A Funny Thing Happened on the Road To Damascus - Part Four
A Short Autobiography of Michael Bird
Back to Australia
I nearly got a job teaching Old Testament at a Presbyterian College back in my home town of Brisbane. I applied for the job, interviewed for the job, got offered the job, accepted the job, but then had my appointment vetoed by the principal on spurious grounds. It was at the time heart-breaking because Naomi and I really wanted to return to Australia, and the college in question was doing some good things, making some great appointments, and was growing its student numbers considerably. In hindsight though, it was for the best. Despite being formally Presbyterian now, I was an informal Anglo-phile, and had pretty much become egalitarian in my thinking by then. I was clearly heading in an Anglican direction.
But, on return to Australia, we did stay Presbyterian for a while. We attended a fantastic Pressie church in Acacia Ridge where I came on the preaching team. The senior minister was Dan Bigg who was a terrific pastor and great encourager of me and the family. Probably the best church I’ve ever been at!
I managed to get a job teaching systematics and NT at the Bible College of Queensland which became Crossway College and is now Brisbane School of Theology (BST). BST is a terrific college located on a massive hill over-looking down-town Brisbane. Very international college, 30% of students are Chinese, lots of missions focus. It was a wonderful faculty with Johan Ferreira as principal, John Coulson as vice, Andrew Prince teaching pastoral studies, and Michael Tan as well. I loved the students - some truly gifted ones there - and playing ping-pong with Asian students. I was at BST from 2010-2012.
As great as BST was, it was hard work with a sizable teaching load, significant admin needs, and I was trying to do too much. My workaholic practices now caught up with me. My motto of, “Sleep is for the weak and TV is of the devil” were bills that now came due. I developed chronic insomnia which caused a semi-nervous breakdown. The despair of being exhausted not being able to sleep is really terrifying. It was right after a trip to the USA, when my sleep system was re-loading, that I tried using either a glass of wine or sleeping pills to get to sleep. BAD IDEA. Alcohol is bad for sleep and sleeping pills are the equivalent of drunk sleep. My sleep processing system crashed and so did I. After some sleep studies, it took me six weeks to re-program my body clock and sleep cycle. It was hard.
I decided that I needed to chill out a bit more, go to bed well before 1:00 a.m., and probably find a different job.
As providence would have it, I got a phone call from Tim Foster, vice-principal of Ridley College, asking if I might be interested in moving to Melbourne.
The Making of Evangelical Theology
Teaching theology at BST was terrific, but there was no textbook that taught what I would call a thoroughgoing evangelical theology, i.e., a theology defined and shaped by the evangel (gospel); a theology that made the gospel the centre, boundary, and integrating point for theology; a theology that believed that theological renewal went hand in hand with gospel renewal; a theology that saw discipleship as gospelizing, i.e. becoming what the gospel calls us to be. Instead of searching for such a book, I decided to write it!
The Making of The New Testament in its World
I was in a bar talking to my SPCK editor Philip Law and he asked if I had any more book projects I’d like to do with SPCK. I said, “No, not really, I’m fairly busy, but I’ve got an idea for you. You should get someone to work with N.T. Wright and turn his life-time of work, especially the Christian Origins series, into a one volume NT Introduction.”
As I said this I saw Phil’s eyes suddenly widen open, as if someone had just moved aside a branch and showed him the lost city of Eldorado. He knew as I did that it was a good idea, it would sell, it would make money! He said, “Yes, yes, hey, why don’t you work on it with Tom.”
I replied, “Well, maybe, it’d be an honor. I’ve met Tom, I’m a huge fan, but he might have his own lackey in mind.”
As it turned out, they asked Tom if he would like to work with Mike on the book - on the assumption that I’d do most of all the work and he’d just rake in the royalties - and it was agreed.
I posted on facebook about a juicy publication project coming up and my American publishing friends were going to be envious. Well, my Zondervan editor and dear friend Katya Covrett messaged me asking about it, as soon as I told her what it was, I got a phone call at 11:15 p.m. Zondervan eventually entered into a joint publishing partnership with SPCK for this project.
At that point, the project evolved from an SPCK black and white textbook, to an all-singing all-dancing mega-book spectacle literary spectacle with colour pages, work book, two DVD sets, enhanced textbook edition, instructors guide, a few other spin-offs yet to come, and a book tour! The only thing we were missing was our own line of clergy-wear and our own fragrance. On the fragrance, I was thinking of something called, “Sepulcher: The Scent of Crucifixion.”
Working with Tom was a delight and traveling around Israel and southern Europe with him was a highlight of my life. Tom edited everything, re-wrote stuff (including the chapter on Romans), added new material, and did a fantastic job with interviews and DVDs.
Also, thanks to the royalty advance, I finally had enough money to get braces and my teeth fixed. So I went from an Austin Powers smile to something more Joel Osteen.
In the next and final installlment, I’ll talk about early life at Ridley College.
