Canon David Goodacre writes:
THE Revd Francis Dewar died on 2 April, a few days short of his 87th birthday. He was best known in the Church of England for his book Called or Collared? (SPCK, 2000). It is a study of vocation, to help people clarify their discernment. Diocesan directors of ordinands still give the book to those who are asking about ordination. It makes the essential point that, while God calls everyone to follow Christ, God also calls them to some specific way.
Francis constantly emphasised how limited traditional understandings of vocation had become, most people thinking that one could be called to ministry, possibly also to teaching and nursing, but not much more than that. He emphasised that Christians should stop, listen, and learn from God to what they were being called.
Francis John Lindsay Dewar was born on 8 April 1933, the son of the moral theologian Lindsay Dewar and his wife, Marjorie. He was educated at Lancing, did his National Service in Germany, and then read Classics at Keble College, Oxford. In 1958, Francis went to complete his theological training at Cuddesdon. He was made deacon in York Minster in 1960, and priest in 1961. His title parish was All Saints’, Hessle, the ancient church to the east of Hull.
In 1963, for his second curacy, he felt he needed to learn a more radical approach to ministry, and, having read Trevor Beeson’s New Area Mission (SPCK, 1962) about St Chad’s, Stockton-on-Tees, he applied to join his team. He married Elizabeth Nicholson while he was there. In 1966, they moved further north to a similar area on the outskirts of Sunderland, another St Chad’s. He was to be the incumbent of East Herrington for the next 15 years.
It was during his time there that he and I would regularly travel down to Lingdale, in Nottingham, to study clinical theology with Frank Lake, a journey inward that was to be exacting for him. As Trevor Beeson noted, Francis was an “attractive personality” who appeared immensely confident, but inwardly he felt very much more fragile. Whenever we were at Lingdale, with considerable bravery and real determination, he would seize any opportunity that he could find to explore his difficult inner dynamics.
Towards the end of his time at St Chad’s, he read Elizabeth O’Connor’s book about the work of the Ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC, Journey Inward, Journey Outward (Harper Collins, 1975). He was so impressed that he went to the States for a month to study with her church, finding what he experienced there such a revelation that he came back determined to make it happen here.
Some time in about 1980, three of us who had been meeting regularly to reflect about our different works — David Wood, then Vicar of Cramlington, Francis, and I, then Priest-in-Charge of Ryhope — were walking together on Ryhope beach talking of what he might do. The idea emerged that he should leave parochial ministry, form a trust, and give his full attention to what he felt called to do. It was a daunting prospect, but it came to pass with the help of John Habgood, then Bishop of Durham, an early crowd-funding scheme of friends and donors, and his wife’s supporting vision. Elizabeth was finishing her training as a social worker and felt that she would be able to fund the family with her work until Francis’s scheme was launched and it could finance itself. His journey outward had begun.
The Journey Inward, Journey Outward project began in 1982. Francis organised a series of courses modelled on the Washington church’s work, gathered several of us from the north-east and further afield to join one. The one we held at Ryhope was, Francis always told me, the very worst he conducted, although in fact it was good for us, a real learning about the gifts that we all had, giving us all much clarification about our vocational direction.
Francis was a perfectionist, and, if what happened did not match up to what he thought it should do, he was critical of it. Many years later, when he was living in Wookey near Wells, a group of us had come together to celebrate his work in a service at Wells Cathedral. The singing was magnificent, but he came to several of us afterwards to apologise to us about it. In many ways, his Live for a Change: Discovering and using your gifts (DLT, 1989), which describes his courses, together with Invitations: God’s calling for everyone — stories and quotations to illuminate a journey (SPCK 1996), a collection of the many stories that he always had to hand to illustrate his thesis, were his most valuable works.
Elizabeth developed Alzheimer’s towards the end of their time in Wookey. They moved first to Winscombe, an estate of sheltered housing not far from Weston-Super-Mare, and then, after Francis suffered a terrible stroke, to a care home near St Austell. This was near the home of their younger daughter, Judith. Francis died almost three years to the day after Elizabeth had died. Elizabeth had been a wonderful support to him throughout their life together. In the last years, he reciprocated with an equally loving care.
They are survived by their three children, all now married: Bridget works in the legal industry, Judith heads a nursery school, and Peter runs a branding agency. There are seven grandchildren: Harriet, Tom, Ben, James, Ela, Chloe, and Charlotte.
