My Search for Sanity and Rest

Grant Clarke’s search for quality time found an anchor point in the bustle of a busy life. Kellie Hancock talked to Grant about his journey.

Grant Clarke strides up the hotel stairs exuding the confidence of someone who knows where he’s going. As an experienced communicator and PR professional, dealing with a photo-shoot and interview at a hotel is all in a day’s work in his busy career as a political adviser. Today, however, rather than providing interview information for politicians on issues such as stem-cell research or employment policies, our topic of discussion today is his search for the “sanity of rest.” Grant is the first to admit that juggling a busy work schedule—which requires him to spend nearly half his time in Canberra, and the other half in Melbourne—with the demands of a full family, social, and church calendar, left little time for actual physical rest or a mental time-out. For many years, his wife, Anne-Marie, also had her own career as a restaurant owner, and now has her hands full with their children, Pieter, Alyse and baby Fraser.

Grant attended a church while still a primary school student at the invitation of his religious education teacher in Kellyville, NSW. He continued to attend until, at about age 16, he experienced what he describes as “real loving support from a group of caring people,” as part of the church youth group.

“I saw people who had an experience that was beyond themselves,” he says.

“Five years of Sunday school teaching fell into place, and I got a realisation of God.

After that experience, it was like, ‘of course I want God,’ and I was born again.” Over the years, Grant has worked on a voluntary capacity within different churches. “God started using me and my developing communication skills to work with churches,” he explains. “I worked with a few Pentecostal churches in explaining/training them in why you communicate, how you communicate, and how to better use communication as a tool for the growth of the church.” Despite following one of his passions— helping the church redevelop itself in reaching a postmodern society—Grant still felt some pieces of his spiritual journey were missing.

“I’m the sort of temperament that lives on stress! I was working long hours; my wife had a restaurant, and we were busy,” says Grant. “But I felt that God kept saying to me: ‘Saturday, Saturday.’ Eventually, I proposed starting a Saturday service at the church we were attending or allowing a ‘Saturday’ church to use the building.” The church didn’t like the idea. However, the words Saturday, Saturday never left Grant. He didn’t fully understand it until he came across a brochure for a Seventh-day Adventist fellowship, New Life, and it’s community centre, The Crossing. It came across his desk while he was working as the PR manager of the Knox (eastern Melbourne) City Council.

One of his staff at Knox ran a radio show, so Grant arranged for someone from The Crossing community centre to come on the show.

Grant observed that their newspaper advertisements and brochures looked somewhat different, with their counselling and other community services offered during the week. He also noted that they worshipped on a Saturday. The words that he felt God kept whispering to him came back. So one Saturday Grant decided to check out the New Life Christian Community.

“I remember saying to my wife, ‘I’ll go on my own first. I don’t want the children exposed in case these people are nutty.’” His fears were unfounded, however, and a few weeks later he took his wife and children along. “We decided this would be our new church home; we felt that God was calling us here,” he says.

Grant says the benefits of the Sabbath rest every Saturday were soon apparent.

“The effects on me were nearly immediate in terms of my health and the amount of stress I had.” The family benefited also. “I wound down a lot and focused more on spending quality time with the children.

Anne-Marie noticed it in the first few months, as we were spending time as a family taking picnics and bushwalks.” n Grant concedes that his choice to worship on Saturday—to enjoy a physical and mental time out each week—was initially a lifestyle decision. However, as he eventually moved into the role of communicator for New Life, a lot of the church material he was reading on their behalf needed editing into a contemporary format and language. Realising he didn’t have the necessary theological understanding of the Sabbath to do his job well, he did some research.

“It was then that I gained an understanding that Sabbath is a relationship. As I have this relationship with God—where I’m totally renewed, restored and given a healthy life—one of the expressions of that is the Sabbath. It was like finding another part to the jigsaw puzzle.

“You can have all this knowledge about God, you can express your love for God through worship and relationships,” says Grant, “and the Sabbath is another expression of my relationship with God. I realise now that ‘Of course, you’ve always wanted me to rest in You.’ It says that very clearly in the New Testament, and here’s the expression of it in a very practical way.

“The Sabbath gives us a chance to express our relationship with God on a weekly basis, a chance to kick back, think about God, and reconnect with people. It’s quality time with a big capital Q.”

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