Prayer warrior to fight on

Bishop of Wollongong Reg Piper is retiring but this man of word and prayer will continue to run the race he has been called to, JOSEPH SMTH writes.

When Archbishop Harry Goodhew invited Reg Piper from Holy Trinity, Adelaide, to become Bishop of Wollongong in 1993 Reg initially decided he wasn’t going to accept.

“I remember saying my prayers before going to church then saying to my wife Dorothy, ‘Tomorrow morning I’m going to call Harry and say no to his offer’.”

Dorothy says Reg seemed very agitated and she wasn’t sure if he was making the right decision. However, he knew his assistant Paul Harrington could ‘do the job standing on his ear’, so he rang Archbishop Goodhew and accepted the position that day.

Reginald John Piper was born to Les and Rita in Goulburn on February 25, 1942 and the Piper family finally settled in Coledale

“My parents were faithful Christian working class people, who were very sincere in their faith,” says the Bishop of Wollongong Reg Piper, who was consecrated on St Matthew’s Day, 21st September in 1993.

“I was brought up in a home were church-going was the right thing to do, and my parents ensured I went to Sunday school every Sunday.”

Bishop Piper says it was a message from lay preacher Joe Hill when he was just 13 that led to him making a commitment to Christ the very same night.

“He told us all we were going to hell unless we believed in Jesus. That night I closed the bedroom door, knelt beside my bed and prayed for Jesus to be my Lord and saviour,” he says.

The Corrimal High school student always had dreams of playing football for Australia, but a career as a science teacher was his realistic goal.

Then, just prior to sitting his leaving certificate some Moore College students visited his youth group at Austinmer.

“We were asked to write out how he would serve God. I wrote that if I got my commonwealth scholarship and completed my science degree then I would go to Bible college and enter the ministry,” Bishop Piper recalls.

Those things occurred and that’s he what I did.

“When I told the examining chaplain at the time Bishop Loane – in a very stern manner – he said, ‘I hope, Mr Piper you don’t still make bargains with God’.”

“I said, ‘No, I don’t. But I didn’t know any better at the time, so that’s what I did. I made the bargain and I’m keeping it’. It probably wasn’t the best thing to do but I felt God was calling me to this.”

Bishop Piper went straight to Moore College on the completion of tertiary education where he says D Broughton Knox and Archbishop Donald Robinson had profound effects on him as lecturers.

“Broughton Knox had an unusual style of lecturing – arguments would break out so he would abandon the lecture, think around the issues, talk about the knowledge of God and explain the ideas in simple and profound ways,” Bishop Piper says.

“Second was Donald Robinson who kept asking ‘what does the text actually say?’. This profoundly affected my reading of the Bible.”

Bishop Piper graduated in 1965 and spent the late 1960s as a curate at St Stephen’s, Willoughby.

“At Willoughby I was under one of the best orators, Alan Begbie. He helped me see the significance of preaching,” he says.

“I remember early mornings standing in the pulpit and reading sermons by Spurgeon, Theilike, Stott and others to get a feel for the way they preached.”

Bishop Piper then moved to Lalor Park as an assistant to former Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Watson.

“He did an extraordinary job of putting together a community of God’s people in a housing commission area,” Bishop Piper says.

“It was there I realised church has to be a community of people under Jesus based on truth and love and different from the rest of the world.”

Bishop Piper says his time as curate in charge of St Aidan’s, Hurstville Grove from 1972 to 1975 was ‘a big step up’.

“I remember having many sleepless nights because I felt that the entire congregation and the responsibility for the gospel in that area was mine. That weighed very heavily upon me,” he says.

“But God was kind and the place did grow and the spade work was done for what is now one of the most significant churches in that area.”

At Kiama, where Bishop Piper spent the rest of the 1970s, he was in charge of a bigger parish both in members and church centres.

“They didn’t have home fellowship groups so I started them and met weekly with the Bible study leaders.  I would preach on the Bible study material the following Sunday which was a way of unifying the parish as we went through bible together,” he says.

Bishop Piper was invited to become the rector of Holy Trinity, Adelaide, the largest evangelical parish in the Diocese of Adelaide.

“I couldn’t believe I had been invited. I was appointed by the Governor of South Australia and licensed by Archbishop,” he says.

“I had to learn to live in a liberal catholic diocese but Archbishop Keith Rayner was a fine man who treated me honourably.”

The premier of South Australia at the time Dr Lynn Arnold became a Christian while attending Holy Trinity.

“Once a month I had an hour at his office. Twenty minutes to read the Bible, twenty minutes to hear how he and family was going and twenty minutes to pray together.”

Bishop Piper says Dorothy has been a great support throughout his ministry.

“At Hurstville Grove we had no secretary so Dorothy learnt typing. At Kiama there was controversy over music so she played the organ. In Adelaide, the big thing was having many visitors, so she became the hostess,” Bishop Piper says.

“Here in Wollongong, Dorothy has been ministering to ministry wives. In every place she has shifted her ministry to be supportive of the work we have been called to.”

Reg and Dorothy have been married for 39 years and have three children: Katie, Matthew and Elizabeth. Katie is the mother of their three grandchildren, Matthew is a research scientist and Elizabeth works with the underprivileged. They also lost a child, Nathan, shortly after his birth.

“That was a difficult time and a very significant factor in our growth as Christians,” Bishop Piper says.

Bishop Piper says two controversies stand out in his time as Bishop of Wollongong.

The building of the Buddhist temple in Wollongong in the mid 1990s led to Bishop Piper appearing on ABC’s ‘The 7:30 Report’.

The other was the installation of Archbishop of Perth, Peter Carnley as Primate in St Andrew’s Cathedral in 2000.

“I did not go to the Primate’s service because he had recently written an article in the Bulletin that was quite ambiguous about the resurrection, I thought it was unnecessarily provocative,” Bishop Piper says.

“Both issues were important because they dealt with the uniqueness of Christ and the resurrection.”

Bishop Piper is truly thankful for the opportunities he has received as Bishop of Wollongong.

“I’ve been able to preach widely, spend time with many parish clergymen and hear many people publicly testify to Christ particularly in confirmation services,” he says.

“Archbishop Goodhew gave me the opportunity to develop my leadership and organisation skills and Archbishop Peter Jensen gave me the opportunity to focus on policy one of the mission – the word and prayer – where I have been able develop programs like The Ephesus Code and 40 Days With the Risen Lord.”

Bishop Piper also speaks highly of the Wollongong office team.

Bishop Piper will complete his ministry as Bishop of Wollongong on February 25, the day of his 65th birthday, and will take up the role of rector of Gymea Anglican Church the following day.

“This gives me another three years to preach in a consistent way – because if I don’t preach I’ll die.”

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