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Matt Beech: Retired Anglican minister and community advocate for people in need

November 27th, 2010
By David Armstrong

Retirement isn't holding ex-vicar Matt Beech back from doing what he loves most - living out his Christian faith within the community and advocating for those less able to stand up for themselves.

Matt is one of four people making up a ministry team at St Thomas Anglican Church which is guiding the church into new services for Motuekans wherever a specific need is seen. And his advocacy work through the old NZ Employment Service and the food bank has given him plenty of insight into many such needs.

Matt arrived in New Zealand in 1946 as a two-year old and lived most of his early life in Auckland. His family were part of the Anglican church, which was one influence on his later calling, but initially he worked for 15 years as a medical laboratory technologist - collecting and interpreting blood samples, bacteriology and such like.

Mostly this work was at Auckland Hospitals, but in 1973 and still single he saw an advertisement for private laboratory work in Nelson, which he got. It was during the three years in that work that he decided to offer himself for the Anglican ministry.

He was awarded a three-year scholarship that enabled him to study at St Johns College in Auckland. Why did he make this radical change in his life?

"People I worked with in the laboratory said to me, 'you'd make a good minister', but one thing I know is that you don't go on other people's recommendations; there has to be the inward call. There was a point in 1975 when I was sure I had that inward call from God."

Matt thinks that his laboratory colleagues were suggesting the ministry because they saw both his analytical strengths and his ability to deal well with people.

He was ordained after three years, entitling him to put L Th (Licentiate in Theology) after his name. In the meantime, he'd met Ann though mutual friends associated with Nelson Cathedral, and they married after his second year at college.

She got a job in the college kitchen, so "we spent our first year of marriage in a theological hothouse," Matt says. At the end of the course they returned to Nelson, where Matt served for nearly two years as Curate under Archdeacon Malcolm Welch.

Then they moved to Tapawera, where after a period of assisting he was appointed Vicar for Tapawera and Murchison. That lasted until, due to a change in circumstances, Matt and Ann moved to Motueka in 1990 and he became "essentially unemployed".

For five years Matt did some seasonal work on orchards, but "otherwise we experienced what it was like to be beneficiaries of the state". As time went on, he managed to supplement orchard work with some work on community taskforces with the Justice Department and the Mature Employment Service.

In 1995 he was offered a full-time job with the NZ Employment Service (now WINZ) in the Motueka office, where he worked as a case worker for nearly 10 years. Then he did some industrial chaplaincy in Nelson and began working with the Salvation Army to co-ordinate community ministries such as the food banks, advocacy work and the night shelter (of which he is still a trustee).

Early this year he made the decision to "fully retire" - the chuckle in his voice betrays his acceptance that retirement never really happens for people working in community advocacy and support roles.

"Since leaving WINZ, my work with the Sallies has meant that links with the staff of Work and Income have been renewed through working as an advocate, and being available in their office for clients wanting to see me about food grants and so on."

But retirement has meant he can spend a bit more time on other interests including Mens Probus, Lions (a member since 1995), and his small but thriving vegetable garden. However, his involvement with new initiatives such as the transformation of WINZ into the multi-agency service Community Link, which is under way at the Motueka office, continues to challenge and inspire Matt.

"Community Link is good to be part of because it ensures our (St Thomas) parish and the night shelter have a link into the community," he says. "I see that as part and parcel of the work I've been doing in the community and on the parish ministry team for the past 15 years."

Looking back, Matt sees the most important aspect of his work is "being available". "In recent years there has been a shift among people away from church things, by choice or by being unaware of what the church offers, so for me it's a matter of living out my faith within the community."

Although he has firm views on many social and political issues, he says he cannot afford to take a political stance and lose his objectivity. He tends to be wary of joining political movements: "You can support some of their aims without becoming a card-carrying member. Ministry means dealing with people no matter what shade they might be and building relationships with people."

Matt and Ann have three children and two grandchildren. They are very happy and settled in Motueka. "Motueka is small enough to become known but not large enough to feel you could get lost in the crowd," he says.

 
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