AIM HIGH

Words of wisdom from
Richard Driver of the
Aborigines Inland Mission

My name is Richard Driver and I'm a Lay Preacher at Tennant Creek. I work with the Aborigines Inland Mission Church of Australia.
Our role in the church is to get the good news of Jesus Christ across to our people so that they may gain eternal salvation. We tell our people the good news about Jesus and why Jesus came, why He died on the cross - for our sins, so that we can find peace and happiness and freedom and, in the end, eternal life just like He has promised us.
You can see this in John: Chapter three: verse sixteen, where the Bible tells us "...for God, so loved the world so much that He gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not die but have eternal life".
That's why I'm here. I don't work here by myself, I have a group of men who are called Church Leaders and I'm also a Church Leader, I don't regard myself higher than anyone else. I regard myself as on equal footing with other people, regardless of where they stand in the community of Tennant Creek. That's why we are here, to help each other to get away from the evil and the sinfulness and the corruption that is in the world today - that seems to trap people.
I can remember when I was an alcoholic myself and I didn't go to a rehabilitation centre, I didn't go some place to be set free from alcoholism. I found that freedom in Jesus Christ, when I gave my love to Lord, he set me free from being an alcoholic.
So because the Lord has done this for me, I find myself trying to do the same for others, even though we don't go out and talk to people in the town of Tennant Creek, we pray for them because we know that the effect of prayer is a great thing because God answers our prayers and we can see the end result of our prayers and that people can find themselves freed from things that hold them down.

How long has the A.I.M. been running in Tennant Creek?
Well being from Ali Curung myself, I can recall the Aboriginal Inland Mission here going way back to the sixties, because I can remember this building was here when I used to come in to Tennant Creek from Ali Curung when I was younger, it's quite an old building. The whole purpose of this building here is to serve the Aboriginal people here in Tennant Creek and not only in Tennant Creek, but the surrounding outstations, the cattle stations and the other communities where Aboriginal people live.
You know, we've got Christian Aboriginals on the outstations and when they come into Tennant Creek, well they find themselves joining in with us and having fellowship with us, they don't have to feel isolated, but they can have that freedom to come in and have fellowship with us because we serve the same God.

What does the A.I.M. teach Aboriginal people?
We teach them what is in the Bible, the Holy Scripture. And the Holy Bible, it is God's word and we believe the Holy Spirit made the prophets in the Old Testament and the Apostles in the new Testament to write it down so we can have in book form, what God wants His people to do and how we can gain salvation through Christ Jesus and know the purpose of being saved because we know it is a spiritual thing, we cannot see God, but we believe by faith that He's there and so we try to offer them this salvation that Christ Jesus has given to all mankind on earth.

Do both European and Aboriginal people serve the same God, even though our cultures are different?
Yes we do, some Aboriginal people who serve their culture, like in the past I used to live in the cultural way, but when I came to Lord Christ Jesus, I gave some of them up because there are some good laws in Aboriginal culture like when you respect your elders. I believe that is a good cultural law, to respect your people.
But when I came to know Christ Jesus, I found a new way of living which has opened new doors for me. I can serve my people as a minister, as an Aboriginal Church Leader for them and a lot of my people, they know me and they respect me, in this area especially - in Tennant Creek.

Does the A.I.M offer anything to Aboriginal people that is different to what other churches offer?
People can make their own decisions, we don't force people to come into the Aboriginal Inland Mission. I mean we've got the other churches here in Tennant Creek like the Uniting Church and the Anglican Church. We are based on the Bible - we use the Bible, the Holy Bible, which is God's word - to try and reach out to our people wherever possible.

What services do you hold here?
We have singing in the church and there are offerings taken up for the church, to pay for the electricity and the water.
We sing Christian songs, sometimes like hymns and choruses. Some people sing gospel, country gospel songs. We hear the word of God being preached on Sunday morning.
The main service is on Sunday mornings but on Sunday evenings, we have a sharing night where the Christians get up and share their testimonies or maybe an encouraging word from the Bible.
On Tuesday we have a women's meeting at about 5:00 and on Wednesday we have another sharing night and on Thursday the ladies have their meetings here in the church.

How many people come to your services?
It varies from time to time, each Sunday we don't get the same number of people. One Sunday we might have a lot of people, with people coming in from Christian communities or from the township itself. Other times we might get just the few coming in because a lot our people are still transit people, in that they move around from place to place, sometimes during the weekends they go out hunting maybe or camping or to visit relatives in the Barkly area or in Alice Springs.

As well as teaching the Bible, do you teach other things about Aboriginal culture to the people who come to your services?
No, we teach mainly Christian stuff, mainly from the Bible. People are free to make their own decisions, they're free to go to any churches in the township, we don't stop them. European people are also welcome, they're welcome to our church, it's for everybody.

Do you have an employer who pays to keep the church running?
No, we've got our Head Office in New South Wales, but they don't fund us, we don't get any money. Me and my family live in the Mission House and the other Church Leaders have their own homes in the township.

What is the history of the A.I.M.?
Well, from what I know, the Role of the Aboriginal Inland Mission church has always been to reach out to Aboriginal people. In some Aboriginal communities there are other denominations like the Baptist and the Lutheran and the Uniting Church.

Have you always been a religious man?
Well yes. A long time in the 50's, in the mid 50's, we moved from Philip Creek to Ali-Curung and I can remember in the early days we had missionaries at Ali-Curung when it was Wilaburra.
The missionaries used to come in and teach us, the same that we're doing now, it's an ongoing work that never stops. So from an early age I knew about Christ Jesus.
But in 1967 when Aboriginal people were acknowledged as citizens of Australia, one thing they offered us as being citizens of Australia was the availability of alcohol. When that came in I sort of turned away from the Lord and for a long time I was away from the Lord. Now and then I used to go to church, but not as a committed Christian, I used to go because others went to the church. But then in 1984 I gave my love to the Lord Jesus, here in Tennant Creek. I've been with the Aboriginal church in Tennant Creek since 1984.

Are there a lot of Christian Aboriginals in Tennant Creek?
Well it is a spiritual battle but no one forces a person to become a Christian, it's their own choice, they make that decision of whether they want to follow the Lord Jesus or not. Some people have to decide whether they want to follow the Lord Jesus Christ or if they want to go back to the cultural, or go both ways. I think some people do follow Lord Jesus Christ and their own Aboriginal culture as well.

What do you think about the concept of Reconciliation?
From a spiritual sense, we can see Reconciliation as important in the Biblical way. See, long before the term reconciliation popped up between the Europeans and the Aboriginal people, it was written in the scriptures that because we turned away, each to his own way, God wanted reconciliation with mankind and he did this by sending his son Jesus to die on the cross, so that we could be reconciled with God, through His son, the Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus died for all people on the cross so that we could be free from sin and so reconciliation is also in the scriptures, yes. God wanted reconciliation with the people here, around the world, with all mankind. I believe reconciliation is important between Aboriginal and European people, there shouldn't be any barriers, there shouldn't be hatred, because we're living in this country together. We should live in a harmonious relationship, as all Australians, living in the one country.