Our Founder - Northern Beaches Christian School

A word from our Founder… Pastor Paul O’Sullivan

‘It would be good if we could start a Christian school one day’. I can understand why I would have thought that, but why did I ever go and say a thing like that out loud? Then the inevitable question came at the end of a prayer meeting at the church one night – ‘Paul when are we going to start that Christian School?’

Life was busy enough, too busy, you know the feeling, telling yourself you are really going to get organized one day. And now this. Well it happened, forty years ago. It was a good thing to do.

As we mark the 40th anniversary of the beginning of NBCS you will find a story, a hundred stories. An astounding job has been done with a remarkable bunch of people, doing countless interviews, hunting down many hundreds of photographs and reports and records of people that you may know or perhaps remember. At least we will get to know them in one way or another by capturing this glimpse of their thousands of journeys that weave in and out and to and from a patch of land at Echunga Road Terrey Hills (Latitude 33.673, Longitude 151.201).

When I visited recently it was delightful to meet up with Principal Tim Watson for the first time, and I was struck by how so much had changed, like the amazing transformation of the buildings into a virtual city (on a hill), and there were all the latest kinds of technology that could provide all the tools needed to form and inform all those minds in all those rooms. And I met up again with so many of the staff, both the near and dear of so many years ago, and the many who had come in the years since I had been part of the team.

So yes, much had changed – and then I was struck with what had not changed, because as I took in what I saw there on that day I was conscious of the presence of a special kind of virtue that I can only describe as ‘sacrifice’. It was still there, everywhere you looked. It was in the school and it was also at home in the hearts of the parents who had sacrificed to send their children to NBCS. I remember it well.

Sacrifice involves giving up something now that will present to you something better in the future, whether it is spiritually, emotionally or materially. This is only done if you value what it is that you are sacrificing something for now. If there were no sacrifice of time and effort and study or discipline, there would be no advancement or betterment of self and character or any real life outcomes. There would be an empty future because sacrifice shapes our future. But at NBCS there abides the core of this virtue that God calls for from us all. He calls for this sacrifice for our sakes, so that we can reach the future that he has created us for, and He offers it to us, and grants us the grace to make it, and the rest is our responsibility.

A fortieth anniversary has something special about it anyway in the Scriptures, whether it be forty years or forty days. It speaks to us of times of trial and times of new beginnings, as in Israel having to go through the trials and testings in the wilderness for forty years before they were given a new beginning of entering the promised Land. It speaks of Jesus having to go through the trial of his temptations in the wilderness and then beginning His ministry of salvation for us all. It also speaks of Jesus coming back to earth after His resurrection for forty days before he ascended into a new beginning of being seated on the Throne at His father’s right hand.

I salute the team and the splendid leadership it is blessed with, and I am blessed to have been a part of this team. It’s like being part of a relay team for everyone, parents and teachers and students and staff, and we pass the relay baton on after our dash. So what is in store for NBCS after these forty years? God will surely unfold that to you. God bless you all.