Julie Banks: a Hero of a Different Kind
by Brenda Holt
Zadok Perspectives Issue No. 63
Autumn 1999

Part 1

Brenda Holt
Brenda Holt is residential head at Robert Menzies College and a former student at Fuller Seminary.

Heroes are hard to find these days. People of integrity, of strength, people who are powerful yet graceful, people who elicit a response, a challenge, who demand action just by being themselves: these are heroes. One such person is gone now, but the examples of her influence can be found all over the world.

On the 25th of April, on the parkland at Macquarie University, more than 250 people gathered in the afternoon sun. Some brought their own blankets to rest on the grass; others sat on chairs in the shade of the trees. We met together to honour and remember Julia Lonsdale Banks, wife and work partner of one of Zadok's founders, Robert Banks.
Julia passed away peacefully on the 22nd of April after a long and courageous battle with cancer. Though you may not have known her personally, she is someone worth remembering, for she lived an extraordinary life. Certainly, her accomplishments were many. She and Robert were instrumental in the development and nurture of the house-church movement and lay theological education in Australia and overseas. She co-authored two influential books: The Church Comes Home and Conversational Bible Study. She was a speaker at numerous conferences and seminars, and hosted house-church discussions on the internet. When she lived in Sydney, she initiated a craft cooperative that proved so popular that she was interviewed on a national television program and featured in several newspapers. Nevertheless, it was in what some would call the 'mundane' aspects of daily life that her impact was at its best. As mother to Mark and Simon and wife to Robert, she found her greatest joys in the home, the garden and the neighbourhood.

When I met Julie, I was very career- minded. I knew I would never be a 'stay-at-home mum' as my mother had been. I would 'have a life'. I would be fulfilled. Julie was a different kind of housewife. She was, in the truest sense, a household manager. She kept things running: a community house, the nurture of people, a laundry, a very productive vegetable garden, the house finances and networks of house churches. She was wonderfully self-educated, well read in theology, literature and social science.

Julie lived her life with the firm belief that God was present in the everyday things of life. Her life of managing the household was uniquely important. It was also her choice. Even though she was a great teacher and storyteller, and an even better writer, she believed that Robert's career was her calling, too. She believed that together, they could accomplish great things. And they have. At Fuller Seminary in California, their place of work the last ten years, Julie, along with Robert, won an award for most influential faculty. Julie is the first Fuller spouse to ever be included in such an award. As Richard Mouw, Fuller's president, wrote in his greetings at the memorial service: "Julie was involved as a spouse at a level never seen before in the history of the seminary." I saw Julie model an educated, thoughtful woman steeped in ministry opportunities who chose to be based at home. My life has never been the same.