By Adrian Pyle, Director of Chaplaincy and Connections
Five things I think I heard from Rev Stuart Bollom, Director of Mission (Schools) for the Uniting Church NSW and ACT Synod, at the Uniting Connections (National Schools) Conference:
As the conference drew to a close, Stuart offered a theological reflection based on what he’d heard over the two days. He invited us to pause and ask what the conference might have been suggesting about the work of Uniting Church schools. These were the themes I picked up from his reflection:
1. The most important question may simply be: “Where is God already at work?” – Stuart began with a story of being asked in a job interview, “Where is God in this school?” It’s a question that likely sits underneath every conversation we’d had at the conference and will continue having. If God is already at work in our schools and communities, our task is not to manufacture mission, but to recognise it and join in.
2. Mission belongs to God before it belongs to us – Stuart reminded us of the enduring nature of missio Dei – the mission of God. Schools, congregations and agencies don’t each invent their own missions. They participate in something much larger. That shifts the emphasis from asking, “What do we want to achieve?” to “Where are we being invited to participate?”
3. Flourishing deserves a richer conversation – Several presenters had spoken about flourishing, and Stuart reminded us that Christian traditions have been wrestling with questions of abundant life for a very long time. Perhaps the challenge isn’t simply to adopt the language of flourishing, but to ask what distinctive wisdom the Christian story brings to that conversation.
4. Chaplaincy matters, but mission is bigger than chaplaincy – I appreciated Stuart’s observation that one of the themes emerging from the conference was that mission cannot rest solely with chaplains. Boards, principals, teachers, executive teams and support staff all shape the culture of a school. Chaplains remain a distinctive presence, but they are not expected to carry the whole story alone.
5. Keep asking “why?” until you discover “who”. Drawing on Simon Sinek and Parker Palmer, Stuart reflected on the importance of understanding not only why a school exists, but “who” it is at its deepest level. That generated a fitting place to end the conference. Before strategies, programs or structures, there is the ongoing work of discerning identity.
Rather than ending with neat conclusions, Stuart left us with an invitation … to not move too quickly to the next agenda item but keep asking the questions that matter. Where is God at work, what is the mission of God in this place, and how might our schools become more attentive participants in that work?
