August 25, 2024 • 32 mins
A School without Rules? How Holy Spirit can Change How we Learn
When we think of the Holy Spirit, we think about the God who saves us spiritually, but did you know that an encounter with the Spirit also helps us to learn? Experiencing the Holy Spirit could even improve your grades at school!
In this fascinating interview, I talk with Jeff Davis, Principal of Hillcrest Christian College on the Gold Coast, Australia. In the past year, they’ve experienced incredible revival among their students, with over a hundred baptisms, the commencement of over 20 new bible study groups and enthusiastic mosh pit worship sessions. Jeff talks about how the faith of the students has become real; how they’ve seen healing and transformation of behaviour and how they students have even been leading the adults! More so, Jeff reflects on how understanding Jesus and encountering the Spirit changes the way we do education.
You’ll hear about:
- Jeff’s back story and his own God conversation story that led to the miraculous conception of his first child.
- How the revival at Hillcrest College began when staff were inspired by the events at Asbury University, USA and felt led to pray. An altar call at the school chapel service followed and 400 students came forward…
One boy who was suspended at the time felt God’s presence come on him in his home. He rang the school and said, “what happened?”
- The difference revival has made in the school. Jeff tells of the damage done to students’ learning ability through exposure to certain material to the internet, and how the Holy Spirit is restoring hearts and minds.
People without faith know there’s something different – they just can’t understand what it is.
- How Spirit encounters reorient us to a more wholistic approach to education. The spiritual dimension is necessary for success!
- The need for safety and vulnerability to experience God. Jeff explains that the Holy Spirit is free to move when we feel safe and secure. This includes our emotions.
- A school without rules? Jeff explains how the school aims to shift from a negative orientation to a positive, redemptive approach that is based on the way of Jesus. The goal is for relationships, safety and emotions to be a part of education so that students can come to school seeking to grow not thinking they’re going to get into trouble.
This is the power of the Holy Spirit in education. We encourage you to listen to Jeff’s interview and pass it onto parents, teachers and school leaders or anyone who is seeking to learn!
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About Jeff Davis
Jeff Davis is the Executive Head of College at Hillcrest Christian College on the Gold Coast, Australia. With over 35 years of experience in education and more than 20 years as a principal, Jeff has led some of the largest and fastest-growing schools in Australia. His passion lies in challenging current education norms and driving change to provide a world-leading educational experience. At the core of this approach is a focus on wellbeing and emotional intelligence, aiming to prepare students for the evolving global landscape.
Jeff believes holistic learning involves developing the whole child across four domains: Intellectual, Emotional, Spiritual, and Wellbeing. He shares his insights on innovation and leadership at conferences, on radio and various podcasts, and through his latest book ‘Leading the Learning Revolution’.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good conversations with Tanya Harris.
Let me ask you that question. What does God tell me?
Well, you know, Thunder Light isMother Teresa.
Someone asked her. When did God speak to you?
And she said whenever he wants. So essentially the Bible is a
collection of God conversations if you like.
I had a vision of a car accidentand I'm sitting on the couch
(00:20):
thinking why have I just seen this?
How could I know if God was speaking to me?
How could I know that that? Dream or that?
Thought was actually just me. Thinking about how I said the
bad thing, Jesus said we'd recognise his voice.
It was never meant to be a one way conversation.
When we think of the Holy Spirit, we think about the God
(00:43):
who saves us in a spiritual sense.
But did you know that an encounter with the Holy Spirit
also helps us to learn? Experiencing the Holy Spirit
could even improve your grades at school.
Hi and welcome to the God Conversations podcast.
My name is Tanya Harris and I'm a pastor, practical theologian,
author, and the founding director of God Conversations, a
(01:06):
ministry that equips you to recognise and respond to God's
voice. Well, I think you are going to
love this interview. It is truly, it's fascinating.
I talk with Jeff Davis, he's theprincipal of Hillcrest Christian
College on the Gold Coast in Australia, very beautiful part
of the world, but that's not thefocus.
(01:26):
The focus is the beautiful thingthat God has been doing amongst
the students there with incredible revival breaking out
amongst them. Over 100 baptisms, Bible study
group starting enthusiastic moshpit worship sessions.
And then Jeff talks about the impact it has had on students
(01:47):
lives, about how their faith hasbecome very real, how they've
taken up leadership roles leading the adults in their
faith, and how they've seen healing and transformation of
behaviour. It's a teacher's dream.
And what we also see is that Jeff reflects on how
understanding Jesus and encountering the Spirit changes
(02:07):
the way we view education. I think he'll really appreciate
his insights and I encourage youto think about who would enjoy
this interview. Pass it on to parents, teachers,
school leaders, anyone in the field of education or who's
seeking to learn. It's such a profound
conversation. And hey, just before we get
(02:29):
going, I want to just say a quick hello.
Welcome to the new listeners to the God Conversations podcast,
particularly to all the Salvation Army officers and
leaders and people that I've been meeting this year.
I've had the privilege of working with the Salvation Army
in NSW this year. We're on a bit of a journey on
(02:49):
what it means to to understand what Spirit LED discipleship is
to experience it and then to facilitate that in our churches
and communities. So for all the salvos, thank you
for what you do in the communityand it's just incredible.
I love it. Hey, for all the regular
listeners too, I encourage you to give us a rating on iTunes or
(03:11):
on Spotify. Get the word out there about
what God wants to do via the Holy Spirit in our lives.
And don't forget, you can also sign up to the God Conversations
fortnightly updates at godconversations.com so that
you'll never miss a new episode.Well, here we go on to the
interview. Here's my conversation on a high
(03:34):
school in revival with Jeff Davis.
Jeff, it is wonderful to have you on the show.
Now, for those listeners who don't know this, Jeff, and we
have a bit of history, don't we,Jeff?
We go back to the the young daysand we connected again at a
(03:55):
Baptist pastors conference in a different state.
And you know, when you haven't seen someone for like 20-30,
it's and you go, Oh my gosh. And there was Jeff dressed in
his suit on the platform sharingabout the revival that had been
happening at their school. So Jeff, it's such a joy to
connect with you again after youwere a very good friend of my
(04:16):
brother's and lived in the same state.
Both have moved on from there. So why don't you introduce
yourself to our audience, our God Conversations audience?
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Thanks, Tanya. It was great to connect and it's
good to see that you haven't changed an inch in those thirty
years yet. For me, no hair, no nothing.
It's a It's a terrible big difference.
(04:38):
There are a few more wrinkles, Jeff, you just got to look a bit
closer. Got to mention I'm half blind.
So look, I'm Jeff Davis side. Look, I, I run Hillcrest
Christian College, which, you know, we've got over 2000
students and we're here on the Gold Coast, which is just a
beautiful place to live. But, you know, I've, I kind of
fighted 21 through university, then after university became a,
(05:01):
a school teacher, physics math teacher into being principalship
at a young age. And I've watched God just work
in my life and take me a whole range of different places where
we've been able to see lives change because of a completely
different approach to the way oflearning.
And so I've sort of become a bitof a sole crusader to try and
say that the school system is wrong.
I experienced that when I was atschool.
(05:23):
It just didn't help with me learn well, I had to find
different strategies, but yet it's so simple when you put it
into a, a different context. And so I've had a whole life of
listening to God and trying to implement a completely different
way in which we can actually engage children in the learning
process, which is such a unique way of actually seeing children
(05:44):
grow and reach their full potential.
And yeah, my life has been very blessed to have been walking
alongside a lot of people, a lotof faithful people who've been
praying for the ministry that wedo and seeing that everything is
coming now to a really good fruition.
And you have a very unique role being in a Christian School,
don't you? Because you can create ministry
(06:04):
spaces very easily as well as implement the education side of
it. That's what I'm super curious
about. But before we delve into that
space, Jeff, what about you? Tell us a little bit about your
God Conversations journey. Perhaps you've had an experience
of hearing God's voice that's been significant in your life.
What difference has that made for you?
(06:25):
Well, if I could go to many examples of, you know, from
getting married at a very early age, but then we we walked an
infertility path for for many years and God called us up to
Hillsong. Actually we went to Hillsong
conference and got prayed for upthere.
Very deliberate went there. We were worship pastoring at the
time and my wife and I headed upto Hillsong and, you know, nine
(06:45):
months later, our first baby came along and it was this
incredible, you know, gift to us.
And it just, you know, we kept following God and what God had
in store for us. And it's been a rocky road and
it's been up and down and it's been places we wouldn't expect
to be. But in the end of it, you know,
like we, we look and we just, wegive thanks to God because we
can see his hand in everything that's gone on.
(07:07):
And, you know, we're looking down, you know, 30-40 years down
the track now and we're saying, wow, hasn't this been fun?
Nothing like perspective is there when you look back and you
can see the hand of God leading you.
I think a beautiful testimony too.
For someone who struggle with infertility to actually see God
do that miracle. I love that.
So let's let's 0 in on what the Holy Spirit's been doing at your
(07:31):
school. One of the reasons you were
sharing at this particular conference was that because you
had experienced something of revival amongst your students
and some really incredible Holy Spirit moments.
So can you share a little bit about what you've seen?
Yeah, so one of the things we wereally felt in the beginning of
of 23 was that after the Asperiarevival, we'd been praying for
(07:54):
something similar to occur and also.
Can I, can I jump in there? Maybe some people haven't heard
of that. What happened at Asbury?
It's the university in the US What did you?
Yeah. So just explain what that was.
Yeah, University in the US had this revival in early January.
We've been praying for revival for a few months.
And our, our founding church, which is the really Creek
(08:17):
Baptist Church, we've been playing for revival for about 18
months. And there was a real sense
amongst us that we were hearing that God was going to do
something special. So I pulled the team together
and I said, you know, my, my spiritual team.
And please understand that one of the things about difficult
about being a Christian School principal is that you're, you're
trying to follow a Christian context in a secular world.
We're meeting secular laws and rules and, and compliance
(08:41):
issues. And it's really hard that, that
balancing, you know, point whereyou, the staff you employ, the
strategies you employ, the metrics you've actually got to
try and meet and all these different things are this, this
juncture point. It's not like a church where
you're wholly focused on the Holy Spirit in a, in a secular
world organisation. It's very, very different.
(09:02):
So we, we presented to the staff, but we felt that there
was this opportunity to pray forrevival.
And so from about February, we started praying that, you know,
the Holy Spirit would fall upon us.
And and then in March, the, the one of the Chapel services, my,
my spiritual team came to me andsaid, we just want to offer an
(09:22):
ultra an altar, call it our, ourChapel, which we call gathering,
our gathering service and. You know, is this a, is this a
once a week event, Jeff? Yeah, once a week, every week we
have a gathering for the junior,the middle and the senior all
separately. And so the, the, the crew who
looked after the, the middle onecame to me and I said, we really
feel we need to offer an altar call.
(09:43):
And that's very uncommon within a school environment.
And but I said don't think that I felt very comfortable, prayed
through the issues that maybe, you know, the optics of that
because you've got to, you've got to think about, well, that's
something which could be mistaken because you've got 700
kids in there. Not all of them are faith
followed believers and they're going to go home and tell their
parents. And here is the juxtaposition of
(10:06):
where you find yourself. Yep, it's a very churchy thing
to do, but it's also something, a very spiritual important
thing. So one when they made that call.
So the parents who send their children along to the school are
aware that this is it's a Christian School and that some
of the goals of the school are not just to meet Australian
government educational standards, but a spiritual
(10:27):
development too. Would that be fair?
Do they they understand that from the outset?
Absolutely, Tanya, one of the things is that, you know, people
who choose our schooling choose it for many reasons, not just
academic success. And you know one of them, if you
go back a stage, which we can talk about later, it's the fact
that most people view schools asa IQ incubator.
You go to school to get smarter,but that's the bare minimum.
(10:51):
And so the people who are choosing my school, about 40%
are from a faith based background, about 60% have no
faith based background, but values aligned.
See the see the point of what we're trying to do, see the
connection. You know, we've grown over 1000
students in four years with no advertising.
(11:12):
And so it's the kids, it's the kids who are actually doing it.
So back to the story. So my my team came to me and I
prayed about it and I felt very comfortable.
And so they did the altar call. There's 700 in that, 700 in that
auditorium at the time. And at least 400 came forward
and and came to the altar. What was the?
What was the invitation for? What was the actual call made?
(11:35):
The call was to come down and ifyou were feeling that you wanted
to experience God in a real and personal way, comfortable.
So it was a real proper, you know, traditional Baptist altar
call. I actually didn't, I didn't
happen to be there at that meeting.
I said, it's one of those thingsfor sure.
I wasn't there. But then all of a sudden people
came running and going, oh, we've got this, you know, we've
(11:56):
just had all these kids come forward.
So they, as they, they came forward.
And this is a really interestingpoint as the, the, the team
worked with those 400 and the other 200 and 5300 left the, the
building and the next groups over the Chapel services follow
each other, the gatherings follow each other.
(12:17):
And it's just the, the senior students started coming in and
they got hit by the Holy Spirit as soon as they walked in.
And so over 200 of us came forward and without even an, an
altar call and just started asking for the presence of God.
So that was day one. And so it went on for and it's
still going. We have people coming to a Lord
(12:38):
all the time. We've had, you know, probably
over 100 baptisms now, people who were touched at that time.
We, we have all sorts of storiesof one boy who was suspended at
the time. And you have to understand that
being suspended at our school doesn't happen very often.
We don't believe in, you know, punitive punishments.
But he needed a break and we needed a break.
So he was home and, and he felt it on his bed at home.
(13:01):
He rang and said, what's just happened?
And this has become one of the most on fire Christian boys in
the school now because he was touched by the Holy Spirit at
the exact moment and he had nothing all the time.
That is incredible. Yeah, yeah.
So the team continued to pray for people with, we had over 20
Bible studies running with, you know, you know, 20 plus kids in
(13:24):
each one of them. And there's plenty of them still
going. They're sort of tapered off a
little bit. Then if people are connected
into youth groups and church groups and you know, they're
talking, you know, we and, and our gathering and assemblies,
it's not run by staff, it's run by the kids.
And the kids give their testimonies.
And we've had testimony after testimony after testimony.
(13:45):
We're seeing more and more students feel safe to be able to
be vulnerable to hear God's Spirit.
And we're seeing it time and time again.
And every day we, we just keep praying that God will continue
to work in the lives of his students.
And then it's interesting because people without faith
know there's something different.
(14:06):
They just can't quite understandit.
And so that's our our impetus toget in there and talk to them
about what real faith means. It was interesting.
I was reading a book yesterday and it talked about, you know,
what it means to be born again, what it means to be saved.
And, and it always involves somesort of encounter, some sort of
intersection with the Holy Spirit that looks different for
(14:27):
people. But it's actual, it's an actual
experience, isn't it? It's an actual encounter.
Do you have any other testimonies from your students
that you can share? I'm super curious what was going
on in the lives of those hundreds of students.
Oh, we, we've had students who just haven't like been able to
move because they've just been paralysed by the Holy Spirit
(14:48):
just working in their heart and restoring them.
A lot of our young people today are very, very damaged.
And So what we've seen is a a lot of intervention by the Holy
Spirit in restoring them. So, you know, we talk about the
fact that, you know, when I started being a principal 20
plus years ago, that about 90% of the kids would come to school
ready to learn and 10% not have to worry about the whether they
(15:09):
had food, whether they had clothing.
You know, there was always that 10%.
Well, it's reversed now we have 90% and not ready to learn.
I can't, you know, the mobile phone is the biggest issue with
us and you know, and saying thatI'm, we are 100% digital.
I'm a, you know, a very, very digital person.
We use AI everywhere, but the mobile phone and the traps that
are in it are causing the massive issues.
(15:31):
So I don't know what a child's seen, what they've been exposed
to and what they've heard. And so whenever I interview
students coming into the school,if they're over year seven, I
asked them, how many have you have you seen a, have you seen
an image or a, a video of something you wish you hadn't
have seen? And they've all said, 100% of
kids say yes. The next question I ask, and I
(15:54):
ask them with their permission, I say, so have you seen
something that is so disturbing that you won't tell your parents
because you'll think you'll be in trouble?
And about 80 to 85% are saying, yeah, absolutely.
And so when you see something like that, it resonates in your
brain. It just goes over and over and
over. So these students are coming to
school trapped in this mental blockage of what they've seen
(16:17):
and they can't process it. They don't have the emotional
intelligence to to actually process it.
They don't have the safety zone where they can go and talk about
it. So it just becomes that their
old brain, the whole cognitive learning ability is actually
filled of images and memories, which are just, I can't process
and get out. So I can't access help.
And so they're coming to school and then we get a teacher at the
(16:38):
front going and do this, this, this and this.
I can't do it. And So what you've got to do is
now we've got to retrace them. We've got to push them.
We've got to get the the Holy Spirit to actually restore them
in so many different ways. And so we're seeing this all all
over the place. And so you get stories like this
and you go, wow, this is pretty special.
(16:59):
And so, yeah, we're, I, I, we talk to our kids and we see
their growth. We more importantly, we see that
they have this Holy Spirit awakening.
So I happened to be at Ready Creek earlier this year and the
youth team stood up and ran the whole ServiceNow.
There were 20 plus students there who had all been through
the the revival and they all spoke in a manner I have never
(17:24):
heard before. Their conviction of the Holy
Spirit, their ability to articulate what God was doing in
their life was as real as anything I've ever heard, and it
inspired a congregation of 300 plus to actually applaud without
ceasing these young people who are going to become the next
leaders of a church, which is really cool.
(17:45):
Wow, Jeff, that's incredible. I'm blown away.
It's. Amazing.
We say it like, you know, we, wesee them in worship, we see them
in like, you know, our, our, ourgatherings have become more like
a mosh pit as they enter into this worship session where they
just want to praise God. And you know, and I go to
different churches all the time to talk about what's happening
(18:07):
at Hillcrest and excuse me. And all I see is our kids up
there everywhere just singing and dancing.
And just like you go say, wow, Holy Spirit is really intervene
with them. Incredible, Jeff.
I'm amazed. Loving it.
We're talking with Mr Jeff Davisfrom Hillcrest Christian College
in the Gold Coast of Australia. They've experienced incredible
(18:29):
revival in their school, and we're looking forward to
reflecting on it a little more right after this break.
Did you know that dreams and visions are the most common way
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(18:50):
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(19:13):
in dreams and visions. Register today at
godconversations.com/courses. Jeff, I was really struck by
some of your stories and and what you were saying about the
the shift of students, changes in behaviour and thinking.
You know, as a young person I taught in a Christian School and
(19:35):
I, you know, sometimes our kids who are in that environment,
those kind of teachings about Christianity become over
familiar and it becomes a ritualalmost.
And I was just reflecting as youwere talking about what the
Spirit is doing. Jesus said I will send my spirit
and when I after I leave, my spirit will remind you of
everything that I've said and the difference that it makes
(19:59):
that when the spirit works on someone's heart, it's like it
comes alive, doesn't it becomes real.
And this is the value of the Holy Spirit encounter.
It's not something that can be worked through cerebrally or
intellectually, even though that's a part of a message, but
it has to cut through, doesn't it?
To the heart. It has to be a revelation
(20:21):
experience. Would you say that's what you've
seen? I'll.
Tell them the concept that the construct you have is that the
world is now IQ and their EQ, sothey're thinking about how to
feel. And so they've lost that ability
to connect, you know? And so if you can't connect with
each other, you can't connect with God, OK.
And So what they're doing is that people are thinking about
(20:42):
God as a construct of intelligence rather than a
contractor, a constructive spirit.
And it's, you know, this very, very different.
You know, Young and Chow, when he talked about that when he was
building his cathedral, his church, and, you know, he spent
more than half his time in prayer connecting with God after
his waking hours just through his eyes and eyes connecting
(21:03):
with God because it's something which is a supernatural.
It's the fourth sense. It's the fourth dimension.
That's what that's what we've got to try and get to that 4th
dimension and people just ignoreit.
They just try and think of theirthree dimensional world and
we're going to solve it with ourthree dimensional world where
the competitive advantage comes within the 4th dimension.
I love that, you know, in my PHDI looked at two different
(21:27):
types of knowledge. It's in the field of
epistemology scholars, it's the theory of knowledge.
How do we know what we know? And the scholars, they were
making a distinction between what we know cerebrally and what
we know experientially. And and I was raised in an
environment that downplayed spirit experience.
You know, that was The Dirty word.
Don't have an experience becauseyou shouldn't be seeking an
(21:49):
experience. And the fear was that people
would become lovers of a feelingor lovers of an experience.
But I think in kind of throwing that out, we've lost the
connection with the Spirit and the spirit works experientially
in our hearts. It's actually a real thing,
isn't it? And I love what you've said that
you've created space for that atyour school.
(22:12):
Tell us the other thing that youmentioned was about
vulnerability. You just quickly mentioned that
word in this context. What did you mean by that?
So one of the challenges is thatwe think very linearly and that
this will follow this, this willfollow this, this will follow
this, this will follow that. And so in in that sense, there
(22:32):
we, we leave very little room for the Holy Spirit to come and
do something which is maybe completely different.
And so that's the vulnerability.Now, if you take a look at your
mice Briggs profiles, you know, you the big one which we look at
is the the third one, which is the F and the T, right?
And so are you a thinker or a feeler?
And the majority of people will test as a thinker because
(22:53):
they've lost this ability to be a feeler.
If you are a feeler in today's world, you actually get really
hurt. And so we term our school as
being a school where we, we, youknow, we acknowledge what we
call the big F the feeling. Because we understand that when
you can actually get that feeling to occur and when people
(23:14):
feel safe and secure and they can be vulnerable, the Holy
Spirit can do amazing things andshift the pendulum back to that
place where you know, you feel, you feel real and you feel
truthful and you feel like you can actually make this
incredible difference. And that's where you get that
vulnerability because you feel safe.
And that biggest thing is that that's safe.
(23:36):
You know, I'd often talk to young parents and say when I
went to school as a 5 year old, the average distance I was from
my parents was 4.8 kilometres. The average distance, the
parents these days, the average distance their children are from
them is 95 metres. So in that sense, there their
ability to feel safe and secure is actually, believe it or not,
(23:57):
diminished because they haven't been able to experience all
these different things. Their safety lies in their
parents, not in themselves. And So what happens is that
with, with we create these artificial realms of, you know,
like parents, like, you know, I've got the worst traffic issue
you've ever seen. And I've, I've got my school,
which is, you know, 2000 students.
I've got Kings, which is 3000 students.
(24:18):
I've got another school which isnearly 1000 students all on the
same single lane Rd. If the parents allowed their
children to walk 400 metres downthe road, all my problems would
be solved. But parents won't let their
children do that because they'reactually saying that's not safe.
So when you begin to say it's not safe to do this and not safe
to do that, and you have this cocooning, you actually don't
(24:40):
allow your children to make logical decisions to allow them
to feel that point of safety andtherefore they never get there.
The feeling aspect doesn't develop and they're unable to
encounter God isn't. That interesting?
Yeah. No, it does.
I I remember talking with someone recently on the podcast
about mysticism and Holy Spirit is mystical by definition
(25:04):
because Holy Spirit is Spirit, right?
And then she because this is notan area that has been a strength
for me in some respects, becauseI'm a thinker.
I'm a tee on the Myers Brig personality, but she said, you
know, Christianity is Eastern, it's not Western and it's
experiential and we've made it into a thinking rational.
I mean God is still rational. It's not a downplay of that.
(25:27):
But I think what you're saying here is there's a holistic
approach in a person that embraces the feeling
experiential side as much as themind.
And perhaps we've idolised the mind over the spirit, and as a
result we've thwarted that development would become
thinking beings rather than, youknow, human beings.
(25:49):
It comes back to the, you know, we've got this construct at the
moment that we feel that having a, you know, ATAR score, score
at the end of our year 12 experience is what actually
defines us as a human. And that's, it couldn't be
anything further than the truth.But truth, particularly as we
move towards a new era of AI, we, we've got to completely
rethink about how we actually value success, you know,
(26:12):
success, you know, like if you're saying that it's just an
ITAS school, then you're going to get teachers who'll stand on
the front and we'll actually just completely put a message in
there. But it's all about academic,
academic, academic, academic, academic.
And then we've got papers who dothe same sort of thing.
And, you know, league tables of which schools the greatest and
which schools are the least greatest.
And we've got, you know, all these different things that go
alongside that. What we're not acknowledging is
(26:36):
if you take a look at that Eastern construct, that the
spiritual side of us is the mostimportant part of the things
that we have. And so we're not developing that
within the school framework where very few schools have a, a
set of values that students can learn and, and talk of their
life so that they can actually make a solid decision.
So values ladder is how you makegreat decisions.
(26:58):
So, you know, we are very much avalues organisation.
Matter of fact, I talk about us being a school without rules and
people look at me and go, how can you have a school without
rules? Because we've got this construct
that the rules for thinking partof what we do is the most
important and aspirationally, like we are a school without
rules. And I talk about the fact that
you can have rules, consequencesand try and build relationships,
(27:20):
which puts the feeling at the bottom.
Or you can have relationship values and expectations that
puts the feeling and the feelingat the top and the thinking at
the bottom. And if you can construct that,
you completely change the way students can exceed themselves.
They're not going to school thinking they're going to get in
trouble, they're going to schoolthinking they're going to
(27:42):
experience something. And it, it shifts the motivation
from a positive orientation froma negative orientation to a +1,
doesn't it? And it's very Jesus like because
Jesus said all the rules are summed up in love God, love
people, which is incredibly positive as opposed to do not,
do not, do not, do not, do not, do not.
(28:02):
It's, it's loving God and lovingpeople, which translates a lot
of time as a feeling, doesn't it?
I mean, it's an action as well, but it's motivated internally.
It's I can't love someone because you tell me I have to
and therefore that shapes behaviour.
Totally. And so if you, if you take it
into a different framework, so we live in a, an exploitative
world, which is I win, you lose.And so our whole construct of
(28:26):
everyone, the, the whole idea ofinfluences, the whole idea of,
you know, social media and stufflike that is that it's about me,
me, me, me, me. A more, a, a more progressive
thought would be an ethical framework where it's a win, win
scenario. And I have lots of students who
come in and say, I'm going to become a world famous lawyer
working for Greenpeace, saving the world.
(28:49):
But the true sense of what we'vegot to do and the ethical sense
of what we've got to try and move from is to go there to a
redemptive framework. I lose, we all win.
And if we can get that mentalitythrough our society, it shifts
everything because the exploitative framework is we use
people, we, we use the culture to give us what we need.
(29:14):
Yet Jesus didn't tell us to do that.
Jesus told us to be redemptive. And then he, by offering himself
as a sacrifice for all of us, showed us what redemptive nature
is like. And so the redemptive mindset is
something which we are trying toput through the school.
And I've got to tell you, it's the hardest thing.
(29:34):
We see, we see and we read that Jesus died on the cross.
But we rationalise that in an intellectual sense, not in the
the sense that it was supposed to be.
But I lose, everybody wins. And if we all adopted that, you
can completely change the way the world operates.
And it's hard because it's counter, it's kind of cultural.
(29:55):
That's why it's hard, Jeff. It's been an awesome
conversation. I think everyone who's listening
wants to go. I want to send my kids to that
school. You might get everyone wants to
move to the Gold Coast of Australia.
Just thinking back now, you've seen these revival experiences
occurred and you said before that once we bring someone
(30:18):
emotion to emotional health and a holistic health you, it's
easier to learn. Have you seen a difference in
the behaviour of your students and in the way they learn in
classrooms since these Holy Spirit revival experiences?
There's a simple way to answer that, Tanya, and you'd have to
come and visit to believe it. But every time I take families
(30:41):
on a tour, and I do it all the time, that's every Tuesday, we
take about 20 families around and I say to the first thing I
say to them, your job is to findthe child doing the wrong thing.
And they all looked at me and go, what do you mean like
children do the wrong thing? I said, no, I'm going to show
you like a tour around the school.
You'll see somewhere between 1014 hundred students.
(31:02):
And I've done that for years andno one's ever found a child
doing the wrong thing. And it's that concept about if
they feel safe and secure and they know that they've got an
Ave to turn to, then they actually engage.
And when they engage, they can find Jesus.
Because if you're, if you've gotthat redemptive mindset, that
redemptive thoughts in your mind, people will see it and
(31:23):
say, I want, I want to be part of that.
There are so many people who don't want to be part of the
world. They're just following the
following the leader. Because when you create that
different environment, when you create that different place
where they feel safe and secure,the Holy Spirit can work.
That's the key. Love it.
Jeff, it's been such a joy to chat with you.
I love that you've refocused us on the work of the Holy Spirit
(31:46):
in education and in the the development of students and as a
challenge to us as adults as well to be oriented that way.
Thank you for blazing a trail, for being hungry for the Holy
Spirit. We need to pray for revival
constantly, don't we? We need to believe the Holy
Spirit encounters because it's God that changes hearts.
Thank you again for your time, Jeff.
It's been such a joy to have youon the God Conversations podcast
(32:10):
today. Thank you very much.
God bless you. Thanks for listening to God
Conversations with Tanya Harris.Don't miss the next episode by
subscribing to the show on your favourite podcast.
And remember, the Holy Spirit was given so we could all hear
God's voice. It was never meant to be a one
way conversation.
Good conversations with Tanya Harris.
Let me ask you that question. What does God tell me?
Well, you know, Thunder Light isMother Teresa.
Someone asked her. When did God speak to you?
And she said whenever he wants. So essentially the Bible is a
collection of God conversations if you like.
I had a vision of a car accidentand I'm sitting on the couch
(00:20):
thinking why have I just seen this?
How could I know if God was speaking to me?
How could I know that that? Dream or that?
Thought was actually just me. Thinking about how I said the
bad thing, Jesus said we'd recognise his voice.
It was never meant to be a one way conversation.
When we think of the Holy Spirit, we think about the God
(00:43):
who saves us in a spiritual sense.
But did you know that an encounter with the Holy Spirit
also helps us to learn? Experiencing the Holy Spirit
could even improve your grades at school.
Hi and welcome to the God Conversations podcast.
My name is Tanya Harris and I'm a pastor, practical theologian,
author, and the founding director of God Conversations, a
(01:06):
ministry that equips you to recognise and respond to God's
voice. Well, I think you are going to
love this interview. It is truly, it's fascinating.
I talk with Jeff Davis, he's theprincipal of Hillcrest Christian
College on the Gold Coast in Australia, very beautiful part
of the world, but that's not thefocus.
(01:26):
The focus is the beautiful thingthat God has been doing amongst
the students there with incredible revival breaking out
amongst them. Over 100 baptisms, Bible study
group starting enthusiastic moshpit worship sessions.
And then Jeff talks about the impact it has had on students
(01:47):
lives, about how their faith hasbecome very real, how they've
taken up leadership roles leading the adults in their
faith, and how they've seen healing and transformation of
behaviour. It's a teacher's dream.
And what we also see is that Jeff reflects on how
understanding Jesus and encountering the Spirit changes
(02:07):
the way we view education. I think he'll really appreciate
his insights and I encourage youto think about who would enjoy
this interview. Pass it on to parents, teachers,
school leaders, anyone in the field of education or who's
seeking to learn. It's such a profound
conversation. And hey, just before we get
(02:29):
going, I want to just say a quick hello.
Welcome to the new listeners to the God Conversations podcast,
particularly to all the Salvation Army officers and
leaders and people that I've been meeting this year.
I've had the privilege of working with the Salvation Army
in NSW this year. We're on a bit of a journey on
(02:49):
what it means to to understand what Spirit LED discipleship is
to experience it and then to facilitate that in our churches
and communities. So for all the salvos, thank you
for what you do in the communityand it's just incredible.
I love it. Hey, for all the regular
listeners too, I encourage you to give us a rating on iTunes or
(03:11):
on Spotify. Get the word out there about
what God wants to do via the Holy Spirit in our lives.
And don't forget, you can also sign up to the God Conversations
fortnightly updates at godconversations.com so that
you'll never miss a new episode.Well, here we go on to the
interview. Here's my conversation on a high
(03:34):
school in revival with Jeff Davis.
Jeff, it is wonderful to have you on the show.
Now, for those listeners who don't know this, Jeff, and we
have a bit of history, don't we,Jeff?
We go back to the the young daysand we connected again at a
(03:55):
Baptist pastors conference in a different state.
And you know, when you haven't seen someone for like 20-30,
it's and you go, Oh my gosh. And there was Jeff dressed in
his suit on the platform sharingabout the revival that had been
happening at their school. So Jeff, it's such a joy to
connect with you again after youwere a very good friend of my
(04:16):
brother's and lived in the same state.
Both have moved on from there. So why don't you introduce
yourself to our audience, our God Conversations audience?
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Thanks, Tanya. It was great to connect and it's
good to see that you haven't changed an inch in those thirty
years yet. For me, no hair, no nothing.
It's a It's a terrible big difference.
(04:38):
There are a few more wrinkles, Jeff, you just got to look a bit
closer. Got to mention I'm half blind.
So look, I'm Jeff Davis side. Look, I, I run Hillcrest
Christian College, which, you know, we've got over 2000
students and we're here on the Gold Coast, which is just a
beautiful place to live. But, you know, I've, I kind of
fighted 21 through university, then after university became a,
(05:01):
a school teacher, physics math teacher into being principalship
at a young age. And I've watched God just work
in my life and take me a whole range of different places where
we've been able to see lives change because of a completely
different approach to the way oflearning.
And so I've sort of become a bitof a sole crusader to try and
say that the school system is wrong.
I experienced that when I was atschool.
(05:23):
It just didn't help with me learn well, I had to find
different strategies, but yet it's so simple when you put it
into a, a different context. And so I've had a whole life of
listening to God and trying to implement a completely different
way in which we can actually engage children in the learning
process, which is such a unique way of actually seeing children
(05:44):
grow and reach their full potential.
And yeah, my life has been very blessed to have been walking
alongside a lot of people, a lotof faithful people who've been
praying for the ministry that wedo and seeing that everything is
coming now to a really good fruition.
And you have a very unique role being in a Christian School,
don't you? Because you can create ministry
(06:04):
spaces very easily as well as implement the education side of
it. That's what I'm super curious
about. But before we delve into that
space, Jeff, what about you? Tell us a little bit about your
God Conversations journey. Perhaps you've had an experience
of hearing God's voice that's been significant in your life.
What difference has that made for you?
(06:25):
Well, if I could go to many examples of, you know, from
getting married at a very early age, but then we we walked an
infertility path for for many years and God called us up to
Hillsong. Actually we went to Hillsong
conference and got prayed for upthere.
Very deliberate went there. We were worship pastoring at the
time and my wife and I headed upto Hillsong and, you know, nine
(06:45):
months later, our first baby came along and it was this
incredible, you know, gift to us.
And it just, you know, we kept following God and what God had
in store for us. And it's been a rocky road and
it's been up and down and it's been places we wouldn't expect
to be. But in the end of it, you know,
like we, we look and we just, wegive thanks to God because we
can see his hand in everything that's gone on.
(07:07):
And, you know, we're looking down, you know, 30-40 years down
the track now and we're saying, wow, hasn't this been fun?
Nothing like perspective is there when you look back and you
can see the hand of God leading you.
I think a beautiful testimony too.
For someone who struggle with infertility to actually see God
do that miracle. I love that.
So let's let's 0 in on what the Holy Spirit's been doing at your
(07:31):
school. One of the reasons you were
sharing at this particular conference was that because you
had experienced something of revival amongst your students
and some really incredible Holy Spirit moments.
So can you share a little bit about what you've seen?
Yeah, so one of the things we wereally felt in the beginning of
of 23 was that after the Asperiarevival, we'd been praying for
(07:54):
something similar to occur and also.
Can I, can I jump in there? Maybe some people haven't heard
of that. What happened at Asbury?
It's the university in the US What did you?
Yeah. So just explain what that was.
Yeah, University in the US had this revival in early January.
We've been praying for revival for a few months.
And our, our founding church, which is the really Creek
(08:17):
Baptist Church, we've been playing for revival for about 18
months. And there was a real sense
amongst us that we were hearing that God was going to do
something special. So I pulled the team together
and I said, you know, my, my spiritual team.
And please understand that one of the things about difficult
about being a Christian School principal is that you're, you're
trying to follow a Christian context in a secular world.
We're meeting secular laws and rules and, and compliance
(08:41):
issues. And it's really hard that, that
balancing, you know, point whereyou, the staff you employ, the
strategies you employ, the metrics you've actually got to
try and meet and all these different things are this, this
juncture point. It's not like a church where
you're wholly focused on the Holy Spirit in a, in a secular
world organisation. It's very, very different.
(09:02):
So we, we presented to the staff, but we felt that there
was this opportunity to pray forrevival.
And so from about February, we started praying that, you know,
the Holy Spirit would fall upon us.
And and then in March, the, the one of the Chapel services, my,
my spiritual team came to me andsaid, we just want to offer an
(09:22):
ultra an altar, call it our, ourChapel, which we call gathering,
our gathering service and. You know, is this a, is this a
once a week event, Jeff? Yeah, once a week, every week we
have a gathering for the junior,the middle and the senior all
separately. And so the, the, the crew who
looked after the, the middle onecame to me and I said, we really
feel we need to offer an altar call.
(09:43):
And that's very uncommon within a school environment.
And but I said don't think that I felt very comfortable, prayed
through the issues that maybe, you know, the optics of that
because you've got to, you've got to think about, well, that's
something which could be mistaken because you've got 700
kids in there. Not all of them are faith
followed believers and they're going to go home and tell their
parents. And here is the juxtaposition of
(10:06):
where you find yourself. Yep, it's a very churchy thing
to do, but it's also something, a very spiritual important
thing. So one when they made that call.
So the parents who send their children along to the school are
aware that this is it's a Christian School and that some
of the goals of the school are not just to meet Australian
government educational standards, but a spiritual
(10:27):
development too. Would that be fair?
Do they they understand that from the outset?
Absolutely, Tanya, one of the things is that, you know, people
who choose our schooling choose it for many reasons, not just
academic success. And you know one of them, if you
go back a stage, which we can talk about later, it's the fact
that most people view schools asa IQ incubator.
You go to school to get smarter,but that's the bare minimum.
(10:51):
And so the people who are choosing my school, about 40%
are from a faith based background, about 60% have no
faith based background, but values aligned.
See the see the point of what we're trying to do, see the
connection. You know, we've grown over 1000
students in four years with no advertising.
(11:12):
And so it's the kids, it's the kids who are actually doing it.
So back to the story. So my my team came to me and I
prayed about it and I felt very comfortable.
And so they did the altar call. There's 700 in that, 700 in that
auditorium at the time. And at least 400 came forward
and and came to the altar. What was the?
What was the invitation for? What was the actual call made?
(11:35):
The call was to come down and ifyou were feeling that you wanted
to experience God in a real and personal way, comfortable.
So it was a real proper, you know, traditional Baptist altar
call. I actually didn't, I didn't
happen to be there at that meeting.
I said, it's one of those thingsfor sure.
I wasn't there. But then all of a sudden people
came running and going, oh, we've got this, you know, we've
(11:56):
just had all these kids come forward.
So they, as they, they came forward.
And this is a really interestingpoint as the, the, the team
worked with those 400 and the other 200 and 5300 left the, the
building and the next groups over the Chapel services follow
each other, the gatherings follow each other.
(12:17):
And it's just the, the senior students started coming in and
they got hit by the Holy Spirit as soon as they walked in.
And so over 200 of us came forward and without even an, an
altar call and just started asking for the presence of God.
So that was day one. And so it went on for and it's
still going. We have people coming to a Lord
(12:38):
all the time. We've had, you know, probably
over 100 baptisms now, people who were touched at that time.
We, we have all sorts of storiesof one boy who was suspended at
the time. And you have to understand that
being suspended at our school doesn't happen very often.
We don't believe in, you know, punitive punishments.
But he needed a break and we needed a break.
So he was home and, and he felt it on his bed at home.
(13:01):
He rang and said, what's just happened?
And this has become one of the most on fire Christian boys in
the school now because he was touched by the Holy Spirit at
the exact moment and he had nothing all the time.
That is incredible. Yeah, yeah.
So the team continued to pray for people with, we had over 20
Bible studies running with, you know, you know, 20 plus kids in
(13:24):
each one of them. And there's plenty of them still
going. They're sort of tapered off a
little bit. Then if people are connected
into youth groups and church groups and you know, they're
talking, you know, we and, and our gathering and assemblies,
it's not run by staff, it's run by the kids.
And the kids give their testimonies.
And we've had testimony after testimony after testimony.
(13:45):
We're seeing more and more students feel safe to be able to
be vulnerable to hear God's Spirit.
And we're seeing it time and time again.
And every day we, we just keep praying that God will continue
to work in the lives of his students.
And then it's interesting because people without faith
know there's something different.
(14:06):
They just can't quite understandit.
And so that's our our impetus toget in there and talk to them
about what real faith means. It was interesting.
I was reading a book yesterday and it talked about, you know,
what it means to be born again, what it means to be saved.
And, and it always involves somesort of encounter, some sort of
intersection with the Holy Spirit that looks different for
(14:27):
people. But it's actual, it's an actual
experience, isn't it? It's an actual encounter.
Do you have any other testimonies from your students
that you can share? I'm super curious what was going
on in the lives of those hundreds of students.
Oh, we, we've had students who just haven't like been able to
move because they've just been paralysed by the Holy Spirit
(14:48):
just working in their heart and restoring them.
A lot of our young people today are very, very damaged.
And So what we've seen is a a lot of intervention by the Holy
Spirit in restoring them. So, you know, we talk about the
fact that, you know, when I started being a principal 20
plus years ago, that about 90% of the kids would come to school
ready to learn and 10% not have to worry about the whether they
(15:09):
had food, whether they had clothing.
You know, there was always that 10%.
Well, it's reversed now we have 90% and not ready to learn.
I can't, you know, the mobile phone is the biggest issue with
us and you know, and saying thatI'm, we are 100% digital.
I'm a, you know, a very, very digital person.
We use AI everywhere, but the mobile phone and the traps that
are in it are causing the massive issues.
(15:31):
So I don't know what a child's seen, what they've been exposed
to and what they've heard. And so whenever I interview
students coming into the school,if they're over year seven, I
asked them, how many have you have you seen a, have you seen
an image or a, a video of something you wish you hadn't
have seen? And they've all said, 100% of
kids say yes. The next question I ask, and I
(15:54):
ask them with their permission, I say, so have you seen
something that is so disturbing that you won't tell your parents
because you'll think you'll be in trouble?
And about 80 to 85% are saying, yeah, absolutely.
And so when you see something like that, it resonates in your
brain. It just goes over and over and
over. So these students are coming to
school trapped in this mental blockage of what they've seen
(16:17):
and they can't process it. They don't have the emotional
intelligence to to actually process it.
They don't have the safety zone where they can go and talk about
it. So it just becomes that their
old brain, the whole cognitive learning ability is actually
filled of images and memories, which are just, I can't process
and get out. So I can't access help.
And so they're coming to school and then we get a teacher at the
(16:38):
front going and do this, this, this and this.
I can't do it. And So what you've got to do is
now we've got to retrace them. We've got to push them.
We've got to get the the Holy Spirit to actually restore them
in so many different ways. And so we're seeing this all all
over the place. And so you get stories like this
and you go, wow, this is pretty special.
(16:59):
And so, yeah, we're, I, I, we talk to our kids and we see
their growth. We more importantly, we see that
they have this Holy Spirit awakening.
So I happened to be at Ready Creek earlier this year and the
youth team stood up and ran the whole ServiceNow.
There were 20 plus students there who had all been through
the the revival and they all spoke in a manner I have never
(17:24):
heard before. Their conviction of the Holy
Spirit, their ability to articulate what God was doing in
their life was as real as anything I've ever heard, and it
inspired a congregation of 300 plus to actually applaud without
ceasing these young people who are going to become the next
leaders of a church, which is really cool.
(17:45):
Wow, Jeff, that's incredible. I'm blown away.
It's. Amazing.
We say it like, you know, we, wesee them in worship, we see them
in like, you know, our, our, ourgatherings have become more like
a mosh pit as they enter into this worship session where they
just want to praise God. And you know, and I go to
different churches all the time to talk about what's happening
(18:07):
at Hillcrest and excuse me. And all I see is our kids up
there everywhere just singing and dancing.
And just like you go say, wow, Holy Spirit is really intervene
with them. Incredible, Jeff.
I'm amazed. Loving it.
We're talking with Mr Jeff Davisfrom Hillcrest Christian College
in the Gold Coast of Australia. They've experienced incredible
(18:29):
revival in their school, and we're looking forward to
reflecting on it a little more right after this break.
Did you know that dreams and visions are the most common way
God spoke in biblical history? And God still speaks in this
powerful and creative way today.Of course, not every dream is
from God. So how do we know when it is?
(18:50):
And how do we understand the strange scenes that appear in
our dreams? The globally renowned God Dreams
Online course answers these questions and more.
It includes 6 teaching videos, adownloadable study guide, and
interaction with the God Conversations team.
We've kept the price super low to make it accessible to
everyone. Be equipped to hear God's voice
(19:13):
in dreams and visions. Register today at
godconversations.com/courses. Jeff, I was really struck by
some of your stories and and what you were saying about the
the shift of students, changes in behaviour and thinking.
You know, as a young person I taught in a Christian School and
(19:35):
I, you know, sometimes our kids who are in that environment,
those kind of teachings about Christianity become over
familiar and it becomes a ritualalmost.
And I was just reflecting as youwere talking about what the
Spirit is doing. Jesus said I will send my spirit
and when I after I leave, my spirit will remind you of
everything that I've said and the difference that it makes
(19:59):
that when the spirit works on someone's heart, it's like it
comes alive, doesn't it becomes real.
And this is the value of the Holy Spirit encounter.
It's not something that can be worked through cerebrally or
intellectually, even though that's a part of a message, but
it has to cut through, doesn't it?
To the heart. It has to be a revelation
(20:21):
experience. Would you say that's what you've
seen? I'll.
Tell them the concept that the construct you have is that the
world is now IQ and their EQ, sothey're thinking about how to
feel. And so they've lost that ability
to connect, you know? And so if you can't connect with
each other, you can't connect with God, OK.
And So what they're doing is that people are thinking about
(20:42):
God as a construct of intelligence rather than a
contractor, a constructive spirit.
And it's, you know, this very, very different.
You know, Young and Chow, when he talked about that when he was
building his cathedral, his church, and, you know, he spent
more than half his time in prayer connecting with God after
his waking hours just through his eyes and eyes connecting
(21:03):
with God because it's something which is a supernatural.
It's the fourth sense. It's the fourth dimension.
That's what that's what we've got to try and get to that 4th
dimension and people just ignoreit.
They just try and think of theirthree dimensional world and
we're going to solve it with ourthree dimensional world where
the competitive advantage comes within the 4th dimension.
I love that, you know, in my PHDI looked at two different
(21:27):
types of knowledge. It's in the field of
epistemology scholars, it's the theory of knowledge.
How do we know what we know? And the scholars, they were
making a distinction between what we know cerebrally and what
we know experientially. And and I was raised in an
environment that downplayed spirit experience.
You know, that was The Dirty word.
Don't have an experience becauseyou shouldn't be seeking an
(21:49):
experience. And the fear was that people
would become lovers of a feelingor lovers of an experience.
But I think in kind of throwing that out, we've lost the
connection with the Spirit and the spirit works experientially
in our hearts. It's actually a real thing,
isn't it? And I love what you've said that
you've created space for that atyour school.
(22:12):
Tell us the other thing that youmentioned was about
vulnerability. You just quickly mentioned that
word in this context. What did you mean by that?
So one of the challenges is thatwe think very linearly and that
this will follow this, this willfollow this, this will follow
this, this will follow that. And so in in that sense, there
(22:32):
we, we leave very little room for the Holy Spirit to come and
do something which is maybe completely different.
And so that's the vulnerability.Now, if you take a look at your
mice Briggs profiles, you know, you the big one which we look at
is the the third one, which is the F and the T, right?
And so are you a thinker or a feeler?
And the majority of people will test as a thinker because
(22:53):
they've lost this ability to be a feeler.
If you are a feeler in today's world, you actually get really
hurt. And so we term our school as
being a school where we, we, youknow, we acknowledge what we
call the big F the feeling. Because we understand that when
you can actually get that feeling to occur and when people
(23:14):
feel safe and secure and they can be vulnerable, the Holy
Spirit can do amazing things andshift the pendulum back to that
place where you know, you feel, you feel real and you feel
truthful and you feel like you can actually make this
incredible difference. And that's where you get that
vulnerability because you feel safe.
And that biggest thing is that that's safe.
(23:36):
You know, I'd often talk to young parents and say when I
went to school as a 5 year old, the average distance I was from
my parents was 4.8 kilometres. The average distance, the
parents these days, the average distance their children are from
them is 95 metres. So in that sense, there their
ability to feel safe and secure is actually, believe it or not,
(23:57):
diminished because they haven't been able to experience all
these different things. Their safety lies in their
parents, not in themselves. And So what happens is that
with, with we create these artificial realms of, you know,
like parents, like, you know, I've got the worst traffic issue
you've ever seen. And I've, I've got my school,
which is, you know, 2000 students.
I've got Kings, which is 3000 students.
(24:18):
I've got another school which isnearly 1000 students all on the
same single lane Rd. If the parents allowed their
children to walk 400 metres downthe road, all my problems would
be solved. But parents won't let their
children do that because they'reactually saying that's not safe.
So when you begin to say it's not safe to do this and not safe
to do that, and you have this cocooning, you actually don't
(24:40):
allow your children to make logical decisions to allow them
to feel that point of safety andtherefore they never get there.
The feeling aspect doesn't develop and they're unable to
encounter God isn't. That interesting?
Yeah. No, it does.
I I remember talking with someone recently on the podcast
about mysticism and Holy Spirit is mystical by definition
(25:04):
because Holy Spirit is Spirit, right?
And then she because this is notan area that has been a strength
for me in some respects, becauseI'm a thinker.
I'm a tee on the Myers Brig personality, but she said, you
know, Christianity is Eastern, it's not Western and it's
experiential and we've made it into a thinking rational.
I mean God is still rational. It's not a downplay of that.
(25:27):
But I think what you're saying here is there's a holistic
approach in a person that embraces the feeling
experiential side as much as themind.
And perhaps we've idolised the mind over the spirit, and as a
result we've thwarted that development would become
thinking beings rather than, youknow, human beings.
(25:49):
It comes back to the, you know, we've got this construct at the
moment that we feel that having a, you know, ATAR score, score
at the end of our year 12 experience is what actually
defines us as a human. And that's, it couldn't be
anything further than the truth.But truth, particularly as we
move towards a new era of AI, we, we've got to completely
rethink about how we actually value success, you know,
(26:12):
success, you know, like if you're saying that it's just an
ITAS school, then you're going to get teachers who'll stand on
the front and we'll actually just completely put a message in
there. But it's all about academic,
academic, academic, academic, academic.
And then we've got papers who dothe same sort of thing.
And, you know, league tables of which schools the greatest and
which schools are the least greatest.
And we've got, you know, all these different things that go
alongside that. What we're not acknowledging is
(26:36):
if you take a look at that Eastern construct, that the
spiritual side of us is the mostimportant part of the things
that we have. And so we're not developing that
within the school framework where very few schools have a, a
set of values that students can learn and, and talk of their
life so that they can actually make a solid decision.
So values ladder is how you makegreat decisions.
(26:58):
So, you know, we are very much avalues organisation.
Matter of fact, I talk about us being a school without rules and
people look at me and go, how can you have a school without
rules? Because we've got this construct
that the rules for thinking partof what we do is the most
important and aspirationally, like we are a school without
rules. And I talk about the fact that
you can have rules, consequencesand try and build relationships,
(27:20):
which puts the feeling at the bottom.
Or you can have relationship values and expectations that
puts the feeling and the feelingat the top and the thinking at
the bottom. And if you can construct that,
you completely change the way students can exceed themselves.
They're not going to school thinking they're going to get in
trouble, they're going to schoolthinking they're going to
(27:42):
experience something. And it, it shifts the motivation
from a positive orientation froma negative orientation to a +1,
doesn't it? And it's very Jesus like because
Jesus said all the rules are summed up in love God, love
people, which is incredibly positive as opposed to do not,
do not, do not, do not, do not, do not.
(28:02):
It's, it's loving God and lovingpeople, which translates a lot
of time as a feeling, doesn't it?
I mean, it's an action as well, but it's motivated internally.
It's I can't love someone because you tell me I have to
and therefore that shapes behaviour.
Totally. And so if you, if you take it
into a different framework, so we live in a, an exploitative
world, which is I win, you lose.And so our whole construct of
(28:26):
everyone, the, the whole idea ofinfluences, the whole idea of,
you know, social media and stufflike that is that it's about me,
me, me, me, me. A more, a, a more progressive
thought would be an ethical framework where it's a win, win
scenario. And I have lots of students who
come in and say, I'm going to become a world famous lawyer
working for Greenpeace, saving the world.
(28:49):
But the true sense of what we'vegot to do and the ethical sense
of what we've got to try and move from is to go there to a
redemptive framework. I lose, we all win.
And if we can get that mentalitythrough our society, it shifts
everything because the exploitative framework is we use
people, we, we use the culture to give us what we need.
(29:14):
Yet Jesus didn't tell us to do that.
Jesus told us to be redemptive. And then he, by offering himself
as a sacrifice for all of us, showed us what redemptive nature
is like. And so the redemptive mindset is
something which we are trying toput through the school.
And I've got to tell you, it's the hardest thing.
(29:34):
We see, we see and we read that Jesus died on the cross.
But we rationalise that in an intellectual sense, not in the
the sense that it was supposed to be.
But I lose, everybody wins. And if we all adopted that, you
can completely change the way the world operates.
And it's hard because it's counter, it's kind of cultural.
(29:55):
That's why it's hard, Jeff. It's been an awesome
conversation. I think everyone who's listening
wants to go. I want to send my kids to that
school. You might get everyone wants to
move to the Gold Coast of Australia.
Just thinking back now, you've seen these revival experiences
occurred and you said before that once we bring someone
(30:18):
emotion to emotional health and a holistic health you, it's
easier to learn. Have you seen a difference in
the behaviour of your students and in the way they learn in
classrooms since these Holy Spirit revival experiences?
There's a simple way to answer that, Tanya, and you'd have to
come and visit to believe it. But every time I take families
(30:41):
on a tour, and I do it all the time, that's every Tuesday, we
take about 20 families around and I say to the first thing I
say to them, your job is to findthe child doing the wrong thing.
And they all looked at me and go, what do you mean like
children do the wrong thing? I said, no, I'm going to show
you like a tour around the school.
You'll see somewhere between 1014 hundred students.
(31:02):
And I've done that for years andno one's ever found a child
doing the wrong thing. And it's that concept about if
they feel safe and secure and they know that they've got an
Ave to turn to, then they actually engage.
And when they engage, they can find Jesus.
Because if you're, if you've gotthat redemptive mindset, that
redemptive thoughts in your mind, people will see it and
(31:23):
say, I want, I want to be part of that.
There are so many people who don't want to be part of the
world. They're just following the
following the leader. Because when you create that
different environment, when you create that different place
where they feel safe and secure,the Holy Spirit can work.
That's the key. Love it.
Jeff, it's been such a joy to chat with you.
I love that you've refocused us on the work of the Holy Spirit
(31:46):
in education and in the the development of students and as a
challenge to us as adults as well to be oriented that way.
Thank you for blazing a trail, for being hungry for the Holy
Spirit. We need to pray for revival
constantly, don't we? We need to believe the Holy
Spirit encounters because it's God that changes hearts.
Thank you again for your time, Jeff.
It's been such a joy to have youon the God Conversations podcast
(32:10):
today. Thank you very much.
God bless you. Thanks for listening to God
Conversations with Tanya Harris.Don't miss the next episode by
subscribing to the show on your favourite podcast.
And remember, the Holy Spirit was given so we could all hear
God's voice. It was never meant to be a one
way conversation.
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