In one sense, going back to Rawdon was easy – I knew where I would be worshipping, so there was no need to church-hunt. In other ways, I found it very difficult. It had been just over 7 years since I had left to go to college, and (from my point of view) I had grown up a lot – since leaving school, I’d been through college, got a job, lived on my own, and in Christian terms conversion, baptism and the start of lay preaching had happened. In the Cragg, it seemed as though I’d never left – I was back on organist/pianist duties, but some of the time I sensed that the “grown-ups” in the church still regarded me as one of the young people, probably understandably.
At the social level, of course, there was no problem at all, especially after our engagement and wedding. Looking back, perhaps I had seen other styles of Church life (especially aspects of the charismatic movement) that Rawdon had simply not experienced, and that may have been part of the problem. But the other factor was that during our two years in Rawdon, the church was considering the possibility of closure, in order to amalgamate with the Methodist and URC congregations to form a united church. None of this was a problem to us, apart from the normal reservations Baptists have about the practice of infant baptism – except that we were concerned at the “motivation”, which seemed to us to be more due to saving the costs of maintaining three buildings, than to any particularly strong desire to unite per se[83]. There were of course the usual committees investigating aspects of the process, and Katie and I served on one until we left in 1971. The three churches did indeed merge, and formed Trinity Church, at the old Benton URC site at New Road Side, and the Cragg site sold and the buildings demolished; there are now private houses on the site, apart from the graveyard – but it’s nice that some of the original dressed stone has been incorporated in the houses.
After a little while in Aireborough, I started lay preaching in Baptist and Methodist (in the main) churches, and joined the Yorkshire Baptist lay preachers association; a leading light in this was Stanley Pemberton from Guiseley, who if I remember aright was my father’s “twin”, both being born on April 13th 1910. My records show a steady number of appointments in the Aireborough area, and in some places I re-met people who were at school with me. Katie sometimes came with me, and sometimes stayed at the Cragg, where she was still involved in Guiding and Sunday School. And sometimes some of the young people at the Cragg came with me and took part.
In all this, I remember that Rev Gordon Weston was a tower of strength – while as Minister, he had to be ultra-diplomatic and accessible to all, I think he may have welcomed having someone who at least presented some alternative ways of thinking about church life.
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[83] As it happened, some of our fears were realised. When the three churches came together, they found that they needed to have four church meetings, one per denomination and one “common”; and the hymns were announced in each of three hymnbooks (blue, red and green, with adjustments to cater for the differences in verses). This went on for many years.