Struggling Beginnings – Year One

April and I had felt quite clearly for a number of years God calling us to Charters Towers since we had spent a year working in the town as a part of a “Cornerstone” mission team in 1990. We returned in 1995 when I was offered the job as pastor of the Church of Christ.

I remember very clearly the struggle when beginning our ministry at the Church of Christ in Charters Towers. It was a radical change from the busyness of life leading a Christian community. Although life in Cornerstone was often difficult it was never dull and the community life always had its own energy.

I was promised one year’s paid work with the assurance of plenty of unpaid work beyond that. That was the amount of money the church had saved during its Pastorless time. One church leader said the expectation was that I was hired to fix the church. His analogy was, “If you call a plumber in to fix a broken pipe you expect the pipe to be fixed.” Our church was broken because it was low on people, the most important resource of God’s community. I wasn’t quite as sure about the analogy between the pastor and the plumber Read more

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