Chaplain’s Corner

How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! 

How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! Psalm 133:1

As I consider our College theme this year of Life Together, I couldn’t go any further without sharing with you, what life together looks like for me.

Narelle and I have three children. Chloe, our eldest is in Year 11, Elijah is in Year 9 and our youngest, Levi has just begun Year 7. All three attend Oxley and love it. We have two dogs (Border Collies), a Bengal cat and this summer, just because our house wasn’t already a zoo, we added at turtle, named Nimrod! 

As a family, we do life together. We hang out. We have dinner around the table (with no phones allowed). We watch movies together, we play games, we go for walks, we geocache. We go to church together and most Sundays we join the grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins for a massive family lunch. We do life together.

Is it always perfect? No. That’s not real life, right? My kids would reflect I am not perfect. I will give you a recent example, where Chloe got on my nerves. She was just being annoying (for annoying sake, in fun). “Dad…  Dad… oh nothing.  Dad… Dad… oh... nothing.” So in retaliation, I blocked all of her socials on her phone for 24 hours (how good are parent controls on devices!). Just to annoy her. 

Was it fair? No. But it was absolutely hilarious. Especially because I wouldn’t re-enable it until she declared I was ‘the best father ever and that I had won!’ Now that’s a bit of a silly example… but the truth is, I’m a Dad. I am human and I often make mistakes, I can overreact or not listen carefully enough. As family, we get frustrated with one another, especially when we are tired. But I hope the good times outweigh the rough times, right? Why? Not because we are perfect, in any way. But because, I believe as a family, we are intentional. 

Family time, time in community doesn’t happen, without making intentional time. Sometimes to the sacrifice of other things. Good community doesn’t happen by accident, it happens when we make conscious choices. For example there are times when I just want to zone out and watch TV while I eat dinner. However, Relle insists it’s a dinner around the table night. Every Monday night, without fail. But that’s where we learn about each other, get to know each other better and have some laughs. We wouldn’t be as close with the cousins either, if we weren’t intentional in getting together regularly and just spending quality time, doing life together. 

The Bible is full of stories of imperfect people, encountering a perfect God. Whether it be David or Paul or Peter, to name just a few. I find I can relate, because the Bible is so raw, so real, so warts and all. We find, amongst the mistakes and errors, in the midst of pain and sorrow, into our pride and arrogance, comes Jesus. The difference maker. The life transformer. I love the way it’s put in the book of John 3:17; God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending His Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.

At Oxley Christian College we are a community, an extended family, that is brought together and that exists because of the keyword in the middle of our name, Christian, which literally means, follower of Christ.

Pastor Hal Oxley, the founding Pastor of Life Ministry Church, along with his leadership team at the time, chose, as they felt led by God, to establish a school. Pastor Hal knew the importance of creating a community where Christ could be taught, talked about, explored. Where the Bible was taught, and Jesus was spoken about as freely as Maths or English. A place where we could come together as a family of believers and be educated, challenge one another, and grow with one another. 

You don’t need to be a follower of Jesus to attend Oxley, neither do you need to be or should you expect to be forced into believing what many of us believe about Him. But we do welcome you with open arms and hearts, into our community. My prayer of course, is that you won’t be closed off to the possibility, that Jesus may just reveal Himself to you as truth. And that the Bible and its teachings might come alive to you in full colour, like you’ve never seen or experienced before. 

The community here at Oxley is unique. It’s not perfect, no school and no family are. But we are different. On the whole, our community is loving and accepting, it is servant hearted and hard working. It’s a safe place where students can be nurtured, grow and learn. And if it doesn’t feel that way at any point, then we have people like me, Mrs Bruce, College Psychologist, Coordinators and Heads of Students, who will listen and offer assistance and guidance, whatever challenges – at school or at home, that you might be facing.

So, let’s do life together and in doing so, help each other to reach our full potential, in our spiritual walk, in our education and in life.

God bless,

Pastor Matt Daly

College Chaplain