Excellence in Leadership: Essays in Honour of Peter and Merrill Corney

By Denise Cooper-Clarke

Peter and Merrill Corney spent most of their working life in one church, St Hilary’s Kew, yet they shaped the nature of church life and inspired a generation of leaders across Australia. Excellence in Leadership is a tribute to them on the occasion of Peter’s 80th birthday.
Following an introduction by Stephen Hale, Denise Cooper-Clarke outlines the stories of the Corney’s lives and Paul Perini describes what it is like to follow after a great leader. The next eleven chapters each deal with a specific area of ministry, and the authors were asked to answer two questions: what was the unique contribution of Peter and Merrill in this area, and what are the issues faced in this area of ministry today?
The areas covered are evangelism (Stephen Abbott), raising up and releasing leaders (Karl Faase), engaging children and families (Sue Bluett), women in leadership (Tracy Lauersen), youth ministry (Peter Carolane), preaching (Anthea McCall), creativity (Russell Lloyd), pastoral care (Steve Webster), justice and mercy (Deb Storie), connecting with our culture (David Fuller) and cross-generational ministry (Mark McDonald).
Peter and Merrill’s passion for an authentic Christian life that witnesses to the gospel in thought, word and deed shines through each essay, as well as the great love and esteem in which they are held.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Acorn Press
• Release date: Jan 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9780647519769

Denise Cooper-Clarke

Denise Cooper-Clarke is an ethicist and researcher for ethos, the Evangelical Alliance Centre for Christianity and Society, Australia.

Book preview

1995.

Introduction

Stephen Hale

There are very few ministers who one could genuinely say shaped the nature of church life as we know it. I don’t think it is going too far to say that that is true of Peter and Merrill!

The 1960s and 1970s were times of social ferment and significant change. Church life in that era was largely denominationally aligned and uniform. Many churches saw the collapse of their once-very-large Sunday schools and youth groups. Peter and Merrill were great readers of culture and social trends. They somehow sensed what was going on and forged new models of doing church that pioneered a way to respond to those changes. Those responses were innovative in their era and then became the norm in many, many churches in the years that followed. Some of those churches probably have noidea where the ideas or models originated from, but some of them undoubtedly came from the models and ideas developed at St Hilary’s Kew.

In this tribute book, we have wanted to ask two questions:

What was the unique contribution of Peter and Merrill Corney in a range of areas?

That was then, this is now. What responses should we be reflecting upon in doing mission and ministry today?

Denise Cooper-Clarke opens the book by telling Peter and Merrill’s story. Many people are probably familiar with some of it but not all of it. You’ll enjoy this lovely outline. Paul Perini has penned an important chapter about following on from a great one. As the one who has followed after Paul, I should say that is still a challenge today!

One of the remarkable aspects of the ministry of Peter and Merrill Corney’s both prior to and at St Hilary’s was its comprehensiveness. This book reflects some of the distinctive features of Peter and Merrill’s ministry, captured in the chapters presented by our eleven contributors. It reflects the remarkable nature of what is sometimes referred to as an ‘all round ministry.’ Most of us ministers are probably considered to be pretty good in a few areas and okay at a range of others. When reflecting back on Peter and Merrill, I think one of the features was the breadth of their interests and their contribution.

So what were some of Peter and Merrill’s interests? This will be a long list and is in no particular order: preaching, Christian education, children’s and families’ ministries, youth ministry and outreach, leadership, music, women in leadership and ministry, organisational theory and practice, evangelism and church growth, culture and sociology, psychology and wellbeing, creativity and cultivating the arts, pastoral care and the small-group movement, justice and mercy, marriage, family life, cross-cultural mission, generations and cross-generational ministry, camping, church finances, governance, politics and international affairs, ethics, global mission and networking (have I missed something?).

When we say an all-round ministry, what do we mean? The Anglican Ordinal captures it in these timeless words:

proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Seek the lost, announce God’s justice, warn and correct those in error … encourage and build up the body of Christ, preaching the word of God, leading God’s people in prayer, declaring God’s forgiveness and blessing, and faithfully ministering the sacraments of God’s grace with reverence and care … take your part in the life and councils of the Church. Be a pastor … Be a teacher … Lead the people of God … Love and serve the people … caring alike for young and old, rich and poor, weak and strong.¹

That’s a daunting list, and most ordinands feel the weight of it. In God’s providence, it is hard not to put a tick next to each of those areas when we reflect on the Corneys’ ministries.

One of the most obvious ways Peter transformed people’s views of ministers and ministry was to move from a focus on minister as pastor to minister as leader. The dominant model in the preceding era was the model of minister as ‘pastor pastorum.’ Ministers preached the word of God and ministered to the sick and dying. It was a largely passive/reactive approach. The church was an established entity with an active constituency, and the minister was there to pastor and care for the flock. Peter, through his teaching and preaching, was able to recapture a sense of the minister being the leader of the team. The lead minister leads the staff and lay leadership teams to fulfil the church’s mission and vision. Mission and vision were defined and the focus was intentional. All of that seems so obvious and normal these days, but was radical and ground breaking in that era.

Peter and Merrill had a vision for involving children in church and for supporting parents to disciple their children. Youth ministry and outreach was a huge focus. Contemporary worship was radical and innovative in its era. The small group revolution was central at St Hilary’s as it grew and embraced a culture of mutual care. Systems for welcome were developed and youth outreach was a big feature.

Many of the distinctives of Peter’s approach were captured and popularised in the books and studies that he wrote. Peter was respected across the evangelical spectrum and was often called upon to speak or lecture at many different gatherings. His foundation leadership of the Arrow Leadership Program Australia from 1995 onwards introduced a new generation to his thinking, and the impact was significant and continues to this day.

While Peter and Merrill drew on the best of international thinking, I would suggest that they made an impact because they were deeply grounded in local ministry and were Australian. They were speaking and doing it in our tough secular context. They picked up on key ideas and indigenised them.

In a broad sense, Peter and Merrill were part of a crossover generation of evangelicalism in Australia. Many significant friendships and networks evolved out of the Billy Graham Crusades in Australia; those networks became a catalyst for many other groups or activities. They transcended denomination and the tyranny of distance that comes of being a large island nation with a small population widely spread apart. As a respected leader and teacher, Peter was able to draw on those networks as he spoke into the future and in that way connected with the next generation coming through.

Enjoy this book as we give thanks for Peter and Merrill Corney and all that God has done in and through them.

Peter and Merrill on a holiday on Long Island, Whitsundays, 1995.

______________________

1.   The Anglican Church of Australia, A Prayer Book for Australia, Broughton Publishing, Mulgrave, 1995, p. 793.

1

Telling Their Stories

Denise Cooper-Clarke

It was in his early twenties, having just finished an apprenticeship in cabinet making, that Peter Corney made a difficult decision – to do his matriculation. Having left school at fifteen, being dyslexic, and having ‘never read a book in his life’, he had planned to start his own business designing and making furniture. But a call to Christian ministry changed all that.

Though his family were not churchgoers, and he had never been to Sunday school, Peter became a Christian in his teens through a friend at Guildford Grammar in Perth inviting him to what was then called the Crusader Union (later Inter-School Christian Fellowship [ISCF]): ‘For me it was a very clear cut conversion, because I had no Christian background at all, and a significant change in my life as well.’

During his apprenticeship, he attended Scripture Union (SU) camps and beach missions, which were important in shaping his views about evangelism. Another significant influence was ‘Doc Brittain’, leader of the Crusader group: ‘There was something about him that we all respected – the sincerity and integrity of his faith.’ Later, Peter attended League of Youth Bible studies every Friday night, many of them led by Walter Spencer, the Church Missionary Society (CMS) General Secretary in WA. He also went regularly to the Keswick Convention at Kalamunda. His first public performance was a solo at the Convention, where he sang ‘I’d Rather Have Jesus than Silver or Gold’, and he can still remember the words! Peter describes SU, Crusaders and League of Youth as the three groups that built a whole new generation of young evangelical leaders in WA.

But these were all parachurch groups; Peter still had no significant influence from the church, attending North Perth Baptist youth group and church only occasionally. Then, at about eighteen, he was invited to run a youth group at St Luke’s in Maylands, one of only a handful of evangelical Anglican churches in Perth, and not far from where he lived: ‘That was good fun and went well, so obviously I had some sort of gift for that.’ The minister at St Luke’s, Sid Lawrence, who was a Ridley College graduate, must have seen Peter’s potential, because a few years later he encouraged him to apply to Ridley with a view to being ordained. Another close friend, Bob Clark, who had been at school with Peter, also influenced the decision, as he decided to go onto the Baptist ministry at around the same time (and later became Superintendent of the Baptist Union in WA).

Peter spoke to David Williams, who was then teaching at Ridley, and whom he knew through League of Youth camps. David told him he needed matriculation before he could apply to Ridley. So Peter started adult matriculation:

By that stage I was really keen and starting to read more, but I had to really apply myself. Becoming a Christian made me want to learn, so despite my learning difficulties, I just persevered. I couldn’t spell properly. That was hard work. I’m still not a very good speller. But I passed and passed extremely well, which was a surprise to everybody, including me.

His subjects included art. He had always been interested in art (his mother was an artist) and did a certificate in fine art at night school during his apprenticeship.

Ridley had the biggest ever number of applicants that year (1960) as a result of conversions at the 1959 Billy Graham Crusade, but Peter was accepted to study theology. He had talked to the Archbishop of Perth, an Anglo-Catholic, who told him he would not receive any support from the diocese unless he went to a theological college of their choosing. But a friend from league of Youth, John Deakin, offered Peter financial assistance if he needed it. He only called on him once, because he’d saved some money during his apprenticeship and would return to Perth to work in the holidays.

Peter travelled to Melbourne by train with another good friend, Ken Drayton, who had also decided to go into the Anglican ministry. Neither of them had ever left WA before.

Studying at Ridley was a whole new experience, but Peter loved it. His fellow students were mostly single men, including an opera singer, an ex-soldier from the Korean War, and a milkman. He played college football and volleyball (which became a life-long passion). Dr Stuart Barton Babbage, Dean of Melbourne and Principal of Ridley, became a role model as a preacher and an evangelist; he was a wonderful communicator and storyteller. He was also very helpful in giving Peter work during the holidays. One of these jobs was a lay readership (today it would be called a student placement), for which there was a small payment, at St Mark’s Reservoir. Peter went to run the youth group. He remembers the first time he travelled to St Mark’s on the West Preston tram. As with many post-war suburbs, there was a small church (about 40 adults), but a very large Sunday school of 500 children, meeting in two sessions. And the Sunday school was run by a young woman named Merrill Miller.

Merrill’s parents were believers, though not regular churchgoers when she was young: her mother was part of Mother’s Union and Merrill attended Sunday school from the age of four. So, she grew up believing in Jesus, but describes her faith as uninformed and says that

It wasn’t really until Peter came on the scene that I really heard the gospel in a way that turned me on. I hadn’t really understood the atonement or why Jesus died. Peter explained it in a way that I suddenly understood, through his Bible studies.

Merrill had attended Coburg High School, in itself an educational achievement. At that time, there were only a handful of government high schools in Melbourne and they accepted only the top ten students from the local primary schools. Unlike Peter, Merrill had been an avid reader from an early age (and still is).

After completing her Leaving Certificate, Merrill became a youth worker in the Physical Education Department of the YWCA, teaching exercise classes for women and helping run camps for three years. Then she was employed by Lakeside High School to teach physical education, but because they were very short staffed, she also taught geography and science. She had no formal qualifications in teaching, but had been teaching Sunday school from the age of thirteen and calisthenics from fifteen, so had a lot of teaching experience. Because of the baby boom, schools were desperate for teachers. Many of the teachers at the school were untrained and, according to Merrill, some of them were the better teachers because they were mature and had life experience. She then was asked to teach music ‘because the music teacher that they had had to use a whistle to control the class, and they discovered that I didn’t need anything.’ Merrill was a natural at teaching and she loved it. The school didn’t have enough buildings, so she would ride her bike between four different church halls to teach her classes.

Some of Merrill’s friends encouraged her to go along to Peter’s Bible studies. Her reaction was, ‘Strike, this bloke’s the best youth worker I’ve ever seen, he’s got something.’ During Peter’s time at St Mark’s Reservoir, many young people who had no church background were converted and have continued in various roles in the church. As Merrill recalls, ‘There was a real movement of the Spirit, I’ve never seen so many people converted so quickly. It was a mini revival.’

Peter recalls his first glimpse of Merrill when he walked into the large Sunday school hall: ‘Here’s this very attractive young woman with a hat (everyone wore a hat), controlling about 200 kids, and I thought, Wow. She’s pretty good.’ But it took a while for Peter and Merrill to get together, because, according to Merrill, Peter was ‘very shy.’

Peter graduated from Ridley at the end of 1962, and Peter and Merrill were married on 4 January 1963. He was ordained in February 1963 and sent as curate to Holy Trinity Doncaster, where Jock Ryan was the vicar. (Peter had intended to go back to Perth after his training, but it never worked out that way.) Peter was based at St Mark’s Templestowe, a branch church of Holy Trinity, and he also ran the youth group at Doncaster. Merrill got a job as a physical education teacher at Templestowe High, when Templestowe consisted mostly of orchards. Doncaster was the fastest growing suburb in Melbourne, so there were many young families.

Peter and Merrill on their wedding day, 4 January 1963.

In the Corneys’ third year at Templestowe, their first son Timothy was born, and Bill Lloyd approached Peter to run the youth group at St Hilary’s. Bill could see the potential as there were so many teenagers in the area. So Peter was employed by St Hilary’s, technically as a curate, but actually as a full-time youth worker – the first in the diocese. This was a very creative, productive and exciting time. In 1965, there were momentous cultural shifts. The Baby Boomers were now teenagers, and the culture began to be dominated by teenagers; businesses and advertising focused their attention on them. Then there was the sixties counterculture, the Paris riots, civil rights demonstrations in the US, hippies and the Jesus movement, all happening between 1965 and 1975. ‘It was a wonderful time to do youth work, it was hard to go wrong. And I think one of my gifts was to be able to read what was happening in the culture, and work out how to make it work.’ The revival of folk music, through the protest movement, led to folk rock, which was ideal for adaptation to church music because there was an emphasis on lyrics, it was very singable and it appealed to young people. Youth services began at St Hilary’s, and The Stirrers band was formed.

In Peter’s third year at St Hilary’s, Bishop Sambell invited him to become Youth Director for the Melbourne diocese. Bill Lloyd was very reluctant to let him go, so Peter did both jobs part-time for a year, until it was clear that wouldn’t work. Then he went to work for the diocesan Department of Christian Education (DCE) and started the adventure camping program. Many other St Hilary’s people were