Cliff Offer   Graeme Offer

My father, Cliff Offer, was born in March 1925 in Mt Eliza, Victoria, about 60 km south of Melbourne, on the Mornington Peninsula. But like Timothy in the New Testament (2 Timothy 1:5), the story of Dad’s faith begins many years before that, in 1913 in St Arnaud, Victoria.

At that time, Cliff’s maternal grandfather was the organist for a Methodist church in the area. A Gospel preacher named Thomas Hagger came into town for a tent mission that lasted for around six weeks. The Methodist minister warned the congregation ‘not to go down there – they teach heresy.’

This piqued the interest of Cliff’s grandfather, who wondered what it was that the Methodist minister didn’t want people to hear. He went along to the tent meeting and was convicted by the preaching of the Gospel. Hagger baptised my great-grandfather during that tent meeting, along with one of his teenage daughters, Ella, who would later become Cliff’s mother.

Cliff’s grandfather was known for his devout approach to daily life. One of Cliff’s aunts recounted to Cliff that once, when she asked her father for a reason for a situation which had arisen. Cliff’s grandfather simply replied: ‘The Lord will provide.’

Some years later, Cliff’s mother married, and moved to Mt Eliza where her husband worked as a gardener for a large property. In Mt Eliza, they had three boys – Cliff being the middle boy.

In the 1930s the Great Depression struck. Cliff’s father was retrenched, and later worked in Malvern as gardener in the home of a justice of the High Court. Cliff’s parents moved the family to Tooronga. Cliff’s mother took the family to the Gardiner Church of Christ which met a couple of miles away.

Around that time, Thomas Hagger became the minister at the Gardiner church. Cliff was ‘cut to the heart’ by the preaching of the Gospel. I can remember my father putting his hand on his chest and saying ‘it got me right here.’ In 1943 Hagger baptised 18-year old Cliff into Christ.

In 1952 Cliff married Anne, who had been baptised by brother Les Burgin at Ringwood Church of Christ. (Anne’s sister later married Les, and so a strong family connection was forged between the Offers and the Burgins, tied by love and respect for God and his Word.) I was born in the mid 1950s to Cliff and Anne. An only child, I grew up in the house that Cliff mostly built himself, in Mt Waverley in Melbourne suburbia.

During the 1950s–1960s what was known as the Associated or Conference Churches of Christ typically followed the more liberal Disciples of Christ branch of the American Restoration Movement. In 1970, in the Gardiner church where Cliff and Anne were members, this came to a head when the church moved to appoint women to the ‘official Board of the church’. (Cliff believed such a board was itself an unscriptural governing body – it was made up of elders and deacons, where deacons could out-vote the elders.)

Cliff was a peacemaker, not a fighter. But, on this issue he gave it everything he had to oppose it. In the end, the church voted to appoint women to the official church board. Cliff took this vote as amounting to a rejection of the plain teaching of Scripture. He and Anne made the heart-wrenching decision to leave the congregation where they’ve been for 30 years and where they had many life-long friends. Our family moved to the Belmore Road congregation, where we found brothers and sisters who loved the truth and wanted to follow the pattern that God had revealed in Scripture.

Over the years, Cliff and Anne also met with churches in West Heidelberg and Boronia. Along with Les and Laura Burgin (and others) they then started a new congregation in East Burwood (which later moved to Mt Waverley). After several years, that congregation disbanded, partly because people moved away. Cliff and Anne then became members of the then relatively new Southeast congregation meeting in the Heatherton/Dandenong area southeast of Melbourne.

In 2001 the Southeast church appointed Cliff along with Dave Adkins as elders to shepherd the congregation. Cliff felt totally inadequate and ill-equipped for the role, but he said, ‘If I don’t step up to the role, then who is there who can?’ While I, probably more than anyone, saw his frailties, I also saw that my father really blossomed as a shepherd in the church. He was loved and respected by all in the congregation. His love, care, and concern for every member shone through on every occasion when he met them.

Cliff was a very skilled tradesman. He worked in an engineering shop as a fitter and turner for over 40 years. He trained many apprentices during that time and was well respected by colleagues in the workshop for his fairness to all. This trait extended outside the work environment because he was a man who let the goodness of God shine through him.

Over Cliff’s life, some challenges took their toll on him. He was a peacemaker, not a fighter, but he determined to live his life as a faithful Christian. He sought to do the work that the Lord had given him to the best of his ability. Later, Cliff contracted a blood cancer, multiple myeloma. After struggling for a few years his health declined quickly and he went to his eternal reward in October 2005.

'I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but to all who have loved His appearing.'
(2 Timothy 4:7–8)

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Graeme Offer and his wife, Judy, divide their time between Cairns (in winter) and Melbourne (in summer). When in Melbourne they worship with the Southeast Church of Christ and live in the same Mt Waverley home mostly built by Cliff Offer.    goffer@netspace.net.au