home > Insights by FWB > 2022, August 8th > F.W.B.’s Journey From The Pulpit to the Pew

WHY MANY RETIRED PASTORS STRUGGLE TO ENJOY CONTINUING TO GO CHURCH

FWB at his writing-desk, 1953

Many pastors and preachers finish up their ministry and leave their pastorates only to find it difficult to integrate into a church where they no longer have their preaching responsibilities. One such pastor that I spoke with recently told me that for two decades his identity — and reason for attending his church — was due to his ministry with that church. Upon leaving his pastorate he has struggled for the past ten years to commit to a local church or even be a regular attender at one. This former pastor is not the only one who I have met who has told the same thing. Thus, you might be forgiven for thinking that a pastor such as Dr. F.W. Boreham, who had achieved international renown as one of the world’s most influential preachers in his day, would have also struggled to integrate into a local church upon his retirement. But he didn’t and here’s why.   

“One of the reasons that I found retiring from pastoral ministry so difficult was the sense that in one day I went from ‘being the rooster’ and the next day becoming ‘the feather duster.’”
(A retired pastor who struggled integrate into a local church after his retirement.)

WHEN F.W. BOREHAM RETIRED

 F.W. Boreham retired from pastoral ministry in 1928 at the age of 57. Few people will ever appreciate the physical and mental toll that many pastors must endure. FWB was no exception. The events of World War I had broken Boreham. He grieved deeply and inconsolably over the deaths of dozens and dozens of young men from his church, in Hobart Tasmania, who never returned home to their parents. He especially felt the weight of this because it was he who had rallied them to defend the cause of the Empire. It would take a further 8 years after his breakdown in 1916 before he regained his confidence in the pulpit. It had always been his intention to pastor three churches and then make himself available to the broader Body of Christ. The congregation of his third pastorate (Armadale, Victoria) where reluctant to see him leave their church. He was so beloved by them that he bestowed upon him the life-time title of Pastor Emeritus. He would be called upon by them several times over the next few years to temporarily fill their pulpit each time it was vacated after their outgoing pastor had ‘moved on’.

The Boreham’s family home, 57 Fellowes Street, Kew.

 Upon his retirement from Armadale though, FWB had determined that he would not make it awkward for the next pastor by remaining in the church. He and his family became members of the nearby Kew Baptist Church, where they remained until FWB’s death in 1959. But many wondered whether the pastor of KBC, Reverend J.E. Newnham, might also have found having Dr. Boreham in the pews was awkwardly intimidating? Here’s how T. Howard Crago described Pastor Newnham’s response:  

At Dr Boreham’s seventieth birthday party [1941], his pastor, the Reverend J. E. Newnham, of Kew Baptist Church, was asked if it was intimidating preaching with Dr. Boreham in the pews? He publicly said that FWB was such an inspiring listener, “that I wish I had fifty Doctor Borehams in our pews.”
Crago, THE STORY OF F.W. BOREHAM, pg. 231

FWB IN THE PEW

Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s Memorial Funeral service invitation

It seems that FBW was a model sermon-listener. Before being ordained, the young Boreham had the privilege of living at a time when London hosted some of the greatest preachers in the world (Crago, p.36). FWB often visited these other churches and not only enjoyed listening to Archibald G. Brown,  A.T. Pierson (whom Boreham considered “peerless”), F.B. Meyer, W.Y. Fullerton, and of course – Charles Haddon Spurgeon – but he took delight in studying them and their preaching. 

 One of the reasons we know that F.W. Boreham became a great sermon-listener before he became a great sermon-preacher, is on display at the Kew Baptist Church. If you ever visit there you will have the opportunity to see a set of framed sermon-notes, that FWB had made of a sermon that Spurgeon preached at Metropolitan Tabernacle, which Dr. Boreham had presented as a gift to the pastor of Kew Baptist. Eventually, the 65-year-old FWB would be invited to be the Wednesday lunch-time preacher at the Scots Church, a Presbyterian church in inner city Melbourne, in 1936. (This would turn out to be Boreham’s longest preaching stint lasting 18 years.) But each Sunday throughout this era, Boreham was generally sitting in the pews at Kew Baptist – listening and taking notes to the sermon being preached. But then World War II began.

WWII BROUGHT FWB OUT OF RETIREMENT

 Even though FWB had always said that he was only ever going to pastor three churches, World War II forced his hand. He stepped back into the pastorate at Kew Baptist for three years (relinquishing this role in 1943).

The Kew Baptist Church building, Melbourne Victoria

 As we have seen, his retirement from pastoral ministry some years earlier did not stop him from continue to preach. In fact, the lunch-time services at Scots Church proved to be a huge drawcard. One of the reasons FWB had found his retirement easier than many other pastors often find it was because he had established his identity as other than simply being a pastor. He was of course a writer, but he was also an avid spectator of cricket. He loved cricket! His retirement afforded him the opportunity to enjoy watching more cricket.

 He had already become a member of the prestigious Melbourne Cricket Club and was often seen in the members’ pavilion enjoying a Test Match with the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies. But his commitment to attend church each Sunday—even when he wasn’t preaching—was unshakeable. He described in his autobiography, My Pilgrimage, that at a young age he came to love going church. This love for the local church obviously never waned even after his retirement. In fact, when his health had precluded him from what had been his commitment to attending church twice each Sunday (morning and evening services) he was devastated.

FWB and Stella on the day of his retirement from preaching ministry, at Scots Melbourne, Wednesday, March 9th, 1956.

 After Boreham relinquished the pulpit KBC in 1943, he faithfully continued attending there up until the end of his life. On Thursday March 12th, 1959, Billy Graham paid him a visit at 57 Fellowes Street Kew and invited him to join him on the stage at the MCG as his honoured guest. FWB declined the request due to his failing health. Just a few years earlier, at the age of 84, he had preached his last sermon (at Scots).  It was his diamond Jubilee of his ordination, and he used the occasion to reminisce about his pilgrimage from Tunbridge Wells, to London, to Mosgiel, to Hobart, to Melbourne. Then on Monday, May 18, 1959, Frank William Boreham, O.B.E., D.D., ended his pilgrimage and his navigation across, what he referred to in his biography as, strange seas.

LESSONS FOR RETIRING PASTORS

 I am now older than the age at which Dr. Boreham retired. I have taken great note of how the great preacher was able to retire from pastoral ministry and not opine his lack of his former identity as a preacher. Of course, as we have seen, while he was prepared to lay down his preaching identity – and even his pastoral gift – the LORD had other ideas. Not only did Scots open up for him, in March 1936 he and Mrs Boreham embarked on a five month tour of the U.K. and the America where Boreham preached in some of the largest churches and venues available.

 While the LORD may have had other ideas about how FWB was spend his retirement, this naturally does not mean that each of us soon-to-retire-pastors will have the same destiny. But I am helped emotionally to prepare for my own retirement (which I think is probably just a few years away) by noting how FWB made the transition. He had hobbies and interests outside his pastoral and preaching responsibilities. In the early days this included books, then photography, then art, and in his latter years visits to the cricket, museums and botanical gardens. He read widely. He mixed widely. His various interests made him an interesting person (something one day I would like to become). And, all the while, he made his own knowledge of God his mission. This mission is why he loved the local church and therefore why he could make the transition from the pulpit to the pew so easily.  

Dr. Andrew Corbett.