CALLED TO LAY SERVICE

Introduction

He was 20 years of age. On a hot summer evening, in 1957, at the after church sing-along, at the Newmarket Baptist Church (Victoria), he stood up to give his testimony. He said:

“It’s just over 12 months, tonight, that the Superintendent of the Victorian Home Mission said in this hall, that he would recommend me to the Candidates Board as a trainee Baptist minister. I have prayed about that call for 12 months, and I now believe that God wants me to serve Him as a layman, and that He has called me to serve Him here at Newmarket. I shall not leave this church until He calls me to another place.”

The congregation of ladies smiled at him. He was the only male member of their congregation. They called him “Eddie”. The youngest of them was 15 years his senior.

He is better known today as Ed. F. Dickinson.

This is his story, and the story of his call to lay service.

The Boyhood Years.

He was born Edward Fenton Dickinson on 14th October 1937. His father, Carl, was then 50 years of age and his mother, Ida, was 44. Along with her brothers and sisters Ida had attended the Newmarket Baptist Church from 1894. Ed’s little sister had died four years before, shortly after her birth, and when Ida was pregnant with Ed, the minister of the Moonee Ponds Baptist Church had laid his hands on her, blessed her, and told her she would have a child and that the child would live. Ed was due in December but arrived in October. He weighed 4 lbs. 2 oz and was 22 inches long. Long time friend of the family and Catholic priest, Rev Father Alan Johnston, visited the Women’s Hospital and blessed him. On 12th December 1937 he was enrolled as a Member of the Cradle Roll Department of the Newmarket Baptist Sunday School and on 2nd January 1938 he was baptised at St James’ Old Cathedral, in West Melbourne by Rev. R. J. Rowell.

His parents gave their address as ’52 Dover Street, Newmarket, W.1.’ Others in the same street wrote their address as ‘Flemington, W.1.’ In the same ho use was his mother’s older, single sister, Emily Meier, and Ed’s grandmother. She was simply known to all the people in Newmarket as ‘Old Mrs Meier’. She had married Edward Franz Meier – a Swiss – in her home town of Port Elizabeth in South Africa on 13th March 1886. The celebrant was Henry Thomas Cousins – a Baptist Minister. They then sailed to Melbourne and their names appear today on the ‘First Families Website’ set up by the Victorian Government. ‘Pop’ Meier had died in 1934.

Newmarket was a suburb that focussed its livelihood on the saleyards. Ed tells how, even when he was a boy that sheep and cattle and other live stock were driven along the streets to the sale yards on most days of the week. He recounts how the bush telegraph would advise people when a steer was loose in the streets and how one day his father asked him whether he would run to his mother or his father if he was in the street on such an occasion. After looking at them both in turn Ed had replied:

“Whichever of you was the closest”.

Ed’s use of English would improve but it seems he already had some of the tact that would help him as a Church Counsellor in his adult life.

In October 1940 when Ed turned three years of age he started Sunday School at the Newmarket Baptist Sunday School. At that time the church, which had begun in 1886 and been the biggest Baptist Church in Victoria in the first decade of the 20th century, had been de-constituted, and become a Home Mission Cause. His aunt, Emily Meier was the Sunday School Secretary and a band of loyal women ran the Sunday School.

The average church congregation, with preachers supplied by the Lay Preachers’ Society was usually about 10 middle-aged ladies. It was the war years and Ed was unable to start school at the local Bank Street State School until he was six years of age. He attended that school from 1943 until the end of 1949. By that time Ed had twice made a public Decision to follow Christ. The first was at the age of 8 – during his first year in the Senior Sunday School – on “Decision Sunday” when a group of youth missioners from the neighbouring suburb of Footscray had visited the Sunday School, and the second was when he was 11 years of age and attended an after-school mission held at the Flemington Presbyterian Church on behalf of the Protestant churches in Flemington/Newmarket. The missioners were Messrs. Roberts and White.

During this period the church had had a number of part-time lay pastors whose wives had run Junior Christian Endeavour meetings and Ed had was a member. In 1948, the Newmarket Baptist Church was reconstituted under the pastoral leadership of Rev Bert Hawley whom the Victorian Home Mission brought to Victoria from Queensland.

During his years at the Bank Street Primary School (No. 2608) Ed developed a stutter, which impeded his speech throughout all his school life. He rarely answered a question in the classroom. He was never in a school play. He was able to speak with his few close friends and family, but his circle of friends was never large. Unable to speak in Christian Endeavour meetings, or in testimony meetings at the Sunday School and Church he studied singling and would at such meetings sing his testimony.

Ed’s father died in July 1947 and his grandmother “Old Mrs Meier” died in December that same year. In 1949 his family sold the Dover Street residence and Ed and his mother and her single sister moved to Maribyrnong Road, Ascot Vale, one mile to the north. Ed and his aunt, Emily Meier, continued to worship at Newmarket. In Ascot Vale they were slightly closer to the Moonee Ponds Baptist Church, but it was in good health and the struggling cause at Newmarket still needed all the help it could get. And, as they said, they were not passing any other Baptist Church to do so; it was one stop by train.

In 1952 Ed commenced at Wesley College in his Sub-Intermediate Year [Year 9]. On 22nd February 1953, Ed was baptised at an evening service at the Newmarket Baptist Church by Rev J. R. Edmonds. It was the first time the marble baptistry had been opened in 15 years. Ed continued at Wesley College until his Matriculation Year. Wesley was a Methodist Boys’ College and the Headmaster of the time was Mr. W.F. Frederick (later to be Professor of Education at Melbourne University). Ed left Wesley at the end of 1955 and commenced work as a Public Servant – in the tradition of his widowed mother’ s brothers.

Ed worked as a Clerk in the Victorian office of the Commonwealth Public Service Board. His first year of work was 1956, the year of the Olympic Games in Melbourne. Early that year Ed discovered that a group of some 10 people, in his office, went each Wednesday to the lunch time service in The Scots Church. Until 1955, the preacher had been Dr F. W. Boreham, but in 1956 it was Rev Crighton-Barr, the Scots Church minister. That year all city churches were to be open for “Prayer for the Unity of Christian Churches” during the days between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost Sunday. One of Ed’s friends, an Anglican, suggested that they attend St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral so that Ed could hear – as his friend put it – “the great prayers of the Anglican Church”. They both went on the Monday and as they entered the cathedral there was a sign at the door saying ‘Bible Study Today’. There were no prayers for unity and the small man who led the Bible study had no microphone. But when Ed saw the same sign there a week later he ventured in and enjoyed it so much that he became a regular attendee at St Paul’s Cathedral each Monday. In years to come, Ed would learn that he had sat at the feet of Rev Dr. Leon Morris M.Sc., M.Th., Ph. D.

In June of that year he was transferred to a sub-section of his office where the Protestants and the Catholics sat in different groups for morning and afternoon tea. When he tried one day to sit with the Catholics he was ostracized by both groups and, thereafter, sat on his own in tea breaks. Following an argument between the two groups concerning what happened at the Novena Service at St Francis Catholic Church each Friday (a service which most Catholics in his office attended) Ed began attending there and was able to help break down the religious animosity which existed in his office.

As the Olympic Games drew closer, the two ministers of the Independent Church (Congregational) in Collins Street, Rev Lyall Dixon and Rev Henshall began a Thursday lunchtime service entitled ‘The Olympics of Faith’. Ed knew both men as they had spoken at Student Christian Movement meetings at Wesley College and he happily went along.

So it was that in November 1956, Ed had Tuesday lunch time to do any shopping. On Monday he was at St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral, On Wednesday at The Scot’s Church, on Thursday at the Independent Church, and on Friday at the Church of St Francis. And on Sunday he would serve and worship at the Newmarket Baptist Church.

Whilst Ed may not have known it, the seeds were taking root to establish his call to lay service in among the Churches of all denominations in the city of Melbourne, and indeed through out the state of Victoria.

Early Adult Years

When Ed was 18, the only male member of the Newmarket Church, Vern Parsons died. Vern had been Treasurer and the only Deacon, and was one of the little band of people who had held the Baptist Cause together during the days of its deconstitution. All had vowed that whilst they had life, the door of the Newmarket Baptist church would be open at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. each Sunday.

At that time the church operated under the umbrella of the Inner Suburban Baptist Work, superintended by Rev Sam Watson. Ed was the Sunday School Secretary – a job he had inherited from his aunt, Emily. The Sunday School Superintendent Cleve Lyster was the organist of the Swanston Street Church of Christ and so not present at worship at Newmarket. None of the ladies in the church wanted the job of Treasurer.

Letters were written to the Victorian Home Missionary Society and in turn to the Baptist Union for permission to appoint Ed as a church treasurer at the age of 18. Permission was given. Mr. F. H. Rollason, then Home Mission Treasurer and also a resident in Maribyrnong Road offered to tutor Ed in bookkeeping. For some months after Ed becoming treasurer of the church, Mr. Rollason would call in to help Ed balance the books and complete the Financial Statement, which financially supported Home Mission Churches had to complete.

In 1956 the Christian Endeavour organised a youth service. Ed gave the sermon: his first. Rev Sam Watson as Inner-City Superintendent was invited but at the last moment he had to deputise in Moe for the Victorian Home Mission Superintendent, Rev J. G. Manning. In turn Jack Manning came to the Newmarket service and it was at the after-church sing along that Jack commended Ed to apply to the Candidates Board.

At the 1956 Assembly Meetings of the Baptist Union of Victoria, held in the Conference Centre at the Exhibition Building [now the Royal Exhibition Buildings], Rev J. G. Manning introduced Ed to the newly inducted Union President, Rev A. R. Holland. In presenting Ed, Mr. Manning said:

“Mr. President, this is Ed Dickinson, our newest and youngest Home Mission Church Treasurer. I knew him before he was!”

For, it had been Rev. J. G. Manning who had laid his hands on Ed’s mother in her time of pregnancy with Ed.

During his days at primary school Ed had had piano lessons which he later continued at Wesley College, and as soon as he began work he began organ lessons and singing lessons.

In those days the Newmarket Church was allocated a student pastor from the Baptist College in nearby Errol Street, North Melbourne. The Home Mission selected the pastor: the church had little say in the process. The church struggled to meet the student’s stipend and the Home Mission made up the shortfall. As a general rule, with each new academic year one pastor would leave and another arrive.

In 1957 Ed, like all teenagers of his day, was called up to do National Service with the Army at Puckapunyal. He packed his Bible and on his first night in camp, bravely read it in his hut before lights were turned out. Interestingly, another teen-age boy in the same hut read his Bible as well. John Spargo, then an Anglican but a Baptist today, and Ed

were to become life long friends. It cannot be said that Ed enjoyed his time in the army, but he was a regular at the Church services and Church meetings run by the battalion’s chaplain, Rev. Ray Smith – a Methodist.

At a social for the national service troops, one evening, Padre Smith gave each national-serviceman a sheet of paper and asked that they list any positions they held in their church.

Ed’s list read:

Sunday School Secretary Leader of the Primary Class in the Sunday School Sunday School Pianist Secretary of the Church Badminton Club District ‘C Grade’ player of Badminton Club Deacon of the church Church Treasurer Church Secretary Church Deputy Organist Church Property Officer Church male soloist Secretary of the Church Christian Endeavour Society Chairman of the Christian Endeavour ‘What-So-Ever’ Committee Editor and Typist of the Church’s weekly News Sheet.

Ed also added a note on the reverse side of the sheet to say that he was the Secretary of the ‘F. J. Wilkin Society’, which was the Victorian Baptist Home Mission Youth Auxiliary.

If life in National Service was not easy, neither was life as the only male member of a small inner city Baptist Church. If a preacher was not available he led the service. On many Saturdays he was the lone member of a working bee, weeding the church paths, assisting the cleaner, and doing other jobs which no one else seemed to do.

While still working in the Office of the Public Service Board, Ed was approached by Mr. Rollason, then Chairman of the Home Mission Committee to accept nomination as the Baptist Union’s representative on the Public Service Committee of the newly formed Inter-Church Trade and Industry Mission, and within a year he became the lay representative on the Board of Management of that mission. He would remain a Director of I.T.I.M. for 28 years.

In his early 20′s Ed was introduced to the Baptist Young Men’s Easter Camp. This annual camp was held under canvas at Queen’s Park, Geelong. For his first years at the camp Ed slept on a palliasse of straw and later graduated to a camp stretcher. He continued to sing his testimonies at the campfires, but also played the organ for services and after two years became the editor of the ‘Barwon Broadcast’ – the daily newspaper of the camp. As Ed himself said often:

“Any resemblance between the truth of the matters and the reporting of camp events is usually accidental.”

In 1961 his career changed direction when he was promoted within the Commonwealth Public Service to the Defence Standards Laboratories. This Branch of the Commonwealth Department of Supply was situated on the banks of the Maribyrnong River and close to his home. While there he would be employed as a Technical Clerk in a Paint Research Laboratory, and as an Administrative Assistant to a number of Senior Research Scientists. These tasks of administration were all giving him skills which he would use as God continued to lead him into positions of leadership and administration in the Church. After three years at Maribyrnong he was transferred to Head Office of the Department of Supply in the Melbourne CBD. There he worked as a Personnel Officer, and Industrial Relations Clerk, and a Welfare Officer.

In the mid 1960′s, the Commonwealth Government began moving the Head Office of each Government Department to Canberra. The Department of Supply was named as one of the first to move.

This meant that the Newmarket Baptist Church was about to lose it’s one male member. The General Superintendent of the Baptist Union at the time was Rev. T. F. (Tom) Keyte. He asked Ed to visit him in his office in Albert Street, East Melbourne. Tom spoke to Ed about the ramifications of his move from Newmarket and then commented that as the Baptist Union saw it, the Newmarket Baptist Church would close. Although daunted by the clerical collar clad General Superintendent in his dark suit, the huge desk, the high ceilings of the old Albert Street Church, and the weaknesses of his own still undeveloped communication skills, Ed leant forward and said:

“Mr. Keyte, surely you believe that God is able to raise up a man to do the things at Newmarket that I do now, when I go to Canberra?”

Without hesitation, Tom Keyte said:

“Yes, Ed, I do . IF there’s a job to do.”

Ed left the office, disappointed. He believed that God had called him to work as a layman at Newmarket because God believed there WAS a job God wanted done at Newmarket.

Two weeks later Ed received a promotion to the Recruitment, Training and Welfare Section of the Postmaster General’s Department. This meant he would stay in Melbourne. A few weeks later Ed met Tom Keyte at a Baptist Union meeting. Mr. Keyte said:

“I see, Ed, that God has found a man to do His work at Newmarket, after all.”

Ed, still smarting from his visit to Tom’s office, replied:

“He didn’t need to Mr. Keyte; I have a new position in Melbourne so I’m staying here.”

The older man smiled. Tom Keyte now knew that God did have a job to do at Newmarket, and Ed was still needed there to do it.

Maturity and Professional Fulfillment

Ed’s move to the PMG was to bring about a change in his career path, which would set the pattern for his lay work in his mature years. In 1969, he joined a Rostrum (Public Speaking) Club, and became its Foundation Secretary. In Rostrum he would polish his skills as a speaker – a skill long under-developed due to the stutter he had had from primary school days until well into his twenties. In 1970 he transferred into the Training Section of the Central Office of the Postmaster Generals Department.

One day, his supervisor approached him to say that the Training Section had received a request for courses in public speaking skills. Ed’s immediate thought was that he would like to do such a course. But his supervisor continued:

“You’ve been a member of Rostrum now for over 12 months and you’ve been a Training Officer for two years. I figure you’re the best person to design the course. Bring your design to me before the end of the week.”

Ed designed a nine-hour course, consisting of three 3-hour sessions each, a week apart. His supervisor was pleased and told him he would start it the following Monday, in the State Offices in Treasurer Place Melbourne, for officers of the newly formed Environment Protection Authority. The staff of the E.P.A. was having difficulties communicating their message to the public. Ed would run the course for PMG staff as well, and later as news of the course filtered through the ranks of public service Departments, the PMG would agree to him running the course for the Commonwealth Department of Veterans’ Affairs as well.

At this time the Inter-Church Trade and Industry Mission, under the leader ship of Rev Lawrie Styles, was concentrating much of its efforts in helping lay people to relate their Sunday faith and practice to the decisions they had to make at work from Monday to Friday. Ed found himself using his training skills to run seminars for groups of interchurch industry groups. He also joined the Baptist Lay Preachers’ Society and was receiving a number of calls to fill Victorian pulpits.

Ed was also active in the Baptist Men’s Society of Victoria. When the indefatigable Victorian BMS Secretary, Josiah Boneham had chided Ed in the late 1950′s as to why there was no BMS Branch at the Newmarket Baptist Church, Ed had replied:

“Well Jo, I’m the only male member at Newmarket and if we had a Branch, I would be it.”

Jo responded by inviting Ed to become an Individual Member of the BMS, and to attend the State Council Meetings of the BMS. In 1979 he was nominated as the State President of the BMS. As a man in his early 30′s he was the youngest person to hold presidential Office. He was President for three years, and during his time as President Jo Boneham died – having been State Secretary for over 30 years. Ed’s years in Rostrum where he learned the skills of public speaking and chairmanship, served him well, as he chaired men’s meetings and addressed men’s teas and men’s church services throughout Victoria.

In the 1970′s, the major thrust of work in the Interchurch Trade and Industry Mission was helping businessmen to relate their faith to their work. As Ed sat with Rev Ray Jones in a café in the Southern Cross Hotel Complex one evening, Ed said to Ray:

“I don’t know whether the skills of preaching, counseling, church administration, care for people, and prayer, which I’ve learned in my church activities make me a better Training Officer in my work, or whether the skills of training men and women to be trainers – together with my courses in oral and verbal communication skills – make me a better servant of God in the church. You see, Ray, before I enter the pulpit – and having prepared my sermon prayerfully and conscientiously, I ask the Lord to enable me to use my skills as a trainer to lead the congregation into a learning experience of God’s will for them. But when I’m about to enter a training room to teach people a workskill, I ask the Lord to enable me to show my concern for these students – as people for whom Christ died – so that they may be enriched to develop the talents and skills which God has given them. There is no line in my life between the secular and the sacred.”

In 1970, the former Victorian Mobile Evangelist, Rev George Williams, came to Newmarket Baptist as an interim minister and he visited all homes in the area. At the Church Members’ Meeting in his final week, the church had to decide what it would do. There were offers from the Victorian Baptist Lay Preachers’ Society, and from Whitley College, and from the Baptist Men’s Society (of which Ed was then state president) to provide pulpit supplies until the next interim minister could be found. George Williams chaired the meeting. Ed was late as he had to attend a meeting of ITIM following work. When Ed arrived, a beaming George Williams told him that the Church wished to call him as preacher for the next six weeks or until a new interim pastor could be found. Ed accepted the call and filled the pulpit for 34 weeks until, on the return of Rev Norman Pell from his work with the Billy Graham Association to be General Superintendent of the Baptist Union of Victoria, Norm secured the services of Deaconess Marian Welford as part time student pastor. During that 34 weeks, Ed not only preached each Sunday, but organised the lady members of the church into a Visitation and Contact Group which networked all people in Newmarket with any connection to the Church.

So Ed continued to serve his Lord and Master at Newmarket Baptist. Whilst he shopped in Moonee Ponds for his mother, her often made small purchases in Newmarket shops which gave him the opportunity to see and be seen by local Newmarket people. In the late 1970′s when Dr Mark and Sue Garner came to the church Ed encouraged them in the youth work they commenced there. Cleve Lyster who was the Sunday School Superintendent of nearly 30 years told Ed that he had said, from the beginning, that he would leave when another man came to the church – who could take his job and support Ed in his calling. So Cleve left. Other young people would come to work with Mark and pastors such as Deacon Marian Welford, and later Sri Lankan post graduate student at Whitley College, Rev Rohan Wijisinghe, , brought stability to the church.

In 1980 the Newmarket Church called Rev Ken Luscombe as the full time pastor of the church, on his return from studies in Ruschlikon, Switzerland. Ken was the first full-time minister at the Newmarket Church since 1934. The church began to grow. Ed was able to relinquish his positions of Senior Deacon, and Church Treasurer and make way for younger Christian men and women. But he remained as organist and was a leader in many of the church groups. As the church membership grew to over 40, the church was able to call Rev Peter McLean as Associate pastor. When people queried how a church of such small number could have two full time pastors, Mark Garner would say that when the church had 10 adult members all donating a tenth of their weekly wage it had enough money to support one pastor, and with 20 adult workers it could support

two pastors. Ed agreed, but he added that it was not the 50 people who attended the church that required two pastors, it was the needs of a huge unchurched population that now lived in the Newmarket surrounds. High rise government housing developments, and cheap houses for university students and backpackers had greatly increased the population of Newmarket. Poverty and depression were rampant in the area, and whilst most other Protestant churches had closed, the Newmarket Baptist continued to proclaim a gospel of hope and the good news of Christ’s salvation.

By this time of Ed’s life he was also an active member of the Victorian Baptist Advisory Board, a Member of the Board of Management of the Interchurch Trade and Industry Mission, and in 1981 he became the State Secretary of the Baptist Men’s Society of Victoria, having been the Branch Promotion Officer for several previous years. In 1981 he also began to lecture in Oral Communication and Presentation Skills to final year Mechanical Engineer Students at the Clayton Campus at Monash University. He was still at Telecom Australia and they received the fee, but he gained the experience.

In 1983, Ed’s mother died. She was 89. She lived her last days at the Baptist Nursing Home at “Strathalan” in Macleod. In 1984 Ed resigned as a public servant and established his own business lecturing and teaching business communication skills and running courses in speed reading techniques. At the end of 1983 he had addressed the members of the Mandurina Singles Club on public speaking skills. There he met Gwen Patterson, the daughter of Keith Patterson – one of the Founding Prefects at Carey Baptist Grammar School. They became engaged in July 1984 – co-incidentally the month he resigned from Telecom Australia – and they married on 9th February 1985.

The married celebrant was Rev Ken Luscombe of Newmarket,; the homily was given by Rev Dr Graeme Garrett ( a former pastor of Ed at Newmarket Baptist, and of Gwen at Box Hill Baptist); Rev Peter McLean and his wife Linda were the duetists – both at the service (conducted at the Ringwood Baptist Church) and at the reception; and the Master of Ceremonies at the wedding was Rev R Kingsley Smith, then Secretary of the Baptist Union of Victoria. Ed and Gwen honeymooned in Switzerland, visiting his relatives – relations of ‘Pop’ Meier who had come to Australia in the 1980′s. On their return they lived at Ed’s family home in Ascot Vale and Gwen helped increase the congregation at the Newmarket Church.

In 1986 Revs Ken Luscombe and Peter McLean both resigned from the church and many of the church members who supported them left at the same time. The church membership dropped from over 40 to just under 10 people. For next several years, as the Baptist Union found part-time interim ministers, Ed became one of only two English speaking male members of the church. He was again back at the helm.

Together with Betty Lynch, whose parents had attended Newmarket prior to World War One, and who had been a member at Essendon Baptist and was now back at Newmarket, Ed’s wife Gwen commenced a Sunday School at Newmarket which they ran for many years.

In 1988, Ed was a competitor in the Jo Davis Cup, a speaking competition run by Australian Rostrum (Victoria) Inc. Ed had to present a ten minute speech. He went to the pastor of the church and said he would like to dedicate the speech that was based on St Paul’s words “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” to God, before he did it in the state semi-final. The minister suggested that he do it in the place of the sermon. Ed refused. He said it wasn’t a sermon. But on the day which Ed presented his speech to the Lord, the minister did not preach a sermon. A member of the congregation (though not a member of the church) complained to the deacons.

What was said there was not made public, but the minister told Ed that the deacons had placed a note in the Minute Book that Ed was never to preach at Newmarket again. Some months later, Ed turned down a preaching offer from the Baptist Preachers’ Society because he was to play the organ at Newmarket. He told the minister who said he must never do that. The minister encouraged him to take such appointments for Ed was, he told Ed, an excellent preacher. The minister said he would get someone to play the piano on such occasions. When Ed asked why he could not, then, preach at Newmarket, the minister simply smiled and said it was because there was a note in the minute book which said so. It should be noted that Ed’s speech was judged as the best at the competition, and still, today, he holds the silver trophy that he won.

A number of Ed’s friends, on learning this story asked him why he did not leave the church. His reply was simple He said:

“When I was a young man, I gave a testimony in this church, concerning my call to serve God, here, as a layman. In that testimony I said, ‘I shall not leave this church until He calls me to another place.’ To the best of my knowledge He has not called me elsewhere. A disappointment or two in this place, is not a call to move.”

In 1998 several people came to Ed and Gwen’s house asking if they would like to sell. The 21 square home built in 1924 on land with a 60-foot frontage and a 200-foot depth was becoming hard to maintain. Ed and Gwen had it valued. Towards the end of the year, Rev Eileen Ray who had been minister at Newmarket Baptist resigned. Somehow she heard about the valuation of Ed’s house. She visited him. She said she and her husband loved the house and would pay him and Gwen the value of the house, in cash, if they would sell. They did. They bought a unit in Burwood – over 30 kilometres from Newmarket, but nearer to Gwen’s aging mother and ill niece. When friends asked if he would still worship at Newmarket he said:

“Oh. No. When I worshipped at Newmarket I shopped in Newmarket. Never in my life have I driven past one Baptist Church to get to my own. I have preached on the necessity to worship where you live and move and have your being. That’s why I shopped in Newmarket. God sent one of his servants to buy my house. He knew my time at Newmarket was over. The church is in the good hands of Rev David Horsey. The church has been faithful to the Word. I now worship at the Ashburton Baptist Church: the place where my wife and I know we have been called. We both received that call and knew it was from God. God is faithful to his servants.”

Conclusion

Ed, too, has been faithful to his call: the call to serve God as a layman and at Newmarket. He says his mother used to warn him about becoming too big a fish in too small a pond. But his call to a wider service beyond the boundaries of a local church (while still serving there) have enabled him to be a willing servant of a large community.

In his semi-retirement today, at 63 years of age, he says he is a professional public speaker and a tutor of oral skills. Whilst his presentations are of a truly professional standard he is paid for few of them. In the financial year of 1999-2000 he had 141 speaking engagements. For 16 of these he received a professional fee. 30 presentations, including services of worship and devotions at elderly citizens’ homes were made, gratis, for the Church. He spoke 29 times at Rostrum Meetings; 57 times at Rotary International meetings, and 9 times for other organisations; he received no fee for any of these.

In the book of devotions entitled ‘A Garden of Solitude’, edited by Rev Rowland Croucher, and published in 1998, Ed has contributed a chapter titled ‘With all your mind’. In it, he talks about the ability to be in a constant state of prayer. He concludes with a statement born out of his lifetime of teaching mind skills and communication skills and his service of his Lord. He says:

“We need never cease praying. So we truly understand what it is to live a life of prayer. All that we do becomes dedicated to our Lord and ‘without ceasing’ we love him with all our mind.

Part of the prayer with which he ends this passage reads:

“As I so pray, Lord, so must I act in accordance with your will for me.”

This is the testimony of a man CALLED TO LAY SERVICE.

Written by Ed F. Dickinson <>

21 March 2001

Unit 2

15 Renown Street

Burwood, Victoria. 3125

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