My journey to ordination was rather swift – I became a Christian at the age of 16, felt a call to ordination at 17, and enrolled in theological college when I was 18. When I completed my theological studies at Trinity Theological School in Melbourne, I was under the canonical age for ordination. I therefore undertook two additional years of residential formation at Ripon College, Cuddesdon (Oxford) to bring me up to the ripe old age of 23.
Alongside my theological studies and parish placements, I completed a teaching degree in Religious Education at The Queen’s College, Oxford. Completing my teaching degree alongside my priestly formation made complete sense to me, as I have always felt called to school chaplaincy. For me, schools should be at the forefront of the Church’s mission, as they not only give the Church the opportunity to share the Christian faith with a mostly unchurched generation, but also provide a space for students to ask questions and reflect critically on Christian belief.
At Oxford, we were taught to structure all of our RE lessons with two key criteria in mind: Assessment Objective 1—what students should learn about religion; and Assessment Objective 2—what students could learn from religion. While this structure was devised for lesson planning, I have also found it helpful for sermons, as it allows me to explore what the Church has to say about a given topic and then challenge students on how this belief might change their lives if they were also to take it on. To give a recent example, I spoke at a Term 3 Chapel about how Christians are called to serve others (AO1) and challenged the students to reflect on how they too might serve the world (AO2). In response, one student asked me to help her organise a bake sale, with the money raised going towards a children’s hospital, and another student asked me to put her in touch with local aid agencies that support those in need.
It is an honour to serve as Chaplain in my community. I love that the students here are passionate and engaged, and that they are open to exploring the riches of the Christian tradition. If, through my ministry, students come to know that they are loved by God, valued for who they are, and called to serve the world with generosity and purpose, then I will have been faithful to the vocation to which I was first called as a teenager, and which continues to shape my life today.