Chairman of Well-Being Australia Mark Tronson says it has been his privilege to have been a receiptent of wisdom from numerous such people leading up to and during his 18 years of founding the Sports and Leisure Ministry, 17 years as the Australian cricket team chaplain, and now 29 years in faith financed mission.
One of these people was F P McMaster.
The Late Reverend F P McMaster MBE., was Minister of Canberra Baptist Church for 29 years. In 1960 our family holidayed from Mackay to Sydney, Canberra and Batlow.
My father's cousin Grant McIntyre from Canberra convinced mum & dad they should give their children a Canberra education. And so it was, we sold up in Mackay. We had helped build the fibro Mackay Baptist Church in 1958, it was short sleeves all year round.
Imagine the contrast to a young lad of nine entering the cathedral like Canberra Baptist Church with its red brick and stone, stained glass, pipe organ, carved timber high pulpit, a Minister who wore clerical collar with preaching robes, the two part classical hymns and astonishing acoustics.
This was entering into the holiest of holies, the very throne room of praise and adoration, and when I the stutter' sang in this Sanctuary my voice was precise and clear. I felt the very hand of God touch my life. I was a boy, assuredly with a clear sense of Call for a day yet to come.
Sunday School Superintendents' Mr & Mrs Enos & May Clark (we named our second daughter after "Hayley May" after Mrs Clark), Mr Callum Sunday School teacher, Bill Hellier Canberra Baptist hockey coach, Mr Welsh cricket coach, Mr Joyce youth leader, annual Easter youth camps at Bundanoon - all played their part.
F P McMaster baptized me by immerson upon my confession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, on the 16th July 1967. I was 15. His sermon from Ephesians was titled: "One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism". Years later at my Ordination, F P McMaster said that in his many years of Ministry and doing baptism interview classes, "Mark was the only one ever to interview me".
I left home when 16 to start as a trainee engineman, on the NSW Government Railways at Goulburn, and transferred to Port Kembla a year later and responded to the Call to Christian Ministry entering Theological College in 1977 from Port Kembla Baptist Church.
I sought out F P McMaster throughout these years of academic reflection and asked him to preach at my Ordination Service on 6 February 1981. Four years later I invited him to assist me by becoming a foundation Board Member of the Sports & Leisure Ministry I'd initiated under Heads of Churches for which he served for five years.
He gladly accompanied me when we negotiated Chaplaincy at both Canberra Raiders and the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra. He was a mentor par-excellence.
F P McMaster found a willing student in me as he imparted a philosophy of Ministry. He'd spend the morning with political and embassy dignitaries and the afternoon visiting the poor drinking tea from a cracked cup.
He taught thorough preparation yet open to spontaneity from the Holy Ghost. His pulpit prayers invited the soul to experience the welcoming arms of the angels. He impressed the "High Calling" of Ministry, to trust God given instincts regardless to whom one might be speaking.
Let go and let God. Develop a theology of expectancy. Worshipping God is with one's whole life and being, with undivided attention. Be strong and of one mind in Christ, knowing there are forces within and without.
These were lessons a young Minister required for his spiritual and practical quiver.
