Christian Community

Christian Community Day

Reverend Dr Jason Hobba Director of Christian Community

Each staff member that chooses to become part of the King’s School takes their place in the extended community of the School. According to our Mission Statement, the community in which staff members take their part is not just any type of community. Instead, it is a particular type of community–it is a Christian Community.

As a school very firmly in the Anglican tradition, we can define the idea of a Christian Community even further by noting that the context of the King’s School is its physical location in North Parramatta and Moss Vale, both within the geographical boundaries of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney and the Province of New South Wales, over which the Archbishop of Sydney exercises jurisdiction.

We also have the heritage of King’s, founded by Bishop William Broughton, who saw the education the school has to offer as being for the benefit, not simply for the individual student, but the good of society. How, then, does a staff member who chooses to join King’s see their role and place within the School? They are invariably asked before accepting their positions whether they are supportive of the Christian ethos of the School. But what does that mean? Can a person be an atheist or of a different religious background and serve at King’s? That is, can they be supportive of the Anglican Christian ethos of King’s if they do not identify as Christian? And, how might we integrate the Anglican Christian ethos into the life of the School in a way consistent with our Mission and thereby fulfil the intention of Bishop Broughton? These are the kinds of questions that our Term 4, 2022 Professional Development Day at Tudor House sought to begin to answer. Moreso, it also sought to give more context and content to the meaning of Christian Community so that staff might be better informed about, and, thus, better able to articulate, what is meant when the School is described this way in our Mission statement.

Our day began with Chapel, which considered how the Bible can draw on a range of cultures and communities, finding in them, by the common grace of God, ideas of value to contribute to what God is doing in the world. Hence, staff of all religious backgrounds, and none, can still be welcome and contribute meaningfully to the Christian Community of King’s. Yet the Christian faith still considers itself to offer something unique and compelling—lifechanging—to all cultures and communities in the message of Christ. In this way, King’s has much to offer, not just to the families and students, but also to staff in the Christian Community of the School.

Christian Community Day

CONTINUED

Reverend Dr Andrew Cameron, Director of St Mark’s National Theological Centre in Canberra, considered the question of whether Christian Community was good for King’s. Reverend Dr Cameron helped unpack what it meant to be a Christian Community as a school and how it can be good for King’s, focusing especially on our eight values. He compared the values of King’s with a range of other religious and state schools, noting that while many values are similar to King’s, two of our values are unique across the sample he gathered: Humility and Gratitude. Both values find substantial expression in the Bible. Most significantly, from a Christian perspective, humility finds its ultimate expression in the person, the message, the life, death, and the resurrection of Jesus. And gratitude, therefore, seems to be the proper expression of all that God has given in this world and especially in the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ, for all humanity. Lest the day be filled exclusively with staff listening, we wished to have staff contribute to the shaping of the Christian Community of King’s across a range of areas. To do so, several workshops were hosted by staff members to explore how a range of topics might intersect with the Christian Community of King’s and how we might enhance these areas further. Topics included, among others, Character and Leadership; Flourishing; Gratitude; Bringing Christian Community to the Classroom; Bridging the Perceived Divide Between Science and Christian Community; Pastoral Care; Shaping Virtuous Minds; Culture Wars and Kindness: Gender, Sexuality, and Identity; and the Role of the Arts in Christian Community. The aim was to have staff contribute to the vision for the chosen topic in the Christian Community of the King’s School and to start to identify the strengths, but also the areas for development, including any short-term “wins” that could be gained. Ultimately, the Professional Development Day was a productive contribution to the ongoing conversation of what it means for King’s to be a Christian Community, how each staff member and family contributes to that Christian Community, and the next steps in further developing King’s as the kind of Christian Community that can, indeed, make an outstanding impact for the good of society.