Constancy and Change

COLIN BALE VICE PRINCIPAL

This year marks my twenty-first year at Moore College as a member of Faculty. The College in that time has been marked by both constancy and change. The purpose of Moore to train and shape men and women for gospel ministry has not altered over the period.

We remain committed to preparing people to serve the Lord Jesus, usually in vocational ministry, in Sydney, throughout Australia and to the ends of the earth. There has been, and continues to be, a whole-hearted commitment to the mission of the Lord Jesus. The College’s focus on biblical theology has also been a continuing feature, as has the commitment to learning in community with its emphasis upon residing in College accommodation to maximise the experience. We aim that all members of the community, as they sit under God’s word and are shaped by it through the working of the Spirit, will grow in Christ-likeness, enjoy deepening fellowship with other community members and, most importantly, show our love for Christ in the way that we relate to others in the community and love them as Christ commanded. There has also been an ongoing commitment to prayer. Every week in term time the Faculty meet to pray, students join together in prayer groups, a prayer support group regularly meets to uphold the College’s ministry and mission, and a quarterly prayer bulletin is issued to supporters. More could be said about those things which are unchanging, but it is important to state that the essentials remain constant.

Yet there has been change. The changes I have witnessed are understandable ones. The current Principal, Mark Thompson, is the third leader of the College under whom I have served. The Faculty have certainly altered over that time. Some have retired, others have moved to positions in other theological colleges, missionary ventures or pastoral ministries. New faculty have joined the Moore team. So, too, has there been movement in the membership of the Governing Board and the College staff. And, of course, there is an ongoing parade of different students over the years through the College.

The number and scope of the College’s courses are marked by both constancy and change. The Bachelor of Divinity and Bachelor of Theology remain very much at the heart of the College’s program, but new courses such as the Diploma of Biblical Theology, which is in online mode, and the Advanced Diploma, with its mix of core units and electives, provide new opportunities for the College to engage people in theological training. Our distance course remains a significant ministry of the College and while its content remains largely unchanged, the modes of delivery embrace either the printed text approach or online access. The creation of four new centres (Global Mission, Ministry Development, Priscilla and Aquila, Christian Living) has facilitated great community engagement and training.

Thus, constancy and change have been the reality for me during my time at College. It has been thoroughly enjoyable to be involved in what is the dynamic community which is Moore College. Yet, the most important constant in my College experience has always been that the College has been integral in directing me back to the one who gives purpose to everything – The Lord Jesus. Some decades ago a Christian friend gave me a poster that was a paraphrase from a line in T. S. Eliot’s poem ‘Burnt Norton’: ‘Jesus is the still point of the turning world’. It is a truth statement that still resonates for me even though I lost the poster some years ago. As the Sydney evangelist John Chapman was always keen to remind us, ‘It’s always about Jesus’. In the constancy and change of those twenty years at College, the most important constant has been, and continues to be, the Lord Jesus himself:

‘…the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the first born from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy.’ (Col 1:15-18)