Bishop Ian commissioned as Rector of Dubbo

The Bishop of Bathurst Diocese, Ian Palmer, was commissioned as rector of the parish of Dubbo on Saturday evening, February 7.

CONGRATULATIONS: Archdeacon Frank Hetherington leads the large congregation in a round of applause after commissioning Bishop Ian as Rector of Dubbo.

Bishop Ian has taken on a half-time role as parish priest of the largest parish in the diocese, in addition to his responsibilities as diocesan bishop, because the diocese is no longer able to pay the full-time stipend of the bishop.

His commissioning service came at the end of a seven-day ‘Pilgrimage of Prayer’, in which Bishop Ian and his wife Liz walked the 200-plus kilometres from Bathurst to Dubbo.

Inspired partly by the ‘Bishop’s Walk’ from Dubbo to Bathurst, undertaken by Bishop Ken Leslie in 1971 to raise funds for the completion of All Saints’ Cathedral, Bishop Ian said his pilgrimage was not intended as a fund-raiser.

“Bishop Leslie walked to Bathurst, with a focus on the completion of the cathedral,” he said. “Liz and I have walked from Bathurst, out into the diocese, as a symbolic gesture to show that the Diocese of Bathurst is there to serve and help the parishes as they serve the communities around them.”

Arriving in Dubbo at 2.00pm on Saturday, the Palmers were both suffering sore feet and tired legs but still managed to walk into the grounds of Holy Trinity church with a spring in their step – and a great sense of relief.

In a service in the church four hours later, Diocesan Archdeacon Frank Hetherington commissioned Bishop Ian in his new parish ministry.

During the service, the Bishop also formally commissioned his recently-appointed Bishop’s Registrar Karen Trafford, and licenced Darryl McCullough as Associate Priest in the parish. (Darryl had been serving as Priest Assistant since his ordination in September last year.)

At the beginning of the service, Archdeacon Frank said that it was "unique in the Anglican Church of Australia for a Diocesan Bishop to add to his burdens the responsibility of being Rector of a parish".

The commissioning service followed the patern of similar services in the diocese in recent times, in that it emphasised the Five Marks of Mission adopted by the Anglican Communion in the late 1990s and incorporated into the Diocesan Mission Action Plan in 2012:

To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom;

To teach, baptise and nurture the Good News;

To respond to human need by loving service;

To seek to transform unjust structures in society, to chqaallenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation;

To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

BLESSING: Retired Bishop Graham Walden gives Bishop Ian a blessing during the commissioning service.

In his sermon, the Archdeacon went on to say that Bishop Ian's move to Dubbo “comes with a strong background of prayer and courageous action, shaped by the peculiar circumstances that we face in the Diocese of Bathurst at this time.”

He pointed out that for the Bishop and Liz, one journey had just concluded and another one was just beginning, “not only for them but for this Parish and this Diocese”.

He said that this journey was set against a background of the General Synod held in Adelaide in 2014, and particularly a document presented at that gathering entitled The Report of the Viability and Structures Task Force.

“This report is available to us all in print or electronic form,” he said. “It provides uncomfortable reading. Section 8.035 states that ‘The Diocese of Bathurst is beset with financial woes through over borrowing for schools. The future of this diocese is under a question mark. It may be able to keep going, but will it recover? Every diocese needs to learn from the Bathurst experience.’”

“People are watching with us and praying for us. Our God is relational. We live within the Trinitarian experience of the God who Creates; the God who Redeems; the God who empowers through his Spirit.

“Is our experience through what we are doing tonight:

a witness to that relationship?

a witness to the Church?

a witness to the community?

a witness that we are people on pilgrimage with our Bishop?

“Are we rediscovering the meaning of service, rediscovering the meaning of our vocation, rediscovering, as Isaiah says, (Isaiah 40.31) that ‘those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint’?”

Both this reading and the final hymn (We'll walk the land, with hearts on fire) were very apt, not only for the parish but also for Bishop Ian and Liz following their 200-kilometre pilgrimage to Dubbo, which had reached its conclusion just a few hours earlier.

For Archdeacon Frank’s full sermon, click here.

Go Back