[Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.]
What do four years at Moore College do to a man who came straight from a Pentecostal church?
It cooks his brain for one. It puts him through months of despondence. But when he gets over that, it shapes his mind and heart to appreciate God’s goodness in his word, Spirit, and people.
At first, when I arrived, I got culture shock. That means that I was riding a high for a number of weeks, maybe even months. The novelty of it all was fantastic. I was learning new things, although some of it was very challenging (i.e. Greek). I loved the community, which was a significant reason for me extending my course by three years. But as the months passed by and all that wore off, I found myself struggling with terribly low moods at times. I was agitated about why everything was so different to my old church context. It felt restrictive and dry at times. If you knew me before I went to college, even during my time at college, I was toward the end of the spectrum known as ‘quirky’ – to be sure, I was not a straightlaced Sydney Anglican (like I am now…). I felt like I fit into Marrickville and Newtown. Everyone there had crazy moustaches, ponchos, mullets, and is generally of an artistic persuasion which is possibly good and possibly bad. Admittedly there was a lot of change going on for me. I moved city, moved church, got married, quit my job and started a degree in an entirely different field. Perhaps my Pentecostal leaders were right. Before going to college, one of my former pastors and my Bible study leader both gave me disapproving looks and even disapproving words about going to Moore College.
But that was all just culture shock. It comes and goes. As difficult as it is in the moment, what is needed is perseverance.
I was very grateful to have found others in a similar situation as myself at the time. I was in a prayer group with another brother who was formally from a Pentecostal church and I met two other people in my year group from Pentecostal backgrounds. I found some support amongst them and a place to voice my thoughts about all the differences. A listening ear goes a long way.
Despite the first year being difficult, what I found to be most helpful and even crucial to ‘winning me over’ as it were, was the way everything was explained. So we had chapel services two to three times a week (and one of them was plus-ultra-prayerbook-old-skool). Those chapel services were, of course, for our edification. They were also examples of how to run church services in that manner. They were taken as moments to teach us why certain things were being done. I eventually found these chapel gatherings helpful and even edifying by the time the shock has come and gone.
Some modern commentators (such as Jon Anderson) have lamented the fact that when we go into tertiary institutions nowadays, our views are not so much challenged but affirmed, otherwise, the tertiary institution is in trouble. This is a terrible state of affairs. But I’m happy to say that going to Moore College shaped my mind and challenged me. Some things I’ve changed my mind about, and other things I have learned from scratch without prior knowledge so that I’ve grown in my understanding. I am very proud of the college I went to for this reason.
In my estimate, most people attend theological college (at least the one I went to) to be equipped and enter into ministry vocationally. But a number of us went into theological college to be equipped to return to secular work only more prepared as regular church members. While this is how my story started, with the desire to return to secular work more prepared as a Christian, over the course of the degree and then the following two years (partly secular work and partly volunteer ministry), the degree set a fire in my heart for vocational ministry and slowly that’s eventually what happened. An unorthodox pathway, no doubt.
All through my Anglican College’s bachelor of Divinity, I had my eyes on my history. At the end of the fourth year I chose to do my church history assignment researching the first Pentecostal minister (a lady by the name of Jane Lancaster – if I remember correctly, because I lost all of my work when my computer crashed… Still not over that), and I also did my fourth year theology paper with a focus on prayer and faith (as it seemed particularly pertinent given my history in the Pentecostal church). Through college I came to appreciate both my Pentecostal heritage and my Anglican tutelage. I think that I specifically came to appreciate each more because of the other.
At this stage, it’s almost cliché to say, ‘we need both perspectives to strengthen each other and build each other up’. But as I reflect, I think I appreciate my college more than I ever thought I would and as the years go by I continue to appreciate it more and more.
So what do four years at Moore College do to a man who came straight from a Pentecostal church? It cooks his brain for one. It puts him through months of despondence. But when he gets over that, it shapes his mind and heart to appreciate God’s goodness in his word, Spirit, and people.
Bigvai and Shiphrah 