This week I attended the funeral of Joe Mullins. Joe died old and full of years (103 of them). He and his wife Edith (who died in 2009) had six children, and what seems to me like a bajillion grand-children and great grand-children.
Joe had come to the Lord as a teenager through the boys’ holiday camp ministry of Eric “Bash” Nash through Scripture Union in the UK. Bash was a master evangelist and through his ministry many of the most influential men of 20th century British evangelicalism were formed. People like John Stott, Nicky Gumble, Dick Lucas and even the present Archbishop of Canterbury all went on Bash's camps.
When WW2 rolled around Joe signed up, but the military is a difficult place to cultivate one’s faith and Joe would have said at the time that he was a backslidden Christian. Then, while in Burma in the final weeks of the war a Japanese sniper lined him up and hit three times. The first hit broke through the top of the then 25-year-old's steel helmet before apparently falling out the back. A second entered above one ear and dropped out the other side of the helmet. The third ricocheted off the side. I’ve put my fingers in the holes.
It's hard to imagine a louder wake-up call. Joe felt the Lord was saying to him “Your life doesn’t belong to you” and after the war he became a clergyman in the Church of England. Joe became a powerful preacher and a bold personal evangelist.
After a circuitous route that involved meeting and marrying Edith while pastoring in India, Joe ended up in the brand-new suburbs of Weston Creek, where he and Edith planted St Peters Anglican Church in 1974.
St Peters begat St Matthews Anglican Church in Wanniassa
St Matthews begat Lanyon Valley Anglican Church
And Lanyon begat Renew
At different moments in the funeral all the descendants stood up and we could see his lineage stretching on. It was hard not to think of how that helmet saved each of their lives.
But even better was to be able to imagine the thousands of people who had been blessed by the ministry of those four churches over these last 50 years. 50 years of people exploring and finding faith in Jesus, being encouraged to stay firm in him through each season of life. Had those bullets hit at a slightly different angle, we might not be gathering this Sunday. In the Lord’s providence, that helmet saved us too.
grace and peace,
Steve