I have known Carl, and worked with him in Christian ministry, for around 25 years and I consider it a great privilege to be leading this service in his memory today. Carl was born 49 years ago to Noel and Pam in Howick and in fact has lived all his life here in Auckland. His first taste of school was at St Kentigern’s and then he spent 4 years at Kohimarama Primary. As his Dad remembers it, Carl was popular with both the teachers and the other pupils at school. Later the family moved to the North Shore, where Carl attended Belmont Primary, Murray’s Bay Intermediate and Westlake Boys’ High School.

Now, last Sunday, as we were sitting around sharing about Carl, I discovered something remarkable about him that I had never heard before. Even at intermediate school age, Carl was already talking about entering Christian ministry when he grew up, or perhaps some other form of social work. God called him at any early age and Carl was remarkably faithful to that call all his life. Even then, Carl used to try out various churches and involve himself spontaneously, from time to time, in social work. Maybe that’s why he majored in Sociology, when he did his BA at Auckland University. I understand that Carl would buy vegetables and fruit cheap from the market, from time to time, and sell to struggling students at cost. He had a strong orientation to people and to service and, what’s more, he had the individuality, initiative and resourcefulness to go and do something about it. Later, Carl completed a Diploma in Criminology as well. Some of us used to say that this made him exceptionally well qualified for Baptist youth work! I first came across Carl when he started to join in with the youth group at Forrest Hill Church of Christ, the little church on the North Shore which Jackie and I attended. We went off to New Plymouth for four years. When we came back, we found that Carl had not only been converted and baptised, under Tim Long’s ministry, but also married the church organist! Carl and Sharon were married in November 1977.

If you know Carl at all, you will know that he was a man of great originality and of deep conviction. It was Carl, more than anyone, who kept that church alive during a very difficult period. Today it is Sunnynook Baptist Church and it would not be there at all if it wasn’t for Carl. In 1981 I went to what was still Forrest Hill Church of Christ as part-time pastor and joined Carl there in ministry. He and Sharon were running a very successful and fruitful youth group from their home in Lavery Place. Kerryn was born in 1981 and Ben in 1983. It was also in 1981 that Carl and I both realised that the church needed to move down into the Sunnynook valley. In 1983 we finally obtained a lease there from the city council, but only because the council were so impressed by the community youth work Carl was doing, as well as the preschool child care being offered by others at the church. As you can imagine, various building programmes followed and it was often Carl who took responsibility in this area also. Later, he served as youth pastor at Takanini Church of Christ and also went on to complete a BTh at Bible College of NZ. In fact, Carl was an amazingly resourceful person and Sharon, too, has proven remarkably resourceful, as Carl’s full partner in every way, both in the Christian life and in nurturing and providing for their family.

Last Sunday night, we tried to recall all the different jobs Carl took on during his life, usually to supplement a part-time church worker’s income: manager in a clothing store; community youth work; supervising periodic detention workers; partnering a handyman business; building playgrounds and garages; driving buses and trucks; commercial cleaning; etc. Not to mention the array of gifts he displayed in church ministry: leading young people, teaching, preaching, writing, running camps and children’s clubs, Scripture memorisation, drama (Carl formed a highly effective drama team at Sunnynook and invented most of the scripts himself!), serving on committees, liaising with councils, short-term mission in the Philippines, president of the Conditional Immortality Association and publishing. Carl was astonishingly resilient, never daunted, rising to each new challenge with new, unsuspected reserves of talent and energy, all at the service of his Saviour and Master, the One he loved and trusted without reservation, Jesus Christ.

Carl was with me all the way, during the transition to becoming a Baptist church at Sunnynook. In 1995, the Josephsons moved to Glenfield Baptist. In 1999, he completed his M.Th., successfully presenting a conditionalist thesis. In recent years he has served at Owairaka Baptist, first as pastoral assistant with Bruce Hilder and then as sole pastor. I have worked longer and more closely with Carl than with anyone else in my ministry, except Jackie. He is undoubtedly one of the most authentic Christians I have known, a man who thought his faith through from beginning to end and who lived a life of risky faith, by the courage of his convictions, following Christ with all his heart. A remarkable individual. A wonderful example to me and to us all.

Carl did not simply resign himself to his illness. He and Sharon sought God’s intervention and also welcomed the prayers of others for healing. However, Carl’s faith was such that he was also able to affirm with complete conviction, with the Apostle Paul: “Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” Indeed, Christ has been truly exalted through Carl, in life and in death. Carl’s hope was in God and that hope is secure, the sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Warren Prestidge.

This article was published in “From Death To Life”, The Official Magazine of the Conditional Immortality Association of New Zealand, (Issue 30) © 2006