Early in 2021, I was asked to facilitate a workshop with senior students at St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School. I remember feeling terrified, whilst reluctantly agreeing. After I did the workshop, I returned to my office and had the overwhelming sense that I wanted to ask the chaplains of the Society of the Sacred Advent Schools if they needed a part time associate chaplain. Fast forward five years and I am in my fifth year as Chaplain of St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School.
I was ordained in my early 20s and have worked in many contexts across multiple dioceses. I had always resisted school chaplaincy, and yet school chaplaincy persisted in crossing my path.
The story and ethos of the Society of the Sacred Advent (SSA) is what drew me, at first through that deep sense of ‘rightness’ and then through learning the charism and values of the SSA and the School. I learned that the SSA Education Philosophy was about holistic education – educating the whole child. ‘The Sisters’ educational philosophy, based on religious principles and never narrowly academic, also actively sought to educate ‘the whole personality, physical, mental and spiritual that the girls may live to their fullest capacity’.’ SSA spirituality is characterised by spaciousness. The patron Saint of the order is John the Baptist, who made space for Jesus to reveal what God was like. The Sisters’ philosophy is ‘to prepare a place for God in our hearts and minds, in our school community and in the world in which we live.’ Our role as followers of the way being to make space for God to do God’s thing. This resonated with my understanding of chaplaincy – a ministry of nurturing, holding and creating space for people to encounter God in their own way.
In our school chapel we have numerous religious banners. We have a banner representing each of the Gospels, we have the school banner with St Margaret and the dragon, and we have the Society of the Sacred Advent Banner. This banner depicts Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist with John pouring water onto Jesus’ head.
Recently, we had an early-years lesson in the chapel where I invited students to ask questions, giving the space for any questions they had about what they saw in the chapel. One girl asked why John was stabbing Jesus in the head. I very swiftly explained that it was water and used it as an opportunity to talk about baptism.
I left the chapel that day reflecting on the context in which Christian ministry finds itself in our schools. Religious literacy is low. We have students asking if the Christmas Jesus is the same guy as the Easter story. Because of this we are privileged to have the repeated opportunity to tell the story of God’s abundance and love. For chaplaincy, there is a great gift in this moment in time – an opportunity, and a spaciousness. Now more than ever, storytelling is vital. There are fewer pre-conceived ideas of Jesus/God/The Church etc. There is an inherent curiosity about spirituality and faith, and I have noticed that accompanying this curiosity is an openness and innate sense of the sacred. Young people desire the space and freedom to ask questions and discuss responses to their questions.