The challenge of change

Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church

The decision to leave Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church has been a difficult one. I began to wonder about my future four months ago when I sensed administering the church was becoming a greater role than pastoring the church. That bothered me.

This is one of the dangers of a large church. Travis, my wife, Margaret, and I’s son—also the minister of a large church—calls it feeding the beast. It’s about working hard to simply keep the wheels turning. That can be frustrating.

Having asked about our future, Margaret and I have spent much time thinking, talking and praying. I’ve spent time talking to a few people (particularly our head elders), including administrators of Avondale College of Higher Education and of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in northern New South Wales.

The most difficult thing about making this decision: I know I have the support (and the desire) for me to continue from most of the church. I don’t leave feeling unloved—the opposite, in fact.

In the end, I made my decision to leave for several reasons, but they can be summed up as my belief that it is best for us and for the church. As you can guess, this church is not an easy one to pastor and it can be all-consuming.

The church is in the midst of significant change. The average age of our year-round congregation has dropped dramatically with an increase in the number of families with children. We’re also gearing up to tackle some core issues I expect will take more years than I have left in ministry. Now is probably the best time to bring in pastoral change.

I leave with warm memories. I leave with few regrets (I didn’t always get it right). And I leave sensing God has used my ministry in significant ways.

As I close the door on this time of ministry, I know what I’m going to miss most. You.

This is Bruce’s last column for Connections. Post your farewells below or on Avondale’s Facebook.

 

Learning from the legacy of Apple’s Steve Jobs

Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church

“If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” That quote made Steve Jobs focus on what he loved to do.

Jobs, co-founder of Apple and founder of Pixar Animation Studios (think Toy Story), died last week of pancreatic cancer.

In June 2005, he addressed graduating students at Stanford University (Palo Alto, California, USA). He referred to discovering the quote and said, “Since then, for the past 33 years, I’ve looked in the mirror and asked myself, If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today? And whenever the answer has been ‘no’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

This has been his guiding philosophy through a life of highs and lows. He went from working in a garage at 20 to leading a $US2 billion organisation with 4000 employees at 30. Then he was sacked—it was public and highly humiliating.

But it led to “the most creative period of my life.” That’s when he started another computer company, NeXT, and Pixar.

“Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.”

Apple bought out NeXT and called Jobs back as chief executive officer to turn a then-failing company around.

By the time of his graduation address, he’d had surgery for pancreatic cancer. Death had become more than a “useful but purely intellectual concept.” “Remembering I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

And to help us know how to live before we die.