Hello, I’m Matt. I’ve just finished my first semester as a Howie with the postgrads and university staff. It’s been great! In particular, it’s been really encouraging getting to spend so much time finding ways to gather around the bible with others. But I still can’t quite understand how I got here. Let’s go back to the start of semester, and I’ll explain why.
“I’m so out of my depth” I mutter to myself as I leave the office where a bible study has just met for the first time. I’m still trying to begin to understand what a university is like to work at. I’ve also just begun to realise that I’m leading groups full of smart people. And people with serious roles. Some of these people have known Jesus longer than I have. I wonder how long it will take them to work out just how out of my depth I am.
The situation gets worse. As I’m sitting in a training session, a Senior Staff worker says “you ministry trainees need to be thinking about how you are pastors, teachers, and evangelists to the people in your faculty.” I wonder if anyone has told him that I’m none of those things. Maybe I should tell him I’m just some guy who got talked into doing a ministry traineeship.
I mention all this to a friend, and they remind me of 1 Timothy 4:12 (commonly quoted to young people about ministry). I guess they meant well, but I went away and read the passage again. It wasn’t comforting. I never realised what Paul was challenging Timothy to do in that verse. Being an example is, well, scary.
In case I’ve not made myself sufficiently clear, I was somewhat intimidated. I felt like I kept bungling my way through small group prep, one to one meetings, and trying to put my foot in my mouth as few times as possible. I thought wryly to myself that I might as well keep it up until I was politely and discreetly asked to leave.
Weirdly, though, I never was asked to leave. I wondered if there had been a clerical error there, but my trainer said there hadn’t been. I wondered on the way to a bible study if it was because I was secretly brilliant. At the end of the bible study, I decided that explanation didn’t fit. The bible study had been really encouraging, but the group members were more responsible for that than I was.
Eventually, and with a few conversations with senior EU staff, I came to understand that this wasn’t all some mistake. This is part of what a traineeship is. Behind the big serious language of pastoring and setting an example was an opportunity to be built up spiritually and equipped practically. If I felt rather out of my depth, isn’t that what training is supposed to feel like?
For that matter, I think this experience helped me understand more about what ministry is. Sure, ministry can look like it’s about having it all together, with plans and answers. Turns out a lot of it — especially in my role — is about gathering God’s people around the word, and helping form a prayerful community where God himself can speak and change hearts. It reminds me of how Paul longed to meet with the church in Rome not for a one-sided ministry, but so they could encourage each other in following Jesus (Romans 1:11-12).
That helped me understand why impressive people — university professors and staff, smart research students, medical professionals — were happy to gather around the bible. They wanted to gather around Jesus. Thinking about this helped challenge a bit of the fear of man as I thought more about what it meant to be one in Christ.
None of that’s to say that leading and setting an example isn’t important — it is. And the call to lead and set an example is an important challenge to me. I need to be serious about my walk with Jesus. But reflecting on these things helped me understand the place of these verses better, and what they mean in a traineeship.
It’s been a huge blessing to be a trainee this semester. I’ve been really encouraged to have a role that involves reading the bible with others and coming to Jesus in prayer. I love getting to do this with the postgrads and university staff as we think about what living for Jesus looks like in their work at USyd.
– Matthew Cain, Howard Guinness Project 2024-2025
