Rev R D Drysdale
28th September 1979
McQuiston Memorial Presbyterian Church, Belfast.
Announcing decision to leave McQuiston
As you will all no doubt have heard by now, last Tuesday night I returned home after the Kirk Session meeting and learnt of the call by Belmont Church, a call which I have accepted, subject to Presbytery approval at their next meeting. I can only hope that you understand when I tell you that this is one of the most difficult moments in my life. To stand here and tell you that, after a relatively short ministry, I am now leaving you and I can only hope that those of you who feel most deeply hurt, disappointed, and let down by my decision will be able to find it in your heart to forgive me.
You have every right to ask me why. I don't imagine for a moment that I can answer that question to your complete satisfaction, but I owe it to you to try, even if only in the broadest and most general terms.
Let me begin by making clear that while we have had several difficult winters here since coming in 1976, that is not why I'm prepared to leave.
Indeed the problems that we've had to face and the battles that have had to be fought seem to me at this point in time to have had an overall healthy result, though the tensions and the strains on personal relationships have left their scars. But in so many ways the church here has emerged stronger and a new spirit of freedom among many is clearly evident. Indeed at this moment in time I feel, rightly or wrongly, that McQuiston has never been more united and in better heart since my coming here than it is now.
So I'm leaving, it would seem, just when I would appear to be beginning to enjoy some of the fruits of the past three and a half years' hard work. Very hard work. Why then am I prepared to go?
Well let me fill in the background to this Belmont call, which may hopefully help to provide something of an answer. Developments which obviously now I am at a liberty to disclose to you, and only now. However secretive I may have seemed, I had no alternative over these past weeks and months.
Over the past couple of years, and especially last winter, like it or not, I found myself with a feeling growing inside me that my style and emphases of ministry were perhaps not the ones best suited to the needs and character of McQuiston. We are all what we are, and this increasing awareness within me is much more an honest acknowledgement of my limitations than any criticism of McQuiston. But the plain fact is that I've not been at one with myself, or attaining the level of fulfilment that for me is at the heart of what makes me tick.
I recognise that I'm essentially a reflective person. McQuiston needs someone who is above all else an activist, an organiser, a go-getter, for in some ways I suppose the kind of role demanded here is that akin to a church extension ministry, for the great belt of nominal membership here is enormous. But for me, not to be able to have time to browse, to think through the deeper aspects of the Christian life in today's society, to engage in meaningful action across the narrow parochial boundaries of denominationalism, to ponder the realities and goals underneath and behind all the hectic busyness, without this kind of dimension to my experience, I lose my creativity, my sense of priorities, and so easily become lost in terms of what the church and ministry are all about.
Others, I realise very well, others whose temperaments are different from mine, don't have this same sense of need, this relentless questioning. Their strengths lie in other directions than mine, and directions which on balance are probably more suited to the nature of the work here. I also need time to cultivate deep and meaningful pastoral relationships, my own limitation again, because I relate to people slowly.
It takes time to get to know me, as you must have discovered, and for me to get to know others, and with our numbers that's a luxury we can't afford. Yet superficial relationships I find very frustrating. I don't and can't wear my heart on my sleeve, so the question would not leave me. Would a different thrust of ministry be better adjusted to the situation here than mine? And apart from me altogether, would that be for the betterment of McQuiston?
Again, I am what I am.
But over against all of this, at the same time, Hilary and I have been coming to appreciate and to value more and more the many fine and dedicated people that we have here. The sort of members churches would give their right arms to have, if churches have right arms... People whom we have come to trust and to love dearly, and whose fellowship and kindness we have enjoyed more and more. Our great sorrow is the terrible hurt we are inflicting on you; people who least deserve it.
But in the middle of all these conflicting feelings, and we often spent long hours into the night talking them through, in the middle of such conflicting feelings, at the beginning of this year, first one and then a second church approached me about considering a move. Approaches, I might add, completely out of the blue and unsolicited by me. In both cases, I said no.
Then towards the summer, I was approached by Belmont Church. What was I to do? Go on saying no, or allow my name to be considered. And in all honesty, in the case of Belmont, where we have often worshipped on holiday Sundays when at home, I found it impossible to reject the possibility outright.
There come crucial moments, critical points in all our lives, when we know we cannot let the possibilities contained in such times pass without serious consideration. Such a moment for me was this approach from Belmont. And where in all of this was God's hand? And what was being said to me? I decided to give myself time to consider the matter and to pray about it.
I immediately informed our Clerk of Session, Mr. Bell, about the approach that had been made and the dilemma I now found myself in. A dilemma only I could resolve. This was shortly before we went on holiday.
On returning from holiday, I agreed to allow my name to go forward and to let things run their course. How else could I gain any sense of guidance? I again informed Mr. Bell of my decision. Belmont accordingly shortlisted my name together with others. The Hearing Committee heard us, met with us, and the eventual outcome was the call issued to me four days ago.
Throughout this very difficult period, and only Hilary and I know the full agony of it all, Mr. Bell, together with Mr. Knox and Miss Orr, have been our trusted confidants, whose understanding and compassion we have greatly appreciated. And at this point, let me also add that Belmont have had their agony too in all of this, as was made very clear when we met the Hearing Committee. They have been very aware of the morality involved in approaching a minister from a neighbouring church, and after only three and a half years. And in fairness to them, I think that should be said, for they have had to bear their dilemma too. But then every call, to a greater or less degree, contains this element within it, one congregation's sense of loss.
But in the end of the day, it's the minister himself who makes the final decision if a call is tabled. And he who above all must be prepared to shoulder the burden of misunderstanding, resentment, and hurt that his decision and his alone has created. This is his loneliness, and it has to be borne.
If life were less complicated and made up of neat black and white situations, then answers and responses would be basically simple. But life is not like that much of the time. We thread our way through a maze, with God's help, but recognising if we think about it at all, that few decisions are ever wholly right without also some element of wrong.
So we walk by faith, and especially at the critical junctures of our lives, we step out always into the unknown. And of course, throughout all of this, we have wrestled with the question, "Where is God in all of this? What is His will?"
I have never found the confidence of those who can say with great assurance, this is God's will for me. Too often it seems to me a subtle way of opting out of accepting responsibility for our own actions.
Of this decision, therefore, I can only say, I believe this is God's will for me. And that circumstances seem to have so arranged themselves as to make this belief credible for me. Guidance, almost always it seems to me, is discernible only in retrospect. At least that is as much as my personal experience will allow me to say. But I believe God honours responsible action. To act responsibly, as responsibly and as honourably as one can, is to act and decide within the perimeters of God's will. And within those perimeters, all things work together for good to them that love Him. What does the agony of Gethsemane mean if it doesn't mean that?
That's why I read those profound words from Paul's letter to the Romans earlier. There for me lies the essence of what we mean by "Providence." That there is nothing that can ultimately separate us from the love of God. "Nothing in heaven or on earth, neither height nor depth, things present and things to come." Providence for me, and I think from what I read in Paul's letters especially, does not mean that life is planned and predetermined for us in advance, and that guidance is getting into the right rut that enables this plan to unfold itself like an automatic machine.
No, faith in Providence is rather the conviction, confirmed by Christian experience, that because there is God, there is therefore a creative and saving possibility in every situation. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. There is nothing therefore that need prevent any of us from fulfilling the meaning of our existence.
To believe and trust that, is to know that in this sense there is a will of God for us, and that it cannot finally be thwarted if we lay ourselves open to it, and are prepared to take responsibility for what we do. Let that conviction lie at the heart of this moment that we share together, how differently we may view it. Let this conviction lie at the heart of this moment, and we will come to see that the Kingdom of God and the Church's mission is bigger than any of us and that in all our decision making we merely move within a space larger than we can imagine and whose boundaries we haven't drawn. Sufficient for us to know that nothing can separate us from God's love, and then, for right or wrong, to decide and act.
And now having said all that, and in an attempt to draw to a conclusion, let me now perhaps in lighter vein remind you all of this, and lest everything seem so far too melodramatic by half, that it isn't after all the end of the world. I'm too long in church life now to not to realise, even if you've forgotten, that every congregation has a great resilience, and in the final farewell will say, "The King is dead, long live the King!" and set about finding a successor. And let's be honest, there's even a certain sense of adventure and tingle of excitement about the prospect of getting a new man, once you've got past the Union Commission, that forbidding body and church house that must first give permission to proceed, but then we've now got friends in high places, for Miss Orr is a member of that august body!
The initial shock over, you, I know, will very quickly start forgetting today, and setting your sights on tomorrow.
And let me finish with this. What eases my mind considerably is not just the heart and state of the congregation as it is at this moment, but also to know that in Mr. Knox I'm leaving you in hands well able to cope, hands every bit as capable of mine, if not more so, that I'm leaving you with him. That also, of course, is part of our agony, for we and our wives have enjoyed the happiest possible relationship, but I'm leaving you in good hands, and he's younger too! So what more could you want?
Finally, let me say that we won't stand upon our going, but we'll be here for some time yet, and no doubt we'll have ample opportunity to share further with you our feelings and our hopes, as we and you face together whatever lies before us. Assured of this, "That neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
And may he abundantly bless you all in weeks and months and years to come.
Let us pray.
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