How The Navigators started in Australia
When Englishman Joe Simmons approached Dawson Trotman
about his idea of emigrating to New Zealand, as many British were doing,
Trotman said, “Well, Joe, I have been praying for a man for Australia and
New Zealand for years. You’re the man.” So in 1953 Joe and Marie left for
New Zealand and founded the Navigator work.
Six years later, the world-famous evangelist Billy
Graham held a crusade in Sydney. On the first day, a fine Sunday afternoon,
a totally secular couple, Jack Griffin, a businessman with a void in his
heart, and his wife May, who wanted to “get the pastor of our backs”,
responded to the gospel, and gave their hearts to Christ.
It was a double miracle, as Jack later described it.
Jack had never heard the gospel before. They were converted and transformed,
attending all of Graham’s 28 meetings, consuming Christian literature and
attending Bible study groups.
In 1971 a Graham associate evangelist, Leighton Ford,
returned, and with him a businessman Navigator, Bob Glockner. Bob taught
Jack the basics of the Christ-centred life, fellowship with Christ through
the Bible and prayer, obedience to Christ, being a living and verbal
witness, and fellowship with other Christians. Jack taught May. Bob said to
Jack, “Find anther man.”
Before Bob Glockner had left America he had prayed for
a band of “faithful men” (2 Timothy 2:2) to disciple and one man to carry on
the work of making disciples of Christ in Australia. Word got back to
headquarters in Colorado Springs about Jack and May, and Joe Simmons was the
obvious mentor. So Joe began a frequent commute from Christchurch to Sydney,
sometimes with Marie his wife, to encourage Jack and May.
Jack found two men, students Graham French and John
Ridgway. They helped build the Navigator work, and both became Navigator
missionaries. May found women, building disciples who became core supporters
of the Navigator work. You didn’t ask for time with Jack or May unless you
meant business with God.
Later, Jack began a ministry of “the basics” to many
men from churches, called Shamgar, after the Old Testament judge who
“did what he could where he was with what he had” (Lorne Sanny).
Jack died in 1981, leaving Australia the legacy of an
emphasis on “the basics.” He left the question, “Where’s you man? Where’s
your woman?” He also left men who followed Christ—students, businessmen,
pastors—who with others built the Australian Navigator work in all its
diversity. May lives in a Sydney retirement home. “If you are wholehearted
for Christ,” she told me years later, “God can use you. He must be the
number one man.”
Sandy Fairservice, Christchurch, March 2011