From the Chaplain

Practise, Practise, Practise!

“The secret to staying at number one is to train like you’re number two’.

I came across this phrase years ago on a poster – the words were attributed to Sue Stanley, an Australian woman who became a triple world aerobics champion and who is now, among other things, a motivational speaker.

As well as being neatly phrased, it’s also a statement which actually contradicts another older proverb: ‘Practice makes perfect.’  If practice really did make perfection attainable, you wouldn’t have to ever worry about losing your number one spot, would you?

Scientific studies on how practice affects and influences performance have been happening for over a century.  These studies have shown (not that surprisingly) that training improves performance, as well as suggesting that massive amounts of practice can enhance the speed and precision of specific actions.  However, there’s one thing that these studies haven’t claimed: that a person can achieve sustained, unchanging perfection in their performance!  Of course, there has been plenty of evidence of this in competitions like last month’s Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games (just finished). So many of those athletes put in hours, months and years of practice – only to end up with performances that, while impressive, ended up still below their best, let alone short of the best possible score in their event!

So, if practice doesn’t really ‘make perfect’, what does it achieve?  Apart from helping improve one’s skills and performance (something that the recent HSC Trial Exams have done, we hope, for our Year 12 students as they get ready for the ‘real thing’ in October!), one other thing it can do is help us keep a healthy perspective for all of us in our lives. 

There’s always room for practice, to build or maintain our skills at the things we do.  

Similarly, the Bible tells us that living the Christian life is about practice – it involves ‘train(ing) yourself to be godly’ (1 Timothy 4:7b).  But, as in life, a person’s own efforts in this sort of practice still doesn’t make us perfect. Having a perfect relationship with the perfect God comes only through Jesus, who achieves that for us through His death and resurrection.  

Mark Rundle 

Chaplain