THE LUTHERAN July 2019

N A TIO N A L M A G A ZIN E O F THE L U THE RA N C HU RC H O F A U STRA LIA

JULY 2019

VOL 53 NO6

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LUTHERAN

CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA

HISTORY COMES ALIVE Merrilyn Beaumont, right, recently visited Poland with her husband John to explore the origins of their families, whose forebears migrated to Australia between 1848 and 1853. This photo taken by John was in Zielona Gora, where they met historian Dr Anitta Maksymowicz, left. Dr Maksymowicz, who spoke at a genealogy congress in Adelaide in 2012, is working on a project about German and Polish emigrants returning to Silesia and was interested to incorporate the travel diary of Merrilyn’s great-grandfather Johann Traugott Finger. Merrilyn and John are members of Victoria’s Nunawading-Waverley multi-site congregation.

EDITORIAL Editor Lisa McIntosh p 08 8267 7300 m 0409 281 703 e lisa.mcintosh@lca.org.au Executive Editor Linda Macqueen p 08 8267 7300 e linda.macqueen@lca.org.au

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JULY

Special features EDITOR'S

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Letter

When St Michael’s Lutheran School first opened at Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills in 1839, Lutheran schools were intended for Lutheran students and Lutheran families. They were established so that young Lutherans could be taught and nurtured in Lutheran doctrine and practice – and become Lutheran pastors and teachers.

Lutherans were still prominent in the classrooms when I started at Immanuel Primary School at Novar Gardens in suburban Adelaide in 1974. That’s even though there were a number of kids whose families attended churches of other denominations or who didn’t go to church at all. By the time I went to Immanuel College for my senior schooling, I studied and made friends with young people from other religious traditions as well.

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The profiles of today’s Lutheran school communities are very different from those of 180 years ago. Of approximately 40,000 students attending Lutheran schools around Australia last year, 13 per cent identified as Lutherans, 49 per cent as members or adherents to other Christian denominations and 38 per cent as ‘other’, which includes other religious backgrounds and those of no faith.

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More than ever before, Lutheran schools are mission fields in our own backyards.

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Principal Jane Mueller’s community at Living Faith Lutheran Primary School at Murrumba Downs, Queensland, consists of families from a wide variety of faith backgrounds, as well those without any faith.

She believes we can embrace as a God-given opportunity the fact our church schools are now ‘an outreach’. ‘“Bring it on”’, she says (see page 5).

And that’s why we are highlighting the work of school chaplains in this issue. We are blessed to be able to share some encouraging and eye-opening words from lay chaplains and pastors serving in Lutheran schools, and from a chaplain who works in state schools.

We also feature a story on a powerful church-school partnership and a Bible study on working with young people.

Chaplains have a special chance to share life with and mentor young people whose personalities and identities are still developing and who may be still forming their beliefs. As in broader society, it’s not always appropriate, beneficial or even legal for chaplains to preach to or proselytise students. But they can always be an example of Christ’s love and light in the young lives they serve.

Two communities, one heart for mission

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Caring through the struggles

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Sharing life with students

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Speaking their language

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Living a gospel of hope

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Showing love to many generations

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Regulars

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While the theology and provenance of the oft-quoted ‘Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary use words’ is disputed, there is no contesting Jesus’ words in John 13:35 – ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’.

Heartland

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Dwelling in God’s word

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#youngSAVEDfree

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Go and Grow

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Going GREYT!

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Reel Life

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The inside story

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Directory

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Your voice

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Notices

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Coffeebreak

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Please join me in praying for all of our school chaplains as they listen without judgement and guide with wisdom, gentleness and humility, led by history’s greatest mentor, Jesus Christ.

Lisa

Our cover: Lutheran

school chaplain Adam Yeager shares time with student Matt Liersch at Faith Lutheran College at Tanunda in South Australia.

Photo: Denis Smith

JES U S I S G OD'S LOVE. HE G IVES U S NE W HE ARTS TO L AY AS IDE O UR OL D WAYS, TO B EL IE VE AND FOL LOW HIM, TO L IVE WI T H HIM E VERY DAY.

heartland

REV JOHN HENDERSON

Bishop Lutheran Church of Australia

HIS LOVE SE TS US FREE … all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus’ (Romans 3:23,24 NIV).

What an amazing, generous God we have! While we humans anxiously wring our hands and get sore heads from worrying about who is right and who is wrong, who is in and who is out, what we should do and what we shouldn’t do, God just comes along and overturns it all.

That’s because God judges people differently. God’s verdict on us doesn’t depend on what we do. ‘It has nothing to do with the law’, St Paul writes in Romans 3. Rather, God judges us according to what Jesus has done. ‘God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ … ’

So the first thing we learn as Christians is not to justify ourselves. No matter how hard we try to do that, it always ends in sin and failure.

Instead, we must look to Jesus. In him we hear God’s clear verdict of ‘not guilty’. God acquits us because Christ has redeemed us.

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Every person is precious to God and everyone is equally loved. We don’t judge. That’s God’s business, God’s mystery, and it’s God’s alone.

Every person is PRECIOUS to God and everyone is equally LOVED.

God justifies us – declares us not guilty – because Jesus did everything right for us and paid the penalty for us. He did this for all our sin and all our guilt, even if we are the very worst of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).

Because of him God declares the whole world ‘not guilty’. That’s how radical our God is. 'Believe in Jesus', God says, 'trust him, have faith in him, then you will be right with me'. And even our belief, trust and faith aren’t things we do. The Holy Spirit gives them to us – they too, are a gift.

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The second thing we learn is not to judge others.

We extend to other people the same grace we have received. We grow in seeing them as God sees us – sinners whom he declares ‘not guilty’ for the sake of Christ. God treats everyone the same, you and me and our neighbours. We just want everyone to share in this good news!

We know what we need to do: we are to love other people just as God has loved us. With all their flaws, failures, successes, pride, personality disorders, crazy notions, indifference or excesses of passion – God loves people just as they are. None of us need to pretend that we’re better (or worse) than we are. And when we fail, as we do, Jesus is there, to love us, forgive us, and put us back on our feet.

We can revel in this wonderful newfound freedom, praising God from morning until night! We don’t need to have a care in the world. We are free! What a loss if we bottle that freedom up and refuse it to others! When we don’t show love, grace and forgiveness to others, we make problems for ourselves as well as them. How can they then know the love of Jesus? How can we then say that we really believe in him? How can the Holy Spirit still nurture faith in our hearts?

There was once a popular saying, ‘Let go, and let God’.

Our daily faith challenge is to truly believe and trust God. In Jesus we can meet this challenge every day. It doesn’t wear us down, because every day Jesus sets us free – an amazing gift of grace from our amazing, generous God.

TWO communities, ONE heart for mission

Above left: Principal Jane Mueller and Pastor David Schuppan share a heart for mission.

Above: On Shrove Tuesday congregation members served free pancakes at the school, which Jane describes as ‘a beautiful way of showing love and hospitality’.

by LISA MCI NTOSH Many Lutheran schools in Australia have their genesis in a local Lutheran congregation. But having both school and church on the one ‘campus’ is a newer phenomenon.

At Queensland’s Murrumba Downs, just north of Brisbane, Living Faith Lutheran Primary School and Living Faith Lutheran Church do more than just share a site – they share one heart for mission.

The school this year has employed full-time chaplain Paul Bowyer and donated one day per week of his time to the congregation. It’s the first time the school has had a chaplain not linked to federal chaplaincy funding – because, as Jane says, ‘we want our chaplain to be able to overtly proclaim the good news’.

Both leaders have seen changes in the demographics they serve at Living Faith.

Living Faith Primary was established after congregations In recent years, the congregation has planted Beyond at Sandgate and Petrie amalgamated in 2000 with the Church, to reach out to unchurched people. Most youth aim of starting a school. When the school now attend Beyond and Pastor David is built a new administration building a few keen to draw people of that age range to years back, it collaborated with Living Faith ‘Your own soul Living Faith, which is one goal of an LCA congregation, so that visitors enter through Mission Stimulus Grant they were recently expands when one front door to access both receptions. awarded.

The working relationship between primary school Principal Jane Mueller and church Pastor David Schuppan, who each started at Living Faith in 2014, exemplifies this shared vision.

you SHARE Christ with others, share LOVE with others, so it’s a healthy thing.’

The pair meets each Monday over coffee.

‘There’s a lot of mentoring, from David to me. And that’s probably step one for us in the relationship between the church and the school’, Jane says. ‘It works both ways’, Pastor David says, ‘I learn a lot about educational processes.’

Pastor David takes weekly Bible studies with school staff, leads some school chapel gatherings and three times a year leads staff in theological or spiritual training.

Each class from the R-6 school takes part in church services at Living Faith, but while a number of school families have joined the congregation, church membership numbers are not a motivating factor for the relationship. ‘It’s more about kingdom-building’, Jane says.

In her time at Living Faith, Jane says the school community has become more multi-faith. ‘We now have families from all backgrounds, we have Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, various Christian denominations and some people who identify with no faith’, she says. ‘When Lutheran schools were established they were for Lutheran people and now they’re an outreach, so I say, “Bring it on”.’

To that end, Jane says having the majority of the school board being – like her – members of Living Faith congregation, is critical. ‘When it comes to setting strategy … we can talk about things like compassion, we can talk about Christian love and forgiveness and that filters down into the school’, she says.

‘The fundamental benefit [of working together] is that when we serve, we grow’, Pastor David says. ‘Your own soul expands when you share Christ with others, share love with others, so it’s a healthy thing.’

Caring through the struggles

by I NGEBU RG DELL’ A NTON IO Reflecting upon my role as a school coordinator of pastoral care, I have pondered Dr Norm Habel’s ‘2020 Charter for Lutheran Schools’, in particular that ‘A 2020 Lutheran school will have a heart caring for the inner needs of students and staff as they struggle with social, psychological and emotional challenges’.

advocate for building school community connectedness.

A significant focus of the school’s pastoral care program stems from Lutheran Education Australia’s ‘Growing Deep’ documents, which encourage our schools and early childhood services to be ‘communities of hope, nurtured by the promises of God’s word, love and forgiveness which empower staff and students to embrace the future with confidence’.

Evidence of this is shown when students know that they are deeply cared for, by us and by God, and that they are safe. They then can shine their little lights by supporting God freely gave the gift of love through Jesus and each other through playground misunderstandings and I do everything I can to share this love with our school by having compassion for community, by being his hands and classmates experiencing deeper feet to those I am called to serve. issues such as grief and trauma.

I aim to be positive and intentional We pray daily When they experience personal in my ministry to staff, parents and challenges, they often remember students, by being mindful of others’ that our st udents these friendships and recall that cultures and life experiences. will be CONFIDENT God walks with them through the We have more than 20 different mountains and the valleys. global ci t izens, agents nationalities at Living Waters Lutheran My vocation is a combination School in Alice Springs, each of CHANGE and of pastoral care and school bringing with them rich, diverse administration portfolios. I have customs, beliefs and spirituality. young stewards who always been a passionate I have actively encouraged students display service, love to celebrate and share their culture through music and worship, and the and appreciat ion. vibrant and energetic school choir of 85 students is a testament to that.

Prayer is a vital part of school life and, as a staff, we pray daily that our students will be confident global citizens, agents of change and young stewards who display service, love and appreciation. Results of this include student-initiated hamper drives and school walkathons. I encourage and support students to develop a positive self-image, to take risks and to love themselves and learning.

My role is also to support staff and nurture their faith journeys, as well as providing them with strategies to deal with conflict and restoring peace.

It has been challenging, rewarding and fulfilling all in one. It has deepened my faith as I have studied God’s word for chapel services, staff Lenten studies and camps, youth group and Christian Studies lessons. I have learnt that you never know what wonderings will come out of the mouths of babes and preteens about God and life!

Ingeburg Dell’ Antonio has been working at the 320-student Living Waters Lutheran School in Alice Springs, one of the most remote Lutheran schools in Australia. She starts this month in a more regional setting as the K-12 College Chaplain at St James Lutheran College in Hervey Bay, in coastal south Queensland.

Sharing life wi th st udents

by A DA M Y EAGER What is school chaplaincy? After nearly nine years I am still trying to answer that question.

The life of a lay chaplain in Lutheran schools can be wild and varied. Whether it is kicking a footy with Year 6 boys, tackling questions about science, history, philosophy and theology with Year 12s or supporting staff through seasons of grief and doubt, chaplaincy is rarely easy and never boring.

My vocation is to journey with staff and students through the daily routine of school life. I have sat with students struggling with their sexual and gender identity, strapped students into waterskis though they didn’t have a clue what they were doing, and led countless chapel services – all with the aim of sharing life with students and reminding them, through word and deed, that they are loved by God.

regardless of how popular, sporty or intelligent they try to be. We journey with them, regardless of what they believe, through the good days, the bad days and the often-boring milieu in between. A school chaplain can be a theologian, a counsellor, an administrator, an executive, a coach, a mentor or whatever we are needed to be. The words of Paul resonate for me:

‘To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.

To those under the law I became like one under the law … so as to win those under the law ...

To the weak I became weak, to win the As st udents weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save share their some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings’ LIVES wi th us, (1 Corinthians 9:20–23).

we share the LOVE of God wi th them.

We live in a time when family and community connections often break down, leaving young people desperate for something that explains what’s happening in their world and in themselves. The idea of a stable community rooted in a local church is a foreign concept to most students. They are more likely to connect with young people in a different country through online gaming than with those in a local community of faith.

This is where school chaplains bring something countercultural into the lives of young people. As students share their lives with us, we share the love of God with them. We remind them that they have a value not based on exam or tertiary admission scores. They are loved,

To the diehard Taylor Swift fan, I become like one who likes her latest single (though I don’t think it’s very good); to the boy who can’t focus in class and acts out because of his insecurities, I become one who empathises and never judges; to the principal wrestling with teacher-performance issues, I become a listening ear and a voice of comfort.

In an age in which the dynamics and demographics of Lutheran schools are drastically changing, chaplains serve to keep our schools anchored in the gospel – one collegial cup of coffee (or juice box) at a time.

Adam Yeager has been serving as College Chaplain at Faith Lutheran College at Tanunda in South Australia. Later this month he takes up the same role at Unity College at Murray Bridge in SA. The Lutheran JULY 2019

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Speaking their language

by R ACH A EL STELZER

I am junior school chaplain at Redeemer Lutheran College, Rochedale, an outer southern suburb of Brisbane. It is formerly a rural area, full of market gardens and small farms. In recent years housing developments have exploded, and our community has become a very diverse and multicultural one.

As chaplain, it is my joy and my challenge to present the timeless truths of God’s love and welcome to children from many cultural, language, faith and family backgrounds.

Children at our school may have a strong and regular faith background and may attend church regularly, or they may have sporadic or no church involvement, or may come from a Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh tradition.

Earlier this year, I was in the chapel facing a group of five-year-olds, plus other students and staff. I tried to see what the little people could see – a massive building, an imposing black cross, furniture and decorations they had never seen before, and screens with words that they had not yet learnt to read.

Then I asked, ‘Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m not your friend anymore?”’. I explained that the reason I worship Jesus is because when we do something that hurts him, he will never say to us, ‘I’m not your friend anymore’. And that was the gospel message for five-year-olds.

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Our school hosts a large weekend and holiday Chinese school. Our chaplains have been invited to present worship services at Christmas and Easter to share the meaning of these festivals with both vacation care kids and the Chinese school children.

It is my joy and my CHALLENGE to present the t imeless t ru ths of God’s love and WELCOME to children from many … backgrounds.

I knew that any ‘churchy’ words would go straight over their heads and turn off that magic engagement switch inside them. I encouraged them to look around the room.

Then I explained what the word ‘worship’ means, and gave a few simple reasons why we worship God. God made us, God loves us, and Jesus is our friend.

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Retired pastor Malcolm Bartsch once told me that if our theology is not speaking to our context, then it is dead.

And I have found this to be true in my work with young people. Sometimes I just need to find the right language.

Our Rochedale Lutheran congregation presents the Prep students with a children’s Bible each at the start of the school year, and volunteers from church visit Prep classes each week to read Bible stories with students.

These connections are important to the students, and it is wonderful to see their excitement when they see one of their Bible readers at school or church.

‘There’s Mrs Smith! She reads to us!’

My ultimate goal is to build connections for the students – connections with each other, connections with the staff and community of the school, and connection to the loving God who welcomes everyone.

As our church celebrated the festival of Pentecost, I was reminded again of the need to speak in language people can understand, just as the disciples did on that first Pentecost day. This helps us make connections that encourage God’s precious children in their relationship with their Saviour.

Rachael Stelzer is Junior School Chaplain at Redeemer Lutheran College, Rochedale, in Queensland.

During Chaplaincy Week, Oakey State School used its electronic sign to express appreciation for chaplain Sharon Salomon’s (pictured above right with schoolchildren) service, while staff paid tribute to her positive influence on students with the song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Chappy’.

Living a gospel of hope Being a Christian chaplain in a government school means you can’t explicitly preach the good news of Jesus to students and, understandably, many people find that a real challenge. But that suits Sharon Salomon just fine because there’s no rule against living the gospel as an example to students.

Sharon, a lifelong Lutheran who has been working as a chaplain at state schools in Queensland for 11 years, believes that’s more her calling and gift.

‘I’m not someone who can really share the gospel, I do better trying to be the person who lives it’, says Sharon, who has served at Oakey State High School and Oakey State School (primary), in Queensland’s Darling Downs, 30 kilometres north-west of Toowoomba, for almost six years.

‘I’d rather live by example and through building relationships. Showing that love … kids pick that up.’

Appointed, trained and equipped by Scripture Union Queensland, Sharon is known as ‘Chappy’ by the students.

Sharon has no doubt about one of the most-needed things Christian chaplains can bring into the lives of students. It’s hope. ‘We’ve got more hope, we bring more hope than any non-Christian person’, she says. ‘These kids need hope. They don’t know they need God, but if we bring the hope that it’s going to be okay, they can say, “Chappy believes this is going to be okay”.’

And some students do face big challenges. There are family breakdowns and the resultant trauma, which may be brought about by alcoholism, drug use, domestic violence and sexual abuse. Others have mental health kids need issues and some face homelessness.

‘These hope. They don’t know they need God, bu t … we bring the hope that i t’s going to be okay.’

As well as providing morning teas and lunches for the school staffs and pancakes for students during the recent Chaplaincy Week, Sharon has been visiting local churches to promote school chaplaincy. This has been supported by the interdenominational Oakey Combined Chaplaincy Committee, of which St Paul’s Lutheran Church Pastor Ken Schultz is vice-chair. Sharon’s work is funded in part by federal and state government funding, with local support critical in making up the shortfall, coordinated by the chaplaincy committee.

Sharon has introduced programs covering topics such as forming friendships, and grief and loss. In addition, she has enabled high school students to make their own toasted sandwiches – a real benefit for those who haven’t had breakfast. There is also a chaplaincy committee-supported breakfast club at the primary school.

Despite the demands of juggling two roles across five days and endeavouring to serve the schools, the local community and the local churches, Sharon has no doubt what she loves most about chaplaincy. ‘I love the kids, I just love being around them’, she says. ‘I love listening to their stories, I love that I can be a support to them through the next stage of their life. That’s what I’d like to see, to see them grow in the way they need to grow. There’s a verse in Proverbs that essentially says, “Grow the children that they should grow” (Proverbs 22:6).’

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