John Dean: ‘a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith’

by the Rev A Miller Milloy, UBS Regional Secretary, Europe-Middle East

n John Dean

CRAWLEY, England — At the conclusion of the retirement dinner held on August 29 in honour of John Dean’s 44 years of service to the Bible cause, Neil Crosbie, Chief Executive of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), presented him with a painting of the old BFBS Bible House in London. It was fitting that BFBS should have the last word, since it was BFBS which recruited John to Bible work in 1956 when he joined its Finance Department.

Variety of posts

Over the past 44 years he has served in a variety of posts. After working in the Finance Department of BFBS, he became UBS World Budget Co-ordinator, then UBS World Service Officer (at various times overseeing the work in Africa, in the Americas and in the Europe-Middle East regions) and finally Training and Development Consultant for Europe and the Middle East.

John was ‘in at the beginning’ of the World Service Budget (now the World Service Program) and played a leading role in the establishment of many UBS financial and administrative procedures.

. . . the Rev Fergus Macdonald, the UBS General Secretary, singled out for special mention John’s passionate belief that young people should be encouraged to play a full part in the mission

Among the letters of appreciation received from across the Fellowship, one from Wendy Courtenay, a Management Consultant in the Europe-Middle East region, highlighted his seminal work in relation to UBS financial procedures:

“It is therefore with due reverence that I bow before the master, the creator of all budget forms, John Dean.

Budget forms

“In the beginning there was the UBS, and the UBS was with John Dean, and the UBS was John Dean. It was in the beginning John Dean. All forms were made through him, and without him no forms were made that were made. In him were numbers and the numbers were the forms of budget. And the forms shine in the fellowship and the fellowship did not comprehend it.”

John worked with Dr Ulrich (‘Uli’) Fick throughout the latter’s period as UBS General Secretary (1973-88). At the dinner, Uli was fulsome in his appreciation of all that John did, both when he had global responsibility for Africa and Europe, and when he was so influential in the development of Bible work in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of communism in the ’90s.

Dedication

In a tribute to some of John’s personal qualities – commitment, dedication and a willingness to share of his expertise and experience – the Rev Fergus Macdonald, the UBS General Secretary, singled out for special mention John’s passionate belief that young people should be encouraged to play a full part in the mission. In Budapest in 1988 John had the UBS Council (the former name for the UBS World Assembly) commit itself to the promotion of work among youth in the coming years, thus providing a public endorsement of the importance of involving the young.

John Erickson, UBS General Secretary from 1991 to 1997, worked very closely with John when they both served as World Service Officers. In his letter to John he wrote about their working together thus: “…It is that ‘working together’ for which I say a big Thank You in closing this letter to you, John. It was fun to work with you and I think the cause benefited from our collaboration in a way that surpasses what either of us might have been able to do individually. For that I thank you and I thank God for you.”

Many across the fellowship will agree with these words, for they, too, will remember working with John Dean with great affection and appreciation.

Good man

In my own letter to John, I wrote, “It was said of Barnabas in Acts 11 that ‘he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord’. This I can say of John Dean.” Many will say ‘Amen’ to this.