I rise today to give tribute to the Reverend Robert Richardson Smith who died on the 12th of December 2009, at the age of 91.
Robert Richardson Smith was born the 22nd of October 1918, during the last year of the first World War, to Mary and Samuel Smith of western Newcastle, where both branches of his parents’ families had been established for many generations.
Robert was a young teen during the Great Depression, and it forged indelible memories in him of the social and economic desperation he had seen personally. He told stories of the other children at school with no shoes, wearing shabby clothes, and going without sufficient food. Most of their fathers were unemployed – but not his, and he knew how lucky his family was.
Robert was always conservative with money and advised people not to be complacent, reminding others that the events of the Depression could happen again one day. As Robert grew up his family were devout Methodists – and they attended church services every Sunday morning and evening.
When he completed school he commenced working at BHP, as his father had done for many years. It was while working at BHP that he received the call to commit his life to Jesus Christ and to enter the Methodist ministry. He attended the Melbourne College of Divinity, earning his Diploma of Religious Education and Licentiate of Theology. He was ordained in Wesley Chapel in Sydney in 1949. As a young man, Robert was particularly inspired by the ministry of the late Rev Dr Sir Alan Walker.
His first appointment following Ordination was to Milton on the south coast of NSW – a Methodist circuit that extended from Sussex Inlet in the north to Bateman’s Bay in the south. His transport in those days was an A Model Ford.
From that first appointment, he always had that evangelical zeal and the deep conviction to make a difference in people’s lives. He truly practiced Christ’s teaching to “go into all the world & preach the gospel”. From Milton he was appointed to the Wollongong circuit where met Miss Dorothy Mae Crux, an active member of the Port Kembla Methodist church who worked as a nurse at Wollongong Hospital. They were married in 1949.
Following this term at Wollongong, his appointments thereafter were to Dunoon on the far north coast of NSW, then Mudgee, then a return to Newcastle to Hamilton Wesley Church in 1957. Hamilton Wesley was a particularly happy time as it reunited him with his parents, and it was a large, dynamic church.
Then he moved on to Chatswood South Methodist Church in 1963. Robert later transferred from a ‘Circuit ministry’ and commenced with the Department of Home Mission. In 1966 he undertook the first of many overseas preaching and study tours, being away half of that first year in the USA, UK and Western Europe, and sailing home as the Methodist Chaplain aboard an ocean liner.
While in the US he became a very strong supporter of the Civil Rights Movement and was deeply inspired by the work and preaching of the Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. Robert also admired the ministry of Rev Billy Graham.
In the late 1960’s Robert was appointed General Superintendent of the Department of Home Mission, which later evolved into the Board of Mission with him as the new General Secretary, where he remained for 17 years. In the late 1970’s he invited me to come from Victoria to New South Wales to lecture Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational ministers on “How to grow an Australian Church”. That was my first introduction to those Churches in New South Wales.
Robert was one of the key architects of the merging of the Methodist, Congregational and Presbyterian Churches into the Uniting Church in Australia, and in 1975 he was appointed President of the Australian Council of Churches (NSW) for 3 years.
After nearly 20 years on the Board of Mission he returned to a parish ministry at Castle Hill in the mid 1980’s. He officially retired from the ministry of the Uniting Church over 20 years ago, already well beyond typical retirement age, but it was a retirement in name only.
He was invited not long afterwards to be an Associate Minister at St Stephen’s Uniting Church in Macquarie Street for a ‘short-term’ position that actually went on for 10 years. He sat on the Board of the Wesley Mission for 41 years and in 2005 I presented him with the Superintendent’s award for all those years of service and dedication. My friendship with him for over 35 years was always cordial and appreciative.
Robert Richardson Smith was an immensely positive and driven person. He lived a very long and full life. He died peacefully at home with his wife beside him, just as she had been for 60 years. I admired him greatly, and I know that he was greeted at the gates of heaven by the words, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’.