Term 4 2023

I recently read an article published by McCrindle titled:
“The great teacher exodus: tackling burnout in the education sector.”

There were some alarming statistics in this article, but based on the teacher workforce crisis that the federal government considers to be the biggest threat currently facing the education sector in Australia, I’m sure these statistics are not new to us nor should they surprise us.

In these challenging times, where weariness and burdens often find their way into our lives, I am drawn to the words of Jesus: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

“... the role that educators have often blurs the lines between work and rest”

In a world that seems to be getting busier with the demands upon us in many aspects of our lives, including our work lives, seemingly increasing year on year, it's evident that the weight we carry can sometimes feel overwhelming. While various professions may have their stopping points, the role that educators have often blurs the lines between work and rest. As we continue to navigate the ongoing impact of the pandemic, I am convinced that our teachers have faced some of the greatest challenges during recent times. The strains of substitute shortages, increasing (and oftentimes unrealistic) parent expectations, higher numbers of students with needs and increasing legislative requirements have stretched us beyond measure, making the already demanding task of teaching even more formidable.

In this moment, allow me to clarify what I won't suggest: a life of ease through faith. Our journey with Christ doesn’t promise a life without toil or tribulation. To merely encourage you to find rest in Jesus as a remedy for all challenges would not only be inadequate but also contrary to the principles of our faith. Rather, let us focus on what Christ truly assures us: the strength to persevere, particularly when we engage in purposeful endeavours. Having now worked for CST for nearly 7 years, I can’t think of any more ‘purposeful endeavour’ than Christian education!

When Jesus beckons, "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened," He also invites us to "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." Consider the symbolism of the yoke, a wooden instrument used to guide and steer animals in labour. Jesus doesn't promise an escape from work, but rather a shift in perspective. He bids us to exchange the burdens of the world, which may feel onerous and unyielding, for His yoke – one that empowers us, one that guides us. Embracing this yoke doesn't mean the cessation of our efforts; instead, it offers a different approach, one where we channel our actions and emotions through Him.

“... work undertaken within the realm of His intentions feels lighter and more gratifying”

Finding alignment with God's purpose for us transforms the very nature of our work. The difficulties persist, yet their weight is lifted when infused with the purpose of advancing His Kingdom. While it might seem paradoxical at first, this concept holds profound truth: work undertaken within the realm of His intentions feels lighter and more gratifying. Even when faced with the challenges of teaching, the daily grind becomes a canvas for us to spread His joy.

So, how does one find this joy amidst exhaustion? Firstly, let us turn to prayer – for our students, colleagues, community, and ourselves. The Bible tells us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3: 5-6) When we trust in God and spend time in prayer, He will give us guidance. When we acknowledge Him in everything we do, He will show us the path to take. Secondly, let us reshape our inner dialogue, replacing doubt with affirmation. Replacing anxiety with hope. Replacing fear with courage. And let’s remember that the precious students in our care are made in God’s image; unique, and endowed with divine gifts. Our Vision is “To be a transformational Christian learning community”. I believe this transformation begins with our thoughts. We need to look beyond behavioural issues, perceiving each child as a potential recipient of God's transformative love. By adopting the mind of Christ, our actions inevitably align. Is this an effortless endeavour? No, yet it mirrors the promise Jesus made. His path is not devoid of labour; there is a yoke. However, this labour is a beacon of light, a beacon that outshines the world's distractions – the dramas, stresses, and politics.

“Continue to engage wholeheartedly in crafting beautiful Christ-centred lessons ....”

As we press on with the term, I encourage you to direct your focus toward the vocation that Christ entrusted to you, a vocation that I know many of you feel called to, not the burdens the world imposes. Continue to engage wholeheartedly in crafting beautiful Christ-centred lessons, shaping and nurturing the wonderful young lives that God has entrusted us with. Crafting our interactions with each other, our correspondence, our actions and our words – all through the prism of advancing His divine purpose. By nurturing a world enriched by lives touched by His grace, we fulfil our true calling, a calling that holds unparalleled worth.

David Gillman — CEO Christian Schools Tasmania

Term 2 2023

Prior to my wife and I moving to Hobart from Sydney in 2017, we did a fair bit of research on Tasmania. One of the things we quickly learned was that Tasmania had some amazing mountain bike trails.

Having never owned a bike before, and being keen to get the most out of our Tassie experience, we decided to purchase two mountain bikes that we brought down with us.

Our first rental was in Snug, and after speaking with some locals, we learned that the Peter Murrell Reserve was pretty close to where we were living and had some good mountain bike trails. So, off we went. In the spirit of “carpe diem”, we had not only purchased two rather expensive bikes, but also had all of the “kit” to go with these bikes – the Lycra body suits, the helmets, the shoes and some camel backpacks that we thought would not only be great to keep some snacks in and water for hydration, but also our iPhones and the keys to our car.

“We started our search and after about 40 minutes, we were ready to give up”

After riding around the trails for a couple of hours, and stopping regularly to capture the moment on our phones, we decided to call it a day and head back home. You can imagine my shock when we returned to our car and I realised that I couldn’t find the keys! You see, the tiny compartment that I had placed the car keys in (in my fancy backpack!) was also the tiny compartment that I had placed my phone in, which I had opened and closed about a dozen times over the course of the morning and over I don’t know how many kms! With panic in my voice, I told Steph that I’d lost the keys and that we’d need to retrace our steps, realising as I said those words how daunting and futile this task would be. Well, we started our search and after about 40 minutes, we were ready to give up. (I now have a deeper appreciation for the phrase “finding a needle in a haystack”!)

As we were about to head back to the car and call someone to come and pick us up, I paused, and thought to myself – “I’m a Christian, right? I believe in a God of miracles, don’t I? And surely if I believe that God is the God of the impossible, wouldn’t finding our keys be a relatively easy task for Him?” So, standing in the middle of the reserve at the top of one of the trails, I prayed out loud “Lord, thank you that you are the God of the impossible, and thank you that you care about your children, in both the big things and the small things. Lord, I pray right now in faith that you will help us find our keys”. No sooner had I finished my prayer and opened my eyes, I noticed someone at the bottom of the hill and realised they were running up the hill, holding something up in the air and calling out to us. It turned out to be someone who had been running the trail and had come across our keys and was trying to chase us down to return them to us! I have never forgotten this experience.

One thing this experience challenged me on, is that although I know that I serve a God who cares about every aspect of my life, the big and the small, how often (if I’m honest), do I make the mistake of only turning to God as a last resort? As Christians, we should be turning to God as our first resort – our “Plan A”, not our “Plan B” or even our “Plan C”! For the past few months, I’ve been having some pretty big car issues, with warning lights on my dash being a common occurrence!

“We can also be confident that we can boldly approach His throne when we are in need of a major breakthrough”

Last week, my little Jeep finally gave up the fight and I had to get it towed to a car dealership. After the dealer (who I won’t name, although I am sorely tempted to!) had failed to return my many calls over a period of four days to try and find out what the status of my car was, only to tell me when I finally decided to turn up in person for a “please explain” that they weren’t able to look at it for another two weeks, I decided to take it somewhere else. The only problem was, that it wasn’t really driveable and as I limped (the car had literally gone into “limp mode”!) out onto the Brooker Hwy, the warning lights that had been flashing at me since I had repossessed it from the dealer were accompanied by a spluttering of the engine and a loss of power and I had to pull over to the side of the road.

I called the tow company to see if they could help me out a second time, but they informed me (in the politest of ways) that they were unable to provide a second complementary tow, so I ended the call feeling more than a little frustrated. As soon as I got off the phone, the story of my mountain bike adventure came to my mind. On the side of the Brooker Highway, with people honking their horns and flashing their lights at me, I closed my eyes and prayed “Heavenly father, thank you that I can turn to you when I’m in need. Right now, I pray in the name of Jesus that you will allow me to drive my car to the mechanic.” I finished my prayer, opened my eyes and turned on the ignition. And….no warning light!

I’m aware that there are many staff in our schools who are seeking the Lord for a significant miracle, whether that be a miracle for yourself or for a loved one. As believers, we can be confident that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask or think (Ephesians 3:20) and that He is the God of the impossible (Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27). We can also be confident that we can boldly approach His throne when we are in need of a major breakthrough (Hebrews 4:16). However, I encourage each of us (myself included!) to remember that God cares about all aspects of our lives, not just the big things. This means we can turn to Him in the small things (like finding lost keys!) as well as the big. And when we do get answers to our prayers, we also need to remember to give Him thanks, both when we receive the small miracles and the big. Amen?

David Gillman — CEO Christian Schools Tasmania

Term 1 2023

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with Senator Claire Chandler. Senator Chandler is a Federal Member for the Liberal Party here in Tasmania.

It was refreshing to be able to openly discuss some of the concerns with Senator Chandler that our schools have about the proposed changes to anti-discrimination legislation that are being put forward by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC).

During the meeting I talked about the desire we have for our schools to remain distinctively Christian as we focus on our vision of being a transformational Christian learning community and uphold our mission of providing the highest quality Christ-centred education to our students and how our distinctive has given our families the opportunity to choose this type of schooling for their children for over 60 years. There has been much discussion recently about the ALRC’s proposed changes to anti-discrimination legislation. These changes, if adopted, would have a significant impact on Christian (faith-based) schools like ours, as they would effectively remove the exemptions that currently exist that up until now have allowed us to discriminate in our employment practices on the basis of faith — being able to hire only Christian staff whose faith and values aligns with ours. I believe that one of the challenges we have in this space, is that there is a broadly misunderstood view of what the purpose of Christian education is and why being able to continue to employ only Christian staff is so important for Christian schools.

“We love and welcome all of the families and students in our school communities, ”

There are many politicians (and indeed many in our society) who hold a view that the majority of Christians are bigoted and narrow minded and that we don’t love those in our communities with a different viewpoint to ours. Without labouring the point (no pun intended!) everyone who has worked in a Christian school knows that this is not the case. We love and welcome all of the families and students in our school communities, regardless of what their beliefs are and from my experience being with CST we have never discriminated against a student for his or her religious (or other) beliefs. Unfortunately, we are living in a society today where people think if we disagree with them that we hate them or are attacking them. The world in which we live today is full of people who are easily offended. As the author of an article I read on this topic recently wrote “From safe spaces at universities to unconstitutional attempts to tear down free speech because of what is being said, the world wants us to know something: They’re offended!” As a Christian organisation, we teach from a Biblical worldview (from the truth of God’s word) which contradicts what those with a secular worldview hold to be true and because they don’t understand it, there is opposition, and quite often offence! As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing…” To those who don’t follow Christ, the message of the gospel is absolutely stupid and inherently offensive. People who don’t believe it can and do take issue with its message.

“it’s just as important for our support staff and leaders to be able to model the Christian life to our students and those in our school communities.”

But the big debate right now (and the issue at hand) is around whether or not a Christian school should be able to hire only Christian staff. It’s clearly apparent that there are many who don’t believe it should make any difference to a Christian school if the staff at that school are Christian or not. Again, as anyone who has worked in a Christian school knows, having staff who are Christian not only makes a difference, but it actually makes us who we are – it’s the single greatest reason for our ‘distinctive’ and the reason so many families choose Christian education for their children. And it’s not just our teaching staff. Whilst it’s important for us to teach the curriculum through a Christian worldview (which we believe can only be done by Christian teachers!) it’s just as important for our support staff and leaders to be able to model the Christian life to our students and those in our school communities. How could a non-Christian authentically model the Christian life? How could we have an authentic Christian community if we didn’t have Christian staff?

So, what can we do? Many of you would hopefully have participated in the ALRC survey about your beliefs and your experiences in Christian education. (For those who didn’t, unfortunately the survey has now closed!) Over the next few weeks our Principals will be reaching out to Federal and State members here in Tassie inviting these members to visit our schools. We are hopeful that these visits will give our Principals and families who currently have their child/ren enrolled in our schools the chance to explain to our politicians why it is so important for our schools to continue to be able to hire staff whose faith and values align with ours.

The Australian Association of Christian Schools (an organisation that provides political advocacy support for Christian Schools across Australia) is about to launch a new website that will collect stories about our schools – it’s called MyChristianSchool.au which will be the face of their campaign to persuade politicians and bureaucrats that the faith of teachers and staff at Christian schools does matter. For it to work, they will need to hear from people like us. To that end, they’ve put together a short (five minute) survey to collect and share the stories of what really happens in Christian schools. If you’re interested in participating in this, you can complete this by clicking the button below.

The Bible tells us to “Stand true to what you believe. Be courageous. Be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13). We are called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5). Now is our time to be salty and to let our light shine and to be courageous and to stand up for what we believe! Amen?

David Gillman — CEO Christian Schools Tasmania

Term 4 2022

In Exodus 3, we read the story of the burning bush, where Moses encounters God for the first time.

In the account that’s recorded in Exodus, Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law. When he came to Horeb, the mountain of God, he saw a burning bush which although on fire, did not appear to be burning up.

In verses 4-6, we read ‘When the Lord saw that he (Moses) had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.’ (Exodus 3:4-6)

In considering the account of Moses and thinking of how we as Christians today respond to God’s sacred space and holy ground, the writer of a devotional I read recently said this:

“Sometimes I wonder if, as Christians, we’re losing our understanding of sacred space and holy ground. For some folks, the church has almost become a leisure activity in the same league as weekly sports, pastimes, or hobbies, instead of a sacred time in the midst of our busy schedules or a holy break to refresh our spirits and reconnect ourselves with God. I see folks that I dearly love looking weary and tired, through trying to cope with family pressures, health changes, or career responsibilities. They’re constantly giving and emptying themselves, or busying and stressing themselves.

“ I want to tell them that God didn’t create us to always be active; He made us to enjoy His works and be strengthened in His sacred presence. ”

I want to encourage them to rediscover the peace of God in their lives and find a sanctuary in His holy house. I want to tell them that God didn’t create us to always be active; He made us to enjoy His works and be strengthened in His sacred presence. When I read how God called Moses from the burning bush and asked him to remove his sandals, I am reminded of what holy ground and sacred space are: they are places where God’s presence is intimately experienced and deeply felt. It’s a place and a time for dwelling in the mysterious moment of God’s grace and love. It’s a divine dimension where Heaven comes down to the Earth so we, as beautiful and unique creatures, can be touched by the Perfect One who made us. It’s where we learn that worship is not a timetabled activity, but an eternal part of our relationship with the Everlasting Creator. There is no other experience like it, which is why where it happens becomes holy and sacred ground.”

Whatever you are going through right now, I encourage you to seek God’s presence in the midst of it. Whatever pressure you are under, or issue you are struggling with, look for God’s holiness in it. Make time to find what is sacred, instead of dwelling on what makes you scared. Take off your shoes and dance with God, for holy ground is where we can best delight in His pleasure, blessing, and love. I encourage each of us (myself included!) to take some time during our busy schedules this term and over the break to experience God’s presence in an intimate way, a presence that is available to all believers. Don’t wait until Sunday to worship God – we have the opportunity to worship him each and every day!

David Gillman — CEO Christian Schools Tasmania