutes later I got another whispered message that they had broken the door down and found the poor lady on the floor where she had fallen and broken her hip and had lain there since the preceding Thursday night. They had called an ambulance. I relayed the news and the service went on. After the service was over I went to see her in hospital, where I found a transformed lady. Despite her pain and discomfort she was glad to have been rescued and from that day on in hospital and then St Luke's Home I found the old reserve was down and I got to know a lady of great faith and resilience.
Another old lady who did me good was Miss Patricia Walls. She sat in a front pew and every morning when I said at the start of the service 'Good morning everyone' back came an audible gruff response 'Good morning, your reverence.' Pat had a simple and unique approach to life, typified by her keeping her Christmas decorations up all year round, to keep her cheerful, she said. I would have loved after my first visit to Gujarat to have come back and told her that some of the churches there do the same with the Christmas decorations. Perhaps in heaven they know that sort of thing.
I treasure the memory of how she handled her terminal cancer with great dignity, courage and faith. I had been praying with her about her illness and that she would find peace and help from Jesus. He response was a very emphatic snort of an 'Amen'. When I asked on foot of that did she feel that God was near, she simply replied 'He's always with me.' - the sort of simplicity a lot of theologians need to be exposed to.
In my early years we went through a period of severe conflict in the church. I will not go into detail about that, except to comment that when churches are in decline and a new ministry begins with a different theological outlook and approach on matters such as evangelism, ecumenism and worship style, conflict is not uncommon. I recall visiting Miss Walls one afternoon and she said to me in her childlike way: “People are saying you’ll have to leave, Mr Faris, but I hope you won’t.” God sends encouragement in unexpected ways, just when you need it.
I used to visit Albert and Ann Chaloner frequently as she was unwell and they did not often get to church. I was always welcomed with warmth and courtesy. One day Albert said “What news of Trinity, John?” I paused as I wondered whether to kick for touch with something anodyne or to tell him the truth. I went for the second option, doing my best to describe the conflict but not to attack anyone. He then said quietly “I am glad you told me this. I would not have liked to have heard it from someone else.” A good friendship went deeper.
In recent years we have tried to keep the church building open on weekdays to welcome visitors. Christine Jenkins was passing one day and saw the open door and came in to chat and then started to attend on Sundays and took a lively interest in everything. Sadly, her smoking habit brought on cancer and she died far too young and yet the weaker she became the stronger her faith seemed to be. About a month before she died, she said to me “Reverend, I didn’t know what to get you for Christmas and I don’t have much money, so I got you these.” “These” were two tubs of liquorice all-sorts. Never was a gift so poignant. I find it hard now to look at the sweet rack in shops.
One Sunday just before Christmas we were bringing Christmas gifts to the women’s refuge near the Mercy Hospital when the mobile phone rang. It was the Roman Catholic Chaplain at the hospital to say a Free Presbyterian man was seriously ill. He couldn’t contact the pastor so could I help. I went and shared John 3.16 with a man suffering a heart attack. I noticed when I finished the prayer that he crossed himself, something he would not have learned in the Free Presbyterian church. I tried myself to call the pastor but his phone was engaged. I then thought to ring someone I knew who went to that church. He kindly offered to go round and let him know. Later that day I had a phone message from the pastor to thank me for helping. This was especially significant because he and I had been in danger of some years previously of getting into controversy with each other, until we had agreed it was a much better use of time for both of us, not to keep on arguing but to agree to disagree. My being involved providentially in this emergency helped bridge a gap. Some years’ later that church closed and many of the people who had attended started attending Trinity instead and one is now an elder.
A CHURCH FOR ALL NATIONS
Around the start of the new century our profile changed from being the "Scots' Church" as we had been known to a church of all nations. People from a great variety of countries have come among us: Brazil, Cameroon, China, Ghana, Hungary, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Mexico, Nigeria, Kasackstan, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, USA. It was a challenging and exhilarating cross cultural experience and we hope we can draw on that to encourage our new church family in Bangor to welcome the stranger as Northern Ireland also becomes less mono-cultural.
One example is the Mexican family who turned up one Sunday. Liliane and Angel with their children Flor and Raquel, together with their niece, Luisa, who had the best English and acted as translator. Luisa said to me “My aunty has bad headache.” and looked expectantly at me. After a pause, I realised I was expected to pray with her. I do believe God answers prayer but I also know that what he often offers is not the removal of the problem, but strength to cope with the problem. But my Spanish and their English were not equal to a theological discussion, so I took a step of faith and prayed simply, with Luisa translating, that the headache would go and that they would be blessed in settling in. [I suspected the headache was stress related.] Next week they returned, with headache gone, and we were blessed with them for many months.
POEMS
There is a tradition in my family, going all the way back to my great great grandfather of writing verses. I hope you like these, but I enjoyed writing them anyway.
In the 1990s and early 2000s we had some happy holidays with Scripture Union at their centre "Ovoca Manor” near Woodenbridge, Co Wicklow. I wrote “A special place” at a poetry workshop held there in 2002. The last line references Graham Kendrick's "I'm special”.
This is a special place
above the road and railway.
We hear their sounds
but leave them as background noise
to scents of trees and grasses -
symphony of green and light.
Children call and sometimes cry.
There is pain in falling even here.
But this is a place
for binding wounds and easing pain.
My friends are here
and my special friend.
It was a great joy at that poetry workshop to encourage people to write poems, some of them for the first time. As with singing, there is a lot of creativity in a lot of people which sadly is not always encouraged and developed. Once or twice we held “Bible Creativity Days” in Cork when we encouraged people to write poems, make banners, work in clay, paint, on a bible theme. Here is one Heather and I jointly wrote on “seeds” based on Psalm 126
Psalm 126
Joy, at last, joy came, deep content.
Despair we had so long drunk right down.
Yet now, somehow,
we were no longer spent.
Here in Zion we are restored.
Laughter on our lips, a deep release
Buried dreams burst bright,
feelings fresh, fragrant,
flowers new sprung.
Part of our ‘bible creativity” that day was planting some daffodil bulbs. These have flourished since and supplemented some which I planted on a cold wet November day in the early 1990s when the weather matched my mood. Things had been difficult. But as I planted, I prayed for a new spring time in the church. Did it come? We did not have the numerical “success” of some churches but I was pleased to sense that there is a culture of welcome. Some have said they had a sense quickly of being at home among us. One thing which helped me was coming to a realisation that even I were to be the last Presbyterian minister in Cork and go down in history as the minister who closed the church, God would still love me just as much as if I had presided over a glitzy mega church.
Another helpful thing has been to visit Gujarat, India, the first Irish Presbyterian overseas mission field. James and Mary Glasgow [from whom I get my middle name] were my great great grand parents and one of the first missionary couples. Within months of arriving they suffered the death of their colleague and of a baby born on 16 March 1841. On my first visit in 2006 we went to Rajkot to the "English Cemetery" [founded by Church of England missionaries]. We laid garlands on the graves of many missionaries and their children and sang Stuart Townend's "The Lord's my shepherd” whose refrain “And I will trust in him always” is referenced in the closing line. There is also a reference to Isaiah 40.8 “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." which was very important in my early encounter as a teenager with God as a living being. This visit was deeply moving and a place of burial became for me a place of renewal.
The English Cemetery at Rajkot.
Grass grows among the graves
at the English Cemetery at Rajkot.
Irish visitors bring garlands and posies,
gifts of welcome and respect from Indian friends
to lay on the graves
of missionaries and children
in the cemetery at Rajkot.
It is explained
that a baby was born on 16th March
who only lived some weeks
and emotion overflows
that I share a birth date
with my great grand aunt.
Another grave nearby
for a boy aged one year and two days
and moving around I see
his parents lost another child
who lived for two months
and I weep to write of that.
And we who are parents wonder
could we like Abraham offer up Isaac
and the younger people are very quiet.
We pray, we sing, we look and walk away
with one last look back
at the grass and fading flowers
on Irish graves in the English cemetery at Rajkot.
The grass withers, the flower falls
but the word of our God always lasts
and I will trust in you always.
My great great grandfather in a busy life found time to write a journal and I am trying to transcribe his last one from 1857 to 1890. http://revjamesmcclureglasgow.blogspot.com. It is a moving account of his loneliness, he was ten years apart from his wife and children, his struggles with fellow workers and his walk with God.
GOD'S PLANS
The years in Cork were difficult and I find it a great joy to be in fellowship in St Andrew's Presbyterian Church Clandeboye, Bangor, Co Down. If I say it is my best experience of church ever, I can only ask forgiveness from those who knew me in different churches through the decades and particularly those who had me as their minister. It's not a perfect church - where is and I'm there - but I just enjoy the loving acceptance of the people and of "my minister" and I hadn't spoken those words in over 40 years. It's a healing experience.
From the early 1990s onwards people in Cork and further afield used to suggest to me that we should move on from a difficult situation and it wasn't so long before I agreed with them. And so until 2007 I made several applications and was disappointed again and again. First I was frustrated to apply and not be granted an interview, then to be interviewed and not be invited to preach for a call. Then I began to appear on "lists" for preaching but the congregational votes went in other directions. In 2006 and 2007 I preached for three different vacancies: the votes for me went from 50 or so in the first one (which wasn't so bad) to 19 and then most humbling to 2. (out of 40 or so) And that was a congregation which I and others thought was well suited for someone of my experience. But the people there thought otherwise, as they were entitled to do. I will not go into the human factors which may have been involved in that decision. I simply share what happened in the small hours of the morning as I tried to process the disappointing news. I said to God something like "I'm fed up with applying and never getting anywhere. It's so wearing being constantly rejected. if it's all right with you, I would rather stay here in Cork." And a still small voice seemed to say "At last you've got it" The next few years turned out to be the most encouraging of our time in Cork.
The overall lesson is I believe to measure your life not by what other people think of you nor by what you think of you but by what God thinks of you and plans for you.
