Forty Years of Ministry - An Appreciation

On Saturday evening past, Suzanne the family and I had the great joy of being present at a retirement function for Suzanne's dad as he retired from pastoral ministry. Gareth had served for exactly forty years and had most recently served in the Stranmillis congregation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a denomination to which I owe my own training for the ministry. I first met Gareth when I had applied for the post of student worker within the Stranmillis Congregation, having met and married his daughter (a risky strategy ill admit) I have got to know him better over the past number of years. As I reflected on his ministry I have much to be thankful to him for,  Paul instructed the believers in Corinth to be imitators of him as he was of God and over the course of my ministry I have tried my best to imitate Gareth in so many ways as he was a faithful, caring shepherd of the congregations that he served as their under shepherd.

1. His love for the LORD, most of all what impressed me about Gareth was his love for the LORD, in the forty years of gospel ministry Gareth kept his love for the LORD fresh, to hear him pray was to listen to someone whose relationship with God was fresh. The danger for pastors is the professionalisation of ministry, being a minister becomes something we are, something that defines us and our relationship with the LORD. For me listening to Gareth that never felt like the case, he loved the God who saved him, he served the God who saved him faithfully and it never felt to me like his passion and love for the LORD waned.

2. His love for God's word, Gareth loved preaching, he loved teaching people God's word, he loved showing people how the truth of God's word shaped and moulded them. He would think nothing of jumping in the car, driving for two hours to go and share God's word with a group of young people, with a group of older people anyone who asked him to come and share God's word if Gareth could do it he would. His application of God's word to society was also very refreshing, his wider minister on Radio Ulster's thought for the day and his monthly column in the Belfast Telegraph showed that society at large valued what Gareth had to say and his application of the bible to society.

3. His love for God's people, there is a running joke in our house that whenever the phone rings, or there is a difficult pastoral situation to deal with we ask ourselves the question WWGNBD, what would Gareth Norman Burke do? Invariably what Gareth would do would be the caring compassionate thing. To spend time with people, to listen, to try and help. I can't think of a single pastoral situation that I have faced where trying to think what would Gareth do has led to poorer outcomes. His love for God's people is what I have tried to copy most. Gareth thought nothing of spending time with people investing in people but in all that trying to lead them down the road of righteousness.

4. His love for the mission of the church, Gareth has a passion for the worldwide ministry of the church, heading to Kenya, to South Sudan, to Nigeria in an attempt to train pastors, in support of missionaries and to see the church of God expand. Ministers are so busy these days that it can be hard to lift our eyes beyond our immediate parish. For Gareth the parish of Stranmillis was never the be all and end all his vision was for the world wide church.

5. His durability Gareth served for forty years and he had in that time two Sunday's off sick, I have been involved in ministry in one shape or another now for 17 years, in that time I have been blessed by God with relative good health. However there have been times when I have been tempted to give in, to give up, to stop doing ministry to go and do something else. Its at those times that the internal sense of call sustains you but Gareth served faithfully for forty years, he stuck at it, he plugged away and he did what the LORD called him to do.

I know its uncommon for son in laws to speak well of their father in law but I hope I am a better minister today for meeting Gareth, for seeing how he works up close. Every minister I have worked with or under I have tried to learn something from them, to take their good points to imitate them as they imitated God. These are just some of the ways that Gareth has impressed me over the years, he is an encourager, a source of wisdom but most of all a faithful servant who is worthy of imitation as he modelled God to his congregation.