Scots' Church, Geelong West

In 1993, when I was an Assistant to Norman Pritchard at Scots' Church (the Melbourne one, that is) I was invited by Graham Hamill, then minister of the Geelong West variety, to preach at their 80th anniversary celebrations. It was a great day, apart from the guest preacher turning up a good 15 minutes late because one of his kids threw up in the car on the way from Melbourne, arriving just as Mr Hamill was frantically wracking his brain to come up with a spontaneous children's address - the relief was palpable!

Anyway, back to 2008. No such dramas. Well, there was some drama, but it wasn't us. Alison, Duncan and I drove down very early and were in plently of time. Mr Hamill was there again, but this time as a guest. The incumbent, David Assender, however, was on his final Sunday, having just that week secured a new job for next year as a part-time assistant chaplain at Scotch College in Melbourne, while studying for a masters in education. A great move for Dave and his family. He has always had a passion for youth ministry and now he will have a congregation of about 2000 boys and young men!

But it will leave Geelong in a difficult position. Graeme Weber has recently retired from St Georges and Alan Lendon tragically died earlier this year after a long battle with cancer, leaving all three city churches vacant. And I believe Andrew Bray has announced his retirement from Moorabool as well.

There are no exit students leaving college this year into parish ministry, and I'm not sure what the prospects are for the next coupld of years, but it really doesn't look like an easy road ahead for the churches in Geelong. Perhaps they need to consider radical reorganisation, in order to protect the presence of gospel ministry for the future.

The service itself was filled with drama, as an elderly visitor collapsed and the paramedics arrived in the middle of David's review of the spiritual history of the parish, a review that was very fascinating, notwithstanding the distraction. I believe the gentleman was eventually fine.

In 5 years, David has managed to substantially reshape the life and ministry of the congregation, enabling it to reach a much broader cross-section of people in the community with the gospel, most notably young people. The most striking feature of this is their Sunday evening 'cafe church'.

 Some years ago, while he was a student, David was a key figure in a process of transformation at Scots' Church (Melbourne, working with me) as we developed a contemporary style evening service, and he has done something similar in Geelong West, although taking it even further than we had the courage to do.

They have a real coffee bar to serve real coffee and they really do meet, worship, sing, study and pray cafe style around coffee tables. 'Cafe church' is not just a handy moniker. They even have their own printed coasters. The hall also has a pool table and fusbal for after-church (or other times) social fun for youngsters. I know my own evening congregation will be jealous (in a good way, of course) when they read this!

It's radical, but it's working, and David will do well at Scotch with that kind of passionate enthusiasm, vision and initiative.

 The day had not been planned as a farewell for David, Tanya, Abbie and Sam, but of course that's the way it panned out. An amazing lady called Dorothy made a wonderful speech after the congregational lunch, in which she spoke about the past and eulogised David's ministry, but also looked forward with hope and ambition for the future. She's been part of that church's life since she was born in 1925 and her mother was in the Sunday school as far back as 1902. (For those of you good at maths you will already have worked out that that takes us back beyond the establishment of Scots' Church in its own right in 1913. It was originally an extension of St Georges.)