The Mission Man

Some pieces of news just knock the stuffing out of you.  The text from my good friend Benny Anderson on 13th February 2021 that our mutual friend Bill McGillivray was moving to a hospice just floored me. I knew Bill wasn't well but I hadn't appreciated how serious the situation was.  A wave of grief came over me as I realised that Bill was nearing the end of his earthly journey.  It was a feeling not dissimilar to the depth of grief I felt when my own father died on 1st April 2020.  In many ways Bill has been a father figure to me and to so many others.  He has always been there, always full of energy, always smiling, always so generous with his time.  The thought of a world without Bill is hard to come to terms with.  Bill finally died this morning, at 11:10, 12th March 2021.  As 2 Corinthians 5 v 6 says 'he is away from the body but present with the Lord.'  Our hearts are heavy but we do not mourn as those who have no hope.

I first met Bill when I started working for the Edinburgh City Mission in September 1990.  My family had recently moved to Edinburgh from Oban.  I was a disaster at school and was at a loss as to what to do with my life so I was a bit lost and directionless.  I wasn't smart enough for university but I loved people so a year with ECM looked like a good option.  I joined the 'Year Team' and was placed in Gorgie and then West Pilton.

The Christian Centre

I still remember the first time I walked in to the West Pilton Christian Centre.  It was basically a small ground floor flat but it was a hive of activity.  The café would churn out toasties in industrial quantities, clothes were being distributed, food would be given out, the pool table never stopped.  In the middle of it all was Bill.  West Pilton in the early 1990's was quite a place:  drugs, violence, abuse, poverty and lots of very, very lost people.  It would have overwhelmed the best of men, but not Bill.  I can still see him now in the back room holding forth on any and every subject.  Jesus seemed to pour out of every part of him.  A battered NIV Bible was never far away and he would think nothing of opening it to chat about an issue he had been asked about.  He would just bring the gospel in to conversation in the most natural way.  As a young 19 year old who could hardly string two sentences together in evangelism, I was constantly amazed at Bills natural capacity to share the gospel.

A Niddrie Boy

Born in 1942, Bill was an Edinburgh man through and through.  He grew up in Niddrie with his brother Robert and John.  Bill's mother had tragically died in 1945 when Bill was only three and his father remarried in the late 1940's.  Bill came in to contact with the Niddrie Mission then run by Alex Dunbar.  Bill came to know Christ in his early teens and 'The Mission' would never really leave Bill.  He always had a love to reach the marginalised and the poor.  After a stint as a fencer Bill started his own fruit and veg business before joining ICI in Livingston.  Bill eventually felt a call to Christian service and entered service with the Edinburgh City Mission in 1984.  Bill had married Helen in 1962 and had two daughters, Joy and Julie, but his wife tragically died of cancer in June 1979.  Little did any of us understand the deep sorrow that Bill had gone through when he breezed in and out of the mission day after day.  It can't have been easy bringing up two girls on his own but I never once heard Bill complain or question God's purposes in his life.  As his current minister once said at a service I was at in  Glasgow, 'never trust a leader who doesn't limp'.  Bill's deep sorrow gave him an incredible empathy for others and also an incredible Christ like humility that drew people around him. He was a natural leader but one with the deep imprint of sorrow.

As I look back over 30 years now, those early years of the 1990's in West Pilton were life changing.  People were being remarkably saved from addiction, violence and profound brokenness.  One of my best friends, Benny Anderson, was a violent thief but was converted through the witness of his brother who came to faith in Shotts Prison.  Benny's brother and wife attended the West Pilton Christian Centre and Bill's unashamed gospel witness had much to do with Benny's discipleship. Benny would be the first to admit that his conversion was not straightforward and Bill discipled Benny through those first rocky years.  Benny and I have remained friends.  We have one of the most unlikely friendships - a Free Church ministers son from Argyll and one of the most feared men in Edinburgh now united in the gospel.  Bill brought us and many others together and many of those friendships have lasted for decades.  

Children's Work

Children loved Bill.  He was authentic, genuine and had little sense of self.  Most of all he always had time for kids.  The children's work was vibrant in the 1990's with regular clubs, outings and the most incredible camps to locations like Glenshee.  A modern day health and safety officer would have had a hairy fit at some of the things we did but the kids loved it.  Many kids had hardly been out of West Pilton never mind Edinburgh.  My own children can hardly believe the stories of throwing live frogs in to the girls dorm at 1am and the classic felt tip doodles on  the faces of some poor sleeping kid.  It used to take them ages when they wandered down for breakfast as to why the whole camp were in stiches.  But there was also real solid Bible teaching at these camps.  I vividly remember acting out Pilgrims Progress with the kids one year as we battled Apollyon and made it to the Celestial City with my tin foil shield.  Looking back they were some of my best, most formative memories, and Bill was at the centre of it all.  No activity was too silly, no problem was too small, Bill embraced everything with an infectious enthusiasm.

Sunday Nights

I can still see Bill on those Sunday night services.  Coming from a Free Church background I was used to fairly reserved Psalm singing.  West Pilton Christian Centre used to raise the roof most Sunday evenings with the most incredible praise songs and boy could those people sing!  They came with all their brokenness, sometimes with tears streaming down their faces and they sang their lungs out:  Majesty, God Sent His Son, He has Made me Glad, How Great Thou Art, There is a Redeemer and many more.  Giles and Benny on the guitar, a couple of tambourines and that little Christian Centre would be bursting with raw, heart felt praise.  Problems were shared, prayer was real and God was present.  When you preached in Pilton, people didn't glaze over like they did in most churches, they were actually hungry for the Bible.  People told you exactly what they thought of your sermon (sometimes during the sermon).  Bill and I had many differences in our theology but he preached the good news of the gospel with more passion and reality than I will ever do. 

Highs and Lows

But there were plenty of disappointments.  Bill frequently dealt with horrific situations of abuse and many who started out well soon fell away.  Abuse and trauma were intergenerational and while the gospel would have a big impact, there were years of painstaking discipleship.  Bill was optimistic, but always realistic. He knew the dark heart of man and his ministry was often a rollercoaster of highs and lows.  The centre was a constant target for vandalism and Bill operated on a tight budget.  Bill was always very circumspect but I always had the feeling that Bill's bold vision was not always matched by others.  Bill always called a spade a spade which didn't always make him very popular.  He was a man of integrity who had no time for politics and bureaucracy.  People were literally dying in West Pilton and Bill was always more comfortable at the coal face than in committees.  He was delighted to see Benny and Amanda Anderson commissioned into work with the City Mission in 2002.  In many ways it was what the mission was all about - the transformation of a violent thief into a city missionary. Bill was was delighted when Duncan Cuthill took over the Edinburgh City Mission in 2017 and began to breath fresh vision and energy into the work.  

The Magic Man

From that first meeting in 1990, Bill went on to become a life long friend.  Sometimes we wouldn't see each other for months, but like all good friendships, when we did, we picked up where we had left off.  I often confided in Bill and never doubted that I could trust him with anything.  He was a wise councillor, always steady and measured with his advice.  He became a regular visitor to our house in Livingston at Christmas.  My five boys loved him like an uncle.  His magic tricks were legendary with the kids mesmerised by ropes, hankies and cards.  Over the last three years Bill was a regular at the Safe Families Fun Day at Arniston House.  Dozens of families would attend from a a whole range of backgrounds and Bill would entertain them and put them at ease.

Leadership and Legacy

I recently worked through the life of Joseph with my team.  I asked them to write down the three most inspirational leaders they had met.  The first name I wrote down on my list was Bill McGillivray.  It was an honour to know him.  He was humble, approachable, kind and generous.  As a young, slightly unsure 19 year old, Bill took me under his wing.  I still remember spinning around all over Edinburgh in his little Nissan Micra with Bill sharing his wisdom on anything and everything.  I wasn't aware at the time but Bill was laying the foundation of so much of what I would go on to do.  Many of the convictions I hold today were forged in those early days in West Pilton.  Here are just a few of them:

• Keep the main things, the main things.  Don't go down theological rabbit holes.  Stay gospel focussed and rooted in truth.  
• Truth and love need to be held in balance. 
• Be generous to other believers.  Bill was an Episcopalian by conviction but he worked with Christians from all sorts of backgrounds who loved the Lord.
• Love the marginalised and the broken.  
• Invest in others.  Bill inspired me to become a social worker and a leader in the Third Sector.  
• Never give up hope.  He showed me that communities and individuals could be redeemed and transformed and nobody was beyond help.
• Leadership matters.  The success of West Pilton was down to great Christ centred servant leadership.  Some of the best leaders have been broken and shaped by God through suffering.  Bill knew the deep waters of suffering and it made him uniquely vulnerable, humble and compassionate.
• A passion for souls.  Bill loved people.  He didn't run programmes he just lived out his life in a needy community and taught the Bible.
• Fruitfulness needs to be accompanied by faithfulness.  In an age when Christian leaders are regularly compromised, Bill lived a consistent, circumspect life.  
• Be bold with the gospel.  Benny told me about a meeting with Bill after he had just been stealing.  Bill had no idea what Benny had done but spoke to him about standing before the judgement seat of Christ thankful that Jesus was his Saviour.  The message impacted Benny and he remembers it 30 years later.
• Stay the course.  Bill ministered in West Pilton for 23 years.  it wasn't glamorous but Bill was faithful over a long time.  
• Know when to move on.  Bill knew when it was time to go.  He retired in 2007 and enjoyed 13 years of retirement.  He travelled, he volunteered, he invested in friends and he had the joy of seeing his grandchildren grow.

Dying Well

Bill used to tell me that he often prayed for his mother to 'die well'.  That is what I prayed for Bill in his last few weeks.  While the destination may be certain, the process of death is still painful and horrible.  Death is still the last enemy.  But like all believers Bill can now proclaim 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.  Where, death is your victory?  Where, death, is your sting?' (1 Cor 15 v 54-55). The pain is for those left behind.  We pray for comfort for his two daughters, Joy and Julie, and his 4 grandchildren in America and Australia as well as his brother and wife here in Scotland.  Bills race is now done, he has finished his course he has heard those words 'well done, good and faithful servant'.  Now it is up to us to take up his mantle and tell the next generation the good news of Jesus Christ.