When Lis Harrison prepared to retire from her speech pathology career at the end of last year, she had no real plans for what would come afterwards. But God was setting the stage for a complete change – a ministry traineeship at her church.

“I suspect I might be one of the oldest ministry trainees that ever existed!” she says with a laugh. “This is the first ministry job I’ve ever had, and I’m perfectly happy being a novice. Coming from a job with masses of experience where you know what you’re doing, that’s a big shift, but I’m having a ball.”

Mrs Harrison and her husband attend the newly renamed Village Church Concord. It has been moving towards a merger with Annandale since the beginning of the year, and it became official in July.

Discussions about a potential merger began last September following the departure of Concord North’s previous rector, and the parish’s recognition that it could not afford to pay for both a minister and his accommodation (Concord North has no rectory).

A meeting with Annandale’s rector, the Rev Dominic Steele, was suggested by the local bishop Michael Stead and, as one of the parish wardens, Mrs Harrison was part of the conversation from the outset.

“At the beginning we were a bit sceptical – we knew nothing about the process,” she says. “We also thought, ‘Annandale? That’s a long way away. There are closer parishes’. We’ve learned a lot since then about mergers and how they work… and it’s actually been very straightforward, although everyone had to go through the same process of, ‘How will this work? What will it look like? Will we get taken over?’

“It’s not easy to go through lots of little changes because things start being done differently early on. How the services are run, what the slides look like up the front and so on and, for a couple of people, the concern was that it was all happening too fast. It has happened rather quickly, but I can confidently say that everybody is very positive about it.”

It was during one of these early meetings that Mrs Harrison met Mr Steele’s wife, Catherine, and while they were chatting, she mentioned her upcoming retirement. As soon as Mr Steele heard about it, he said, “I think I’ve got a job for you”.

“That was all it was!” Mrs Harrison recalls, chuckling again. “And at the end of the year we had a conversation about what he had in mind – 2½ days a week in an unpaid position, doing ministry, and they would train me.

“Since then, I’ve thought about how this would be a great idea for other people as well. I’ve had a long and successful full-time career that I really enjoyed, and now that I’ve retired, what do you do with your retirement?”

Says Mr Steele: “Because Lis already knows Concord, she has a lot of understanding about what is and isn’t going to work there. She’s also having a great time in her first year of retirement, bringing all that energy to the ministry of the gospel in a place that she loves! It’s been super-encouraging.”

He adds that at the first meeting between himself and the wardens at Concord, they asked what the goal would be for the church if it joined with Annandale. His answer was to take on the diocesan goal of 5 per cent conversion growth at Concord in the next 12 months – just as, under God, staff were working to achieve at Annandale.

So, there is plenty afoot at Concord North these days. It has a new site pastor in Damien Clark, the members who need it are being trained in everything from sound desk operation to Bible study leadership, helpers from Annandale come over for kids’ ministry at the Sunday service and, most importantly, more people are coming through the door of the church.

“There has been a change in the past six months in that people who sometimes came to church are coming more often – instead of seeing them a few times every year, we’re now seeing them a few times every month,” Mrs Harrison says. “But we have also had completely new people come, and five of those have become members.

“Deep in the heart of the Concord people is for ministry to be strong… we’re keen to be reaching into the community, and now we’ve got the vision to be able to do that because we’ve got access to the resources that make it viable.

“It’s exciting, and the enthusiasm when people get together on Sunday is infectious.”