Partners In Mission

Like all good stories, let's start from the beginning. I was born in Sydney, Australia on 5th June 1978. This is a funky date to born on coz it works out to be 5678! I grew up in the suburbs living the comfortable middle-class life. My 3 younger siblings and I spent our days in the adventure filled environment of our quarter acre block. Ironically, we probably watched too much TV to really enjoy our comparatively large backyard.

Like not so many kids my age, I was sent to Sunday School at our local church each week. For the unacquainted, Sunday School is one of those things that you either really like or really hate… similar to weekend sport, but different. The basic idea is that you get to learn stuff from the Bible, a book written by men long ago who were inspired to write through the Holy Spirit. Sometimes you will hear the Bible referred to as "God's Word" because Christians believe that it is.

Despite learning many parts of the Bible from an early age, I was still pretty clueless when it came to understanding what being a Christian actually meant. That would all change one day when I went to a Boys' Brigade camp in Brisbane.

The year was 1990 and while scientists focused on launching the Hubble space telescope, I endeavoured to survive the wearying Queensland heat. I was only 11 years old at the time and a little fish in a big pond attending this epic national camp for teenage blokes. However, it was during this camp that another epic event took place. I finally understood what all these people had been trying to tell me for years… how I could be in a personal relationship with God. The penny, as they say, had finally dropped.

To my surprise, it wasn't all that complicated. The basic story is that we are separated from God because we disobey Him (sin). It's kind of like when we you hid from somebody that you have wronged in some way - like your parents, the school headmaster or the police. This separation is a big deal, because it means that we are not able to be in God's presence. Fortunately, God had a solution. This was not a simple solution, but one that involved the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.

I found it difficult to remain focused on my relationship with God through high school. Without any Christian friends, my faith was often challenged in the playground and in the classroom. Students (with their well informed and carefully thought out arguments) would write the Christian faith off in favour of a pluralistic or post-modern worldview. Similarly, teachers sidelined faith in God in favour of placing their faith in the scientific method.

Fortunately, I have since found satisfying answers to questions raised during my formative years in high school. Ironically, many of these answers have come from the great philosophers, scientists and academics who have sought long and hard to find out why we are on this planet, only to conclude that God put us here!

I commenced studying Business Administration at Macquarie University in 1998, and right from the beginning I became involved with Student Life. Like many Uni students, I thought I knew it all. But when a Student Life Staff Worker asked me if I could explain what a Christian is and how someone could become a Christian, I was unable to string together a coherent answer. This surprised me a little. After all, I had been a Christian for 8 years.

Student Life helped me grow in my understanding of God, who He is, what His priorities are and how I could best serve Him. I decided to work with Student Life in my final year and started working on campus full-time in 2001. I remember the point of decision clearly. I was standing in a bank looking at money exchanging hands and the cheesy adverstising on the wall (which suggested that happiness could be secured through a savings account). I reflected on my 3 years at Uni studying marketing and business principles. At this moment I decided that I would rather invest my life in something that has eternal significance, rather than the persuit of wealth.

I have really enjoyed the diversity of my role on campus and have appreciated growing in my relationship with God while serving Him through Student Life. In 2010 my role moved from the Student Life arena to help the CCCA National Director support our mission teams around Australia from our national office in Melbourne.