An Anniversary Missed, a Good Man and Some Good Times Remembered

I realised this morning, as I walked my dog Jazz in this morning's spring sunshine, that I let the 30th anniversary of my song presently known as "Brother, Sister Let Me Serve You" go by without comment or acknowledgment. I finished writing it in either December 1976 or January 1977, so the 3o years would have rolled by in December 2006 or January 2007. Sue and I had not been long in Whangarei then, having moved up here in October 2006.

The original St Paul's Singers were given a perfect excuse to come together on the weekend just gone. The life and ministry of the man who was our Vicar in the early 1970s was being remembered and celebrated in a memorial service at St Mary's, Parnell, in Auckland. Father Kenneth Prebble had passed away, at a grand age of 93 on June the 18th of this year. We, the original St Paul's Singers, sang "Brother Sister..." at that service. It was with some pride that he claimed to be the Vicar of St Paul's when I wrote it. Now that he is gone I would like to set the record straight. He was not the Vicar of St Paul's then. He had ceased to be the Vicar of St Paul's in 1974. It was to my wife Sue's and my chagrin that he arrived back from his sabbatical in 1974 to announce his resignation from the post of Vicar of St Paul's. This meant (hence our chagrin), that he would not conduct our wedding scheduled for December of that year.

I hate to be the destroyer of this myth, but to soften the blow for those who would have liked it left intact, the writing of this song drew much inspiration from Fr. Prebble's tenure at St Paul's. It was in that time that that the St Paul's singers were formed and did much to influence the worship of many churches in the mainline denominations mainly through their commitment to the worship at their home parish, St Pauls, Symonds St, their record albums, their touring and visiting churches in New Zealand and their appearances at the Christian Advance Ministries Summer Schools (charismatic conventions) on the Massey University campus in Palmerston North. It was at this time that the Singers began to explore the possibilities of writing our own material, much of which ended up on their record albums and in the St Paul's Outreach Trust's songbooks, chief of which was "New Harvest.

It was those evening services on Wednesdays and Sundays under Father Prebble's leadership that were a source of much inspiration for the songs I wrote back then. A great sense of family and of community was engendered in these services and then celebrated with a great sense of occasion in the Sunday morning Eucharists. We heard many inspiring testimonies from our parishioners for whom God had become startlingly real as they learned to open up to the leading and inspiration of the Holy Spirit in and through those services. And we had some very good teaching and theology in those services, along with spontaneous reflections on Christian life and faith from many in the congregation.

Father Prebble shared the teaching spots with people like Pentecostal pastor John Childers, who hailed from Las Vegas and was very much a part of our 'family', and the reflections of Colin Cole, Auckland talented dress designer and father of 8 daughters, were always worth our close attention.

It was out of this spiritual gumbo that the song, that has been sung around the world for more that thirty years now, originally emerged.

Tune this way again soon as I give you more reflections on this song and the times in which arose. And do add in your own thoughts and corrections. I hang out desperately for them.

Love to all who sang on Saturday 20th September at St Mary's. Love too to all who wanted to be there and couldn't - we missed you! Thanks, God for the good life, the Spirit-led ministry and the inspiration of Father Kenneth Prebble who gave us so much. Our love to his tribe, may they ever increase.

Richard