Chaplain's Corner

Being Positive Influencers

In Chapel this week we talked about being “Positive Influencers.” People who have respect for self, standing up for what is right. In our weekly chapel services, we say in the School Prayer: “We pray that we may have the bravery of Saint George to stand up for what is right.” 

However, we must not end there. 

We must also influence others to stand up for what is right like we do. Can you imagine how beautiful life would be in this world if every person stood up for what is right? It is important to teach our young people to be positive influencers because often, good people do wrong things because of peer influence. But would it not be better if good people took the upper hand in influencing the bad to be good? So, to illustrate “influence” in simple and exciting terms we did some scientific experimentations. 

Olivia Davies added sugar into water and the water became sweet — she enjoyed drinking it! Sophia Warren added lemon juice and the water became bitter!  Phoebe Taber added salt and the water tasted so bad! Lani Smith did a different experiment. She immersed a dry sponge into a bowl of water, and it came out soaked so much that whatever it contacted became dripping wet. When she put the wet sponge in her blazer pocket, the blazer got wet! 

Then Mr Tom Dempers and some of his science students mixed potassium iodide with lead nitrate solution and produced a beautiful yellow liquid. These simple experiments demonstrated how we can either be positive or negative influencers depending on who we associate with. Adam and Eve were good people until a bad influencer, the serpent, came and sweet-talked them into disobeying God. 

Here at St George’s Anglican Grammar School, let us be positive influencers. 

Fr Gift Makwasha

School Chaplain