<a> MANUSCRIPT…
Thank you. It is a privilege to be invited here for such an auspicious
occasion. Today ������Ƶ celebrates and sends out an
accomplished cohort of women and men, hopefully each one better formed
through their studies for meaningful service in the world.
To the families of the class of 2022, these are moments to be proud,
and in addition to the actual debt some of you parents may owed for fees,
food, and board, no doubt each of the graduates here owes you a greater
debt, metaphorically speaking, for the myriad ways your love and support
enabled them to stand here today.
And so, with thanks, we honour you.

To their lecturers and tutors, as an educator sometimes you wonder if
certain students will ever get over the line, but today you can echo that
great moment in cinematic history, Frodo’s infamous sigh of relief at Mt
Doom, “It’s done.” But the deeper truth is, what happens over the spans of
years between students and teachers is one of the richest relationships God
has given us in this life, and as I think back to my own studies, those
teachers who lived out their calling well have left an indelible imprint on
my life. I pray each student graduating here today will carry a piece of your
legacy with them as they live out their own story.
And so, with thanks, we honour you.

But to the focus of today’s ceremony, the ������Ƶ graduates,
congratulations. You made it. Overshadowed by pandemics and
unprecedented shifts in digital course delivery, your papers have now all
passed. The time for blessed footnotes, or frustrating endnotes, or
unsightly in-text referencing, those days are behind you. And today you
receive an esteemed piece of paper alongside the a well-earned academic
accolade: Well done, good and faithful student.

But in truth, this is just the beginning of your adventure. Life awaits,
unexplored. According to the Christian story, each one of you, at the end of
this grand adventure, will face you final assessment before the great teacher, where we should all hope to hear his heavenly accolade: well done
good and faithful servant.

And it is this endgame, this vision of the world to come, that is meant
to be the destination for which we set out sights today, with the light of
truth in the way of Jesus designed to serve as our compass.
Now I spend a good portion of my life fielding questions about whether
the Christian story is worthy of belief in our secular age; whether it stands
up to rational scrutiny; whether it really is good for you. And I am
convinced that it is. Borrowing from the language of C.S. Lewis, it seems to
me that the Christianity story sheds light on all of reality, making sense of
our deepest intuitions and experiences, as well as the world around us. And
you too are welcome to ask away at the Christian story. After all, truth
invites questioning. But today, in the few minutes we have together, I want
to funnel the collective wisdom of the Scriptures as best I can to spell out 4
desires that God has for you life, things I wish I had known earlier to better
prepare me for the adventure that lies ahead.

First, God’s desire is that you live on purpose. According to Loren
Eisley, the famed 20th century secular anthropologist, the question of why
am I here seems to be inescapably asked by all people everywhere.
Humanity is hardwired for purpose.

What the Christian story gifts to us is the notion that our purpose is
not a fragile human creation, something we have to come up with
ourselves. Rather, designed for good in God’s image, our purpose is given to
us from above. And what is your purpose?

According to the Christian story you were created for two things: deep
and meaningful relationships, and for a meaningful role.
To love God with all of your being—heart, soul, mind, and strength—
and to love your neighbour as yourselves. Love is at the heart of why you
are here, so be purposeful in forging friendships worthy of eternity.
And to image God in your vocation. Like the God who brought order
from the chaotic waters of creation, and cultivated a small garden in Eden,
humanity was commanded to continue bringing order, spreading into the
wild world beyond the borders of Eden until beauty is framed throughout
creation.

The final scene of the Bible, then, far from returning to the garden, transposes the best things of the garden (rivers and trees of life) in to a
city; a place into which the kings of the earth bring the splendours of their
cultures.

You have a unique contribution to make to that end, with your gifts and
talents and passions, imbued by God, serving as a clue to your calling.

So start small, where you are. Love well. Serve the common good. Use
your gifts, for your work matters. Live on purpose.
Second, God desires that you confront evil. Can there be any doubt
that our world stands in the shadow of Genesis 3. God’s good design has
become damaged by evil; that fallout everywhere seen in human misery.
Of course the evil out there is relatively easy to spot. Greed. Corruption.
Those in positions of power and privilege preying upon the weak. But
Scripture reminds us that any sinister forces out there are the lesser of the
two great tyrannies, easier to confront than the darkness within us.
I have seen too many people set out with great dreams of overcoming
evil with good, and making war on the unjust structures of the world, only
to be taken out by a hidden life of dark desires, their own heart hands
betraying the world they wished to build.

Which is why Isaiah Berlin, in his famed Oxford lectures on two kinds
of liberty, taught that a culture who only pursues negative freedom, or
freedom from all constraints, is destined to fall. For negative freedom needs
to be balanced with positive freedom, not simply freedom from external
constraints, the Exodus from slavery Egypt, but also a positive vision of
who we are meant to be, and the freedom from slavery to our distorted
desires to live towards those ends.

So, following the legacy of Jesus, live a life that confronts evil, liberating
humanity from injustice out there, but please, pay attention to your own
heart, and never giving an inch to the evil that would grow up within.
What the Christian story offers through the gospel is the gift of grace;
the love of a God who accepts us as we are, warts and all, but who loves us
too much to leave us as we are, creating in us a new heart, and filling us
with the Holy Spirit to help us become again who we were created to be.
3
Third, suffer well. There is a harsh truth that few warn us of before it
is too late, but the Scriptures speak to the dark reality that in this life
suffering is inescapable. What the Christian story offers, then, is not an
escape from suffering, even if it does help us avoid the unnecessary
suffering of foolishness. No. What the Christian story spells out is a charter
for how to suffer well, for there really is such a thing.
So what are we to do, then, when suffering comes?

No doubt suffering will provoke us, at times, to doubt. Nearly every
page of the Bible give us the language of lament, with the stories
punctuated by doubts conceived in our dark nights of the soul, and
nurtured by God’s silence. These stories in inspired Scripture give us
permission, along with the emotional register, to voice our own doubts. God
is not afraid of our questions, and as I have discovered as one who has
tended to these doubts, they can become a doorway to a deeper faith.
But the Christian story also redeems our suffering, pointing us to a God
who not only has meaningful reasons for allowing us to suffer, but is in fact
big enough to repurpose our suffering. For suffering serves as the symptom
that wakes us up to a deeper sickness; that our world is damaged by evil;
and it humbles us to go in search of answers to the deeper questions we
might otherwise ignore. The painful trials we experience can also serve as a
forge, exposing our impurities and helping us to forge virtue. But ultimately
suffering points us to Jesus—the invisible God made visible—who not only
embraced our suffering on the cross as he became forever the God with
scars, but also whose brutal murder was used by God to make atonement,
opening up a door of salvation to whosoever believes.

And so, in light of the Christian story, when it comes to you, friends, I
bid you suffer well. Suffering and death don’t have the final word, so ask
your questions, and rail against God, but remember Jesus, the one who
cried out on the cross when the heaven went dark, and if he truly is the best
revelation of God, and God used that darkness of Calvary to bring about the
dawn of the gospel, then perhaps you too can trust him that your suffering
can serve a meaningful purpose. You too can lean into the comfort of his
promises as you suffer in such a way as to tell a bigger story.
Which leads to the fourth and final idea: God desires that you embody
hope. There is a vast difference between the way things should be, and the
world that we inhabit. That will go for your relationships, and it certainly
goes for the church. In this life there will be disorienting dissonance, a gap,
between what we wish things we like, the ideal for which they were
created, aand the messy reality of what they now are.

The question: how will you respond to that gap?

Will you grow cynical and frustrated, throwing stones at imperfect
things, or will you lean in with zeal to start closing that gap. There is
coming a day, the Christian story says, where Jesus will return to set
everything right. Justice will be restored through judgment. Evil will be
done away with, and our suffering, like the tears of this world, will be
wiped away by His hand.

As those people who live between the time of Christ’s two comings, we
are to be a visible outpost of heaven on earth, a foretaste of the world to
come. Our task is to lean into the gap with humble prayer, love, and service
that God’s kingdom come and will be done on earth as in heaven.
We live in a cultural moment devoid of hope, with seculars trapped
somewhere between the void of meaning that is nihilism, and the
weariness with cheap pleasures that comes from the existentialist cry,
YOLO. What Christians have to offer is a vision of the eternal world to come,
where in our hospitality and joy, in our selflessness and sacrifice, the thin
veil of this entirely immanent frame might be pierced with rays from
another world, these solicitations of the spiritual world, that opens them
up to want something more.
Live on purpose.
Confront evil.
Suffer well.
Embody hope.

After following Jesus now for half my life, I have never once regretted
stepping into the Christian story. My only regrets reflect those times I have
strayed from his path. Jesus really is worth believing. As the light of the
world, there is no darkness in him, and no shadow side to be exposed. So
trust him. And as your story in still to be written, as you set out in pursuit
of that heavenly accolade, I hope it will be a story worthy of the generations
to come. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine
upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift his countenance upon you
and give you peace.
Thank you.

The post Dan Patterson’s Graduation Address – Adventure Awaits appeared first on ������Ƶ.

When we buy ice-cream, we can be confident that the flavour will be the same each time.�� This is because the ingredients are easy to control, and the manufacturer can stick to a familiar recipe to make sure my Love Potion 31 (yes that is really a flavour) tastes the same each time I buy it.

However, when we go shopping for a service there are a lot more variables involved.�� For example, at the hairdresser I always have a little fear that my hair might not end up as I imagined.�� The hairdresser could be having a bad day, my hair could be having a bad day or there could be a miscommunication or mistake along the way.

This is because unlike a product (like ice-cream) a service (like a hairdresser) involves people in the transaction and as such is variable in nature.�� A service is also a very personal purchase because most of the time myself or something I own (and often love) must be present for this to take place. ��For example, I can’t take off my head and leave it for an hour while they cut my hair!

What does this mean for service providers? If you are selling a service such as education or hairdressing this means that your customers are taking a risk to trust your organisation each time they purchase.�� We can help reduce this risk for customers by putting plans in place to make their experience predictable and consistent over time and by developing a strong flavour profile, so customers know what to expect every time they step inside.

To develop this strong flavour profile (or brand) for our service we need to start by answering four questions:

1. Who is our customer?
2. What flavour of ice-cream do our customers want to buy?
3. What flavour of ice-cream do we have the ingredients to make?
4. How do we consistently make this flavor over time (and with a number of different chefs)?

By starting with an understanding of our customer first we begin from a point of empathy which helps to focus on developing our offering to specifically meet the needs of those who are coming to us to be served.

For example, I found that lots of customers loved Rum n Raisin even though I can’t stand it! To develop an offering for people that have different tastes to my own I must first seek to see the world through their eyes so that I can then understand how to best meet their needs.

One way to develop this understanding is through the creation of Customer Personas.�� To develop these a team can work with current customer and industry data as well as undertake interviews with staff and customers to build a profile of groups of customers who share similar characteristics.�� This information is then put into a simple visual format which fleshes out the personal characteristics to help represent a typical user within this customer group.�� Some of the information collected might include their goals and aspirations and what frustrates them.�� This is also a good chance to consider the type of media they consume and their daily routine.�� By starting with this in-depth view of the customer it is then possible to see the world through their eyes and understand their motivation for taking part in the service.

How does this help? By developing a strong view of different customer groups, we can then seek to understand the type of flavour that best suits their needs – it is no good creating a fabulous Rum n’ Raisin if your customers really want Strawberry Sherbet.

Once we start to understand the similarities between groups of customers and the flavours they are demanding, we can then match this with the flavour our organisation is in the best position to make.�� If we have a flavour match, then we are on our way to creating a winning combination.

What’s next? Much like good ice-cream the key is to ensure that the flavour we promise to our customer groups stays the same over time.�� It’s all about consistency – if I get Choc Chip one day and Vanilla the next it is confusing.�� So, our next goal is develop a plan to make sure that we make the same flavour consistently over time. But that’s a story for another day.

So, my question to you is – What’s your Flavour?

Author: Felicia Limmer is a Lecturer in Marketing with ������Ƶ.

Connect with Felicia @ flimmer@chc.edu.au or via LinkedIn at

The post What’s your flavour? Building Service Brands that taste great! appeared first on ������Ƶ.

“During my spare time, I volunteer with an organisation called A Brave Life. Where I work with teenage and young mothers in a counselling and tutoring capacity, utilising both my psychology skills, alongside with my love for academia. Each week, I spend time tutoring our young mothers to help them finish grade 12 or with their tertiary��degrees. I also support these girls through individual counselling, crisis management, and volunteer every second Friday to assist in running our Life Skills Program as group facilitator.��I am also passing a group program that I wrote through ethics for A Brave Life, and dedicating the research components of my Masters to identify guidelines in retaining young mothers in the public education system.”

Breanna graduated��from ������Ƶ with a Bachelor of Counselling, and started working for Queensland Health straight away. Her role as an AOD counsellor for Lives Lived Well and her private practice counselling role for Children and Adolescents followed.

“I love my role as a counsellor for both the small humans of the world (children) and those affected by the disease of addiction (AOD). Still continuing with supervision from my supervisor back in my prac years with ������Ƶ, I am always growing and learning.I am also doing my Masters in Trauma-Aware Education, with the prospect of being a PhD student with research in various trauma-aware education sectors (i.e. teenage parenting, foster children, etc). In 2020, I was lucky enough to be awarded the 7 News Young Achievers Award in Community Work.��“

������Ƶ is so proud of the incredible work Breanna has done and continues to do! We are cheering you on and pray God’s continued blessing on your work and life.

�� ��

The post Alumni Breanna Solomon finalist in Westfield Local Hero competition appeared first on ������Ƶ.

Never before has our society needed support as much as now. We are aware that you, our Alumni are making a difference wherever you’re called. The communities you serve are blessed through your contributions. I’ve had the privilege of connecting with more of you and your stories over the last few months. You are indeed transforming your world.

������Ƶ continues to equip students for Kingdom purposes to make a difference in the world. We started with teacher education in 1986 and today we offer courses in Education, Social Sciences, Business, Ministries and Liberal Arts. Over the last year, we started a number of new short undergraduate and graduate certificate courses in Counselling Studies (undergraduate and post-graduate), Educational Studies (undergraduate), Business (undergraduate), English Literature (undergraduate), and School Management and Leadership (post-graduate). ��A number of alumni are currently in some of these new courses!

As many of you have noted, we’ve had to move our 35^th Anniversary celebration event from September 10^th to March 25^th next year given the changeable conditions due to COVID.�� It will be a great opportunity for alumni to reconnect in person. Looking forward to seeing you there!

The ������Ƶ campus has changed over the years. Here is a view of our new frontage:

Please know that your family here at ������Ƶ is ready to support you in any way that we can. I encourage you to reach out to us and continue to stay connected.

I pray that you will know and experience His divine power that has been bestowed on us, everything necessary for a dynamic spiritual life and godliness, through true and personal knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence (2 Peter 1:3 AMP).

God bless,

Jeannie

The post Message from the President to Alumni appeared first on ������Ƶ.

How are you ‘cultivating’ community in your spheres? If you leave community to chance you’ll have the same result as a garden that has been deserted�� – it will be growing, but definitely not cultivated. This is the difference between wild plants and a cultivated garden:

• One is haphazard and disordered, the other has function, beauty and is intentional
• One has more aggressive plants swallowing up and suffocating other plants, in the other each plant has its place and is nurtured to flourish
• In one unwanted weeds can spread unchecked, in the other weeds are quickly addressed and removed

Which is why so much of the bible is dedicated not just to how we relate to God, but also how we intentionally relate to each other.

John 13:33-35

33 Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer…. 34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

You don’t have to command people to do things that come naturally! So clearly Jesus knew we would need to be instructed on this point from time to time. This verse speaks of intentionality.

Using the garden analogy, let’s discuss two things that are required for a cultivated community.

1. Good soil.

The condition of your heart, and the presence of the Holy Spirit will always determine the fruitfulness of a community. The bible is full of analogies about this!

If you’re lucky enough to work at a Christian organisation or church you will have many opportunities to interact with God’s word, but that can’t replace our personal attentiveness to the condition of our hearts. Unless we are bringing our hearts (particularly our hearts in relationship to others) under the refining hand of Christ, we may not have the good soil needed to cultivate a good community.

The best way to do a heart-soil test is to do a fruit test. Luke 6:45 A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.

What you say, and how you say it, will reveal what is going on in your heart. If we tend to the condition of our hearts we will find that we are more willing and more able to positively cultivate our communities.

1. Intentionality

A cultivated garden has intentional planting, watering, pruning – intentional care and behaviour. Similarly, a cultivated community – either in your businesses, classrooms, counselling practices, churches, workplaces or home – requires intentionality towards each other.

Sometimes we are tempted to only “do our Christian duty” when it comes to how we treat each other. We don’t want to “get in trouble with God” so as long as we act nice, don’t say anything overtly rude, don’t gossip, then we’re ok right? But that results in the bare minimum Christian behaviour – we become an isolated garden of cactuses! Low maintenance, separated, and prickly. I don’t think that was the idea Jesus had in mind when he said our community would show the world that we are His.

That’s not the Christian’s call to community. We are instructed to love others as we love ourselves. We don’t love ourselves begrudgingly, doing the bare minimum. We really care about the condition, nourishment, and development of ourselves. We invest in ourselves!

Therefore, we shouldn’t do the bare minimum for our community and hope it will plod along on its own. We should cultivate it! Nourishing each other with encouragement, quickly pulling out the weeds of offence and misunderstanding, giving attention to those that are struggling, and recognizing when we have taken up too much space and are smothering other people’s growth, keeping our soil rich so that God’s goodness will flow out of our hearts to others.

God wants us to care about our horizontal relationship with each other, not just our vertical relationship with Him.

Which means – Don’t wait until you feel like it. The best way to feel loving towards others is to act loving before you feel it- pray for them, care about their wellbeing, want the best for them.

It might require ‘planting’ new things like meetings, relationships or behaviours. But also, it may simply look like cultivating the relationships, meetings, and interactions we already have according to the cultivation instructions in God’s word.

How’s your green thumb? Be the cultivator almost your communities today!

The post How We Sometimes Get Community Wrong appeared first on ������Ƶ.

The Packer Family, of Queensland company Packer Leather, have generously provided a substantial scholarship award for a number of years. The scholarships go to a talented new Liberal Arts students who are moving from outside of Brisbane to study the Bachelor of Arts in the Liberal Arts at ������Ƶ. Abi, who hails from Stanthorpe and began her studies at ������Ƶ in Semester 1 this year, is very grateful for the generosity of the Packer Family. “It’s an honour to receive the scholarship, and will help me pursue my passion for literature and history at ������Ƶ. I’m really thankful to Graham and his family for this blessing.”

Norma Packer (née Adams) was born in Toowoomba on 3 January 1918. She grew up in the Darling Downs region and went to high school at the Brisbane Commercial College. Following her graduation at age 16, she studied violin in Brisbane and later received an Associate in Music diploma. She remained a member of the Chermside Uniting Church orchestra until the age of 98. Norma’s lifelong study of the Bible has inspired her to overcome adversity over many years and to offer servant generosity to several generations of her family. The Norma Packer Scholarship was donated to ������Ƶ in 2019 to honour Norma on the occasion of her 100th birthday.

Millis Institute Director and ������Ƶ’s Humanities Coordinator, Dr Simon Kennedy, emphasised the significance of scholarships like this one. “As a former ������Ƶ Council Chair, Graham Packer is well aware of the impact this kind of giving can have on a student. What a great way to support students to study the big questions and great books of Western Civilisation! I know that Abi is thrilled by this, and it’s wonderful to be able to honour Norma Packer in this way.” More information about ������Ƶ’s scholarship opportunities can be found here.

The post 2021 Norma Packer Scholarship Awarded appeared first on ������Ƶ.

Dr Kennedy then challenged Christian schools to train “Christian humanists”, people who read great books, wrestled with big ideas, and grapple with the deep questions of God and humanity, in order to produce effective Christian leaders. He concluded his talk by saying that “if you develop your schools into places of Christian humane education, whether it’s for the many or a kind of accelerated program in the humanities, you will be on the way to producing graduates who can lead the Church, and indeed the country, through the dark decades ahead.”

The post The Truth Made Weird by Dr Simon Kennedy appeared first on ������Ƶ.

The post Transformed Seminar on Christian Worldview with Dr Simon Kennedy appeared first on ������Ƶ.

Good academic governance is central to the success of any higher education provider. At ������Ƶ, this is the role of Academic Board, which ensures that academic policies, programs and procedures are aligned with ������Ƶ’s mission and vision and meet the requirements of regulatory and professional bodies. Academic Board ensures that curriculum and teaching practices are continuously improved and reflect ������Ƶ’s commitment to being a leader in the integration of Christian faith and learning, while also maintaining academic rigour and ensuring that courses are relevant and prepare students for the future.

The membership of Academic Board includes academic staff who are elected by their peers for a term of three years. The process for 2021 has resulted in Christine Chapman (School of Ministries), Dr Johannes Luetz (School of Social Sciences) and Dr Elizabeth Nichols (School of Education, Humanities and Business) being appointed to Academic Board.

We congratulate them on their appointment and are grateful for their service.

The post New Academic Board Members appeared first on ������Ƶ.

It was fantastic to recognise this outstanding contribution to Christian higher education research at the book launch. Innovating Christian Higher Education Research is a major research achievement, with contributing scholars from a number of institutions across the globe. Copies can be purchased , and the video of the book launch can .

The post Book Launch: Quality Education appeared first on ������Ƶ.