Being a School Chaplain and Youth Pastor. my journey to getting there.
I was asked to speak at a Church in Naracoorte in December about how i had been called and ended up in Naracoorte. I also shared this similar story/message to the campers and leaders at CE Camp.
Hello
my name is Nicole Mugford, I’m 22 years old and I have grown up in the north
eastern suburbs of Adelaide until moved to Naracoorte in February when I began
working as the Youth pastor at the Uniting church and more recently in the
second semester as Christian Pastoral Support Worker at Naracoorte Primary
School. I'll tell you more about my roles later but first let me tell you a bit
about my journey to getting here and how God has paved the way for me.
I
don’t really have a testimony of a life of sin and turning from it, but I don’t
have a story of faithfully growing up in a Christian home either. My family have had a connection with church
for a long time but not regular attenders.
After being invited to a kids club during primary school, my mum built
connections with families at the church and we started going regularly to
church when my dad was away for work.
When I was 10 my parents’ marriage ended and a complicated and long
custody battle followed. Things were
pretty messy and my big sister struggled with her mental health. I was left feeling pretty unloved and
unworthy of the stability that came with a solid family unit and undeserving to
be treated with care because of how broken my life was. The strange thing was that even in the brokenness
I felt, my kids’ church leader still seemed to love me and want to be around
me. Through her love and care for me, I
was shown Gods great love for me, even though I felt undeserving and broken. She
continued to teach me about how much God cared and wanted to heal me from the
pain I was feeling. It was somewhere
around that point in my life when I decided to follow God.
Fast
forward to high school and I decided I wanted to live passionately for Christ
in my school. We had a school Chaplain
while I was in year 8 but they moved on and the school didn’t reappoint someone
to the position. My heart was to see my
friends and my school changed in the name of Jesus. I found another Christian friend in year 10
and started a prayer meeting to pray for our school. We spread the news with people we knew and
about 10 students gathered weekly for the next 2.5 years.
We
had to pray outside because the staff wouldn’t let us book a room for our
meetings, so we sat in the courtyard of school praying that God would
strengthen our number and the school would be changed. I also decided that our school would be
helped if we had a school Chaplain again and thought that would just be the
coolest job, so I rang Schools Ministry Group and spoke on a regular basis with
the regional manager for my area at the time which was Karyn Gillard. Turns out
that my name became quite known among the local churches and in SMG through my
constant contact and requests for prayer in my school community.
During
year 11 tragically my school principal died suddenly and the school was in
absolute shock, the day it was announced at school was a quiet day, my friends
sat around at recess un sure how to best process the situation. As we sat, one of my friends asked for me to
lead the group in prayer for the school and all affected. It was such a special moment in my faith to
be able to share my faith with those in my school community a moment of pray and
I encouraged the local churches to get behind and support the school through
that tough time through the regular contact I had with prayer points through
SMG office
My
teen years and public declaration of faith during high school, gave me a solid
foundation for the faith I carried into my young adult years. After finishing
year 12 in 2010, I started a bachelor of social work, but mid-way through the
year it didn’t feel like it was exactly what I was meant to be doing and I was
really passionate about youth ministry and was running my church youth
group. I finish first year and
transferred to a bachelor of ministry at the uniting College. In 2012 I did an
internship at my church with the youth group and learnt a lot about leadership,
as I drew close to the end of the year I thought about where God would call me
in the future with my ministry, I committed that to prayer. Over New Year’s in 2012 I went on CE Camp
(Christian Endeavour) like I often do but as a first time camp leader. I lead a
mix bag of 16 year old campers. While on camp one of my campers shared with me
about how tricky it was to group up in the country with very little Christian
support around you and not having passionate people leading youth ministry. It
really stuck with me.
And I
prayed about it a bit, a prayer along the lines of, God, there needs to be more
passionate people for youth ministry in the country, please find those people.
And thanks for the stable position you have placed me in and the passion you
have given me.
My
prayer was brilliant and God was sure to look after those young people from
country regions across the state. And I mean, I was lucky my ministry and study
was going too perfectly. Needless to say, I didn’t get the ministry position I thought
I was going too, my uni placement location pulled out on me last minute and the
classes I was enrolled got postponed. My perfect plan was falling through. I asked God what the deal was and country
ministry came up. I went on a kids camp as a chaplain and I met a bunch of kids
and the ones I talked too always happened to be country kids how didn’t know
what would happen once they turned a teenager since there was no youth
ministry. So I decided to investigate
this country business. The only person I knew well who lived in the country was
the Dow family, so I emailed them and asked if I could holiday at their house.
Ian had previously joked that I should consider ministry in the country and
said he would sure Naracoorte was a great place to do ministry.
Fast
forward again through 2013 and I spent most of the year unsettled and
questioning. But God opened so many
conversations and doorways at the right time even when I was fearful. The youth pastor position was advertised in
December and interviews took place late January of 2014. I moved to Naracoorte
10 days after my job interview and it was the scariest step of faith I’ve ever
taken. I was so sure God had called me to Naracoorte and paved a way in advance
that I had stepped out of leadership at my home church, and prepared to move. I
loaded mums car up with my stuff and drove here, unsure of where I would sleep
when I arrived or what everything else would look like. But even though I was
fearful I knew God has prepared the way and I knew God would protect me and
take care of my ever needs. As I packed
I came across a bible verse which really stuck out too me, it’s from
Psalms65:11 and says “You crown the year with Your Goodness and the path drips
with abundance”
This
year has certainly been an abundance, of change as I settle into a new
environment, an abundance of challenges that come with working with young people
and in a church, an abundance of rewarding moments as young people commit to
faith and invite friends and an abundance of laughs both at me and with
me. But mostly this year for me has
shown an abundance of God’s goodness as he continues to show up in each and
every situation in sometimes unexpected ways.
My
role as youth pastor in the uniting church gives me the great privilege of
leading young people as they explore faith, ask questions and develop into
adults. Many of my young people have
faced some big personal battles this year in their own lives as well as in
their family and the special thing about my job are that I am often invited to
journey with them through that, and point out along the way where God has
guided them and provided for them.
My
role as CPSW has been a long time coming, my year 7 yearbooks has my dream job
listed as school chaplain, and my contact with SMG has helped them to know the
faith I have and the way I have been passionate about providing schools with a
Christian presence. I was thrilled to be
appointed to the school from term 3 this year, not only did it fill my time and
lighten the financial burden with having an extra job, but it gave me so much
life.
Naracoorte
Primary School is such a friendly school and I am blessed with the connections
I have made so far in my time there.
This year I have been at school 3 days a week and I have been able to
participate in a wide range of different planned and unplanned activities. I regularly listen to reading with the reception
students, joining in on science, tech and art classes and assisting with the
year 7 elective programs. In term 3 I
was asked to keep a close eye on a young lad who had some difficulty with tough
family stuff going on so extra eyes were needed in the school year to keep him
safe. We played soccer together and soon enough this student was surrounded
with new friends as a soccer match for organised daily. I also spent many lunch times blowing bubbles
for the enjoyment of the children, and me :P and it was fantastic to see the
young students leading the way by blowing the bubble and the older students
were cheering them on and enjoying the activities. I also met with a range of different students
of personal and small group issues about home and friendship issues. We talked, made posters, did origami, learnt
some new social skills, practiced role plays about life situations and I made
many students a personalised journal to help them reflect on their day and feeling
and achievements.
In
term 4 I continued with a lot of those things but as I built the trust and
respect of the teachers more had more opportunity to engage with their
classes. I went on many excursions and
even coached and umpired a T20 cricket team as well as assisted with Kindy
transition. I joined the year 5’s on
camp to Ballarat and had an absolute ball.
I got to spend 4 days with teachers and students and a few key parents
getting to know them, exploring and learning.
Camps are a fantastic way to share faith with people in a casual
context. I was blown away by the many
opportunities I had to share faith over year 5 camp. One of the teachers asked me how I ended up
in Naracoorte without my family at such a young age, so I got the privilege of
sharing about how I felt called to do what I was doing in this context. A young guy was upset on the last day of camp
and some other students pointed him out to me so we had a conversation,
sometime in my heart I just really want to tell these students about how much
they are loved by God, but of course it’s not that easy in my role, but God
always has a way. During our conversation this boy tells me the tree he is
sitting half way up has graffiti on it. I ask him what it says (silly question
really, it could open a massive can of worms) but he replies it says “In Christ
there is Faith Hope and Love” I said oh that’s interesting. He continues to
say, what do you think that means Miss Nicole? So I tell him as simply as
possible that the Christ that is written is Jesus and he is the guy Christians
believe come to save them from all the bad stuff in the world. So that graffiti
is saying that Jesus gives us hope and something to believe in and proves to us
we are worth being loved. He thought that was pretty cool and asked if that was
true for everyone.
It’s
just incredible to be able to have little conversations that spark a little
something in someone else’s life.
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