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The Centre for Christian Living exists to bring Biblical ethics to everyday issues,

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and on each episode of our podcast, we seek to do exactly that.

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But every now and then, we'd like to share stories of how God's people seek to apply biblical ethics

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to the everyday and specific issues in their own lives.

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If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you'll remember our previous interviews

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with Brooke Hazelgrove in episode 71 and Jordan Cunningham in episode 74.

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In this episode of the CCL podcast, we get to know yet another member of our student team,

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a Moore Theological College student named Michael Parker.

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Michael grew up in country Australia in Victoria, and in some ways, his path to ministry and more

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college was quite typical. He was raised in a Christian home, he attended a Christian school

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for high school, and he heard the call to ministry during his university years. But in many ways,

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as you'll soon hear, Michael's journey was not typical at all.

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It is our hope and prayer that as you hear Michael's story, you'll come away encouraged,

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encouraged and eager to pray for and support not just Michael and his future in ministry,

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but also the College as it carries out its vision of seeing God glorified by men and women

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living for and proclaiming Jesus Christ, growing healthy churches and reaching the lost.

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Hello and welcome to the Centre for Christian Living podcast, where we seek to apply biblical

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ethics to everyday issues. My name is Karen Beilharz and I'm the executive assistant to the Director of the

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Centre for Christian Living for Acting Director Peter Orr. I'm coming to you from Sydney,

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Australia, and I'm joined today by a member of our student team, Michael Parker, who is now in his

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fourth year at Moore College. Thanks for joining us, Michael.

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No worries.

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We're going to have a little chat about what God has done in your life and is doing in your life.

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So Michael, you weren't always a Moore College student living in Sydney. So let's hear a little

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bit about your life before you came here in Sydney. So Michael, you were a student at

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your life before you came here. You told me you grew up in Warrnambool, or Warrnambool,

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I think I got that wrong, which is a tourist town three hours west of Melbourne in Victoria,

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so south of the border. Who's in your family? What did your parents do work wise? And what was your

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upbringing there like? Yeah. Yeah. Warnambool. You don't have to pronounce all the letters.

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Just let it, it's almost one syllable. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I grew up with mom and dad and

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then three siblings, older sister Beth, older brother Josh and younger sister Sally.

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My parents, my dad worked in a printing kind of shop and my mom was a primary school teacher

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and then specialised more in music teaching in primary schools as well.

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And yeah, upbringing was fun. It was pretty laid back on a beach town. We lived quite close to the

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beach. So we'd often walk over there and yeah, it was great. We'd go to church. We'd have Bible

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stories before bedtime. That was, yeah, I hung out with friends a lot. That's what it was like

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growing up there. Sounds lovely and idyllic. So you heard the gospel, was it mostly through family?

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Yeah, family and church. I think like those bedtime stories, or mostly kind of stories like

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David and Goliath and Noah's Ark. Yeah. But then some ones from the gospel. One I remember

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particularly was Zacchaeus in the tree and Jesus telling him to come down and then him selling all

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his possessions. So there's a few that stick in my memory. I don't remember a time where I didn't

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know the gospel, which is a privilege now that I look back on that. But yeah, things like that,

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that family Bible time, but also our church was good as well like that.

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Yeah, that's wonderful. So when you were eight years old, something very sad happened.

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Your father was diagnosed with a brain tumour and he died. And that obviously had a big impact on

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you and your family. What do you remember about that time, like when he was ill and what was that

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like for your family? How did his faith influence you? Yeah, it was a big change. Yeah, I was quite

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young. I was about eight years old. So there's a lot I don't remember, but some of the things I

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remember are just him moving different hospitals around the place, some long train trips as we'd

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go to different parts of the state to the different hospitals he was in. There was a lot of support

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from our church, I remember, making meals for us and that kind of thing. And babysitting us as kids,

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as my mum would be with my dad in hospital for a lot of the time as well. But yeah, his faith did

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certainly influence me even at that young age, because I remember specifically. So yeah, the

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tumour had a pretty big impact on his cognition and mobility. And so he couldn't communicate or

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this is my memory, he couldn't communicate very well at least, but he was always very happy and

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content, especially when we'd come to visit. That's what I remember. And I can remember my

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mum telling me that the medical staff were just kind of astounded that he was that way, since a

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lot of their experience of similar patients was that they were frustrated and scared at the

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position they were in, the illness they had, and you can understand that. But for him, it was not

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that way. And I can remember my mum telling me it was because he had faith that Jesus was with him

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and that he was secure, that he knew he would be going to heaven. And so that has stuck with me

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since then. I think from that time, I was just, I'm going to have that same faith.

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Wow, that's wonderful. And then after he died,

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how did your father's passing affect you and your family's lives?

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Yeah, it was quite different. We'd still had an enormous amount of support from the church,

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helping us, helping my mum as she was dealing with his passing, us as kids. Yeah, there was

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a difference. The bedtime Bible stories, I think, stopped happening. I don't remember them happening

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as much. So there was a change in that regard. But in terms of our Christian lives, we were

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still going to church and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

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Yeah, yeah. You told me your family continued to attend church and participate in

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church life. They had Bible study at your house, that sort of thing, as you got older. So how would

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you describe what your faith was like at this stage?

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Yeah, I guess it was almost like a stubborn faith. It wasn't growing. It was there. I believed,

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and I didn't even entertain not believing really. I guess it wasn't really tested either. No one was

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really ever having a go at me for my faith. It was kind of comfortable, I guess. So stubborn and

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comfortable. I was happy believing what I believed and I was happy not exploring it further.

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Sure, sure.

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Yep.

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And then as you grew up, you started going to

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Presbyterian High School because your mother started working there. How did things change

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for you faith wise as you became a teenager?

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Yeah, so at the Christian school there, there was Bible study kind of integrated into the curriculum.

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And I don't know if this is true for most teenagers, but at least when I was a teenager,

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it wasn't cool to like school. And so it's fun to be with your friends,

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hanging out with your friends all day. But anything related to school and learning was just kind of

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looked down on a bit. And so I didn't like reading the Bible. I didn't like anything to do with it.

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I still had my faith. I was still happy believing it. But I just didn't, it was seen with the same

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lenses, you know, Maths or English. It's like, oh, I don't want to deal with that.

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Did that extend beyond school to church

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as well? Or was it completely different? 

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Oh, there was a bit of difference there actually, I think. Yeah, it felt like church was the place

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for it. It felt like, yeah, I didn't want to deal with it at school. But it was more of a comfort.

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This is what church is. Again, I don't need to explore my faith further. I don't need to

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try and grow it or really see what kind of impact it should have on me. But I come to this place

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expecting to hear a sermon, I guess. Yeah, yeah, sure. You also talked

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about becoming quite withdrawn during high school. Was there a particular reason why?

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I can't pinpoint a moment, but I just

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progressively began to get quite annoyed with people, just inwardly. It never kind of

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expressed itself. I was always polite and friendly with people, but people just got on my nerves.

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I got quite irritated and annoyance turned to bitterness and even just some seething anger

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underneath. But yeah, I was always very inward. I don't think many people would have, yeah,

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people might have been able to see that I was not having a great time, but yeah, never made any

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outbursts or things like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting.

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So was this attitude more to do with people's behaviour or the way that you viewed humanity or

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was it something else?

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I just didn't have time for people, I think. I was just, I can't really put my finger on exactly

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what it was. The way people talked, the things they talked about. I had a few good friends,

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a few close friends who I really liked hanging out with and enjoying time together. But most

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people I just didn't have time for. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so after high school,

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you went straight to university and you chose to go to Charles Sturt in Wagga Wagga. So for our

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international listeners, Wagga Wagga is in New South Wales and it's a bit of a drive from

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Warrnambool in Victoria, where you grew up. So why Charles Sturt and also you studied science,

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so why did you choose science?

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Yeah, Charles Sturt. So it was quite a drive from where I grew up in Warrnambool. And yeah,

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decided that I just wanted to leave essentially. I didn't like how many people knew me and I didn't

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like how many people thought they knew me. I didn't know if they knew me, but I knew they thought

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they knew me. I don't know if that makes sense. But I essentially a clean slate, I guess, is what

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I wanted. For no real reason. I didn't, I wasn't, you know, a town pariah or anything like that,

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but I just wanted to get away. But Wagga Wagga, there's two there. If you go to there, just say

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Wagga, just say one. So look at you funny if you say it twice. My older sister at the time lived

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in a town close by. So I felt like there was some kind of relational connection that I could lean on.

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But also it didn't feel like a big city, which was good because that's what I was used to from

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Warrnambool. But it felt like there was stuff happening. It felt like a pretty vibrant university

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at the time. Yeah, sure. And why science?

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Oh, yes. I liked studying like physics and maths at school in the later years. And I didn't know

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what I wanted to do, but it was just a bit of a thing to go to university. In hindsight,

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I probably should have done a gap year to think about it a bit more, but I just wanted to go.

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I wanted to keep studying what I liked doing. And so that was maths and physics.

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Yeah. Yeah. So while you were a student, you started going to church and the university group

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on campus, which is part of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students. And that

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marked something of a turning point in your life. So what happened and how did it affect your faith?

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Yeah. So I still had this stubborn, comfortable faith, if you like. And so I saw a poster for the

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Uni church there and that made sense a minute ago. So I went and I just started doing the things they

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were doing. I joined a Bible study. I went to the church they run on Sunday nights. And then one of

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the ministry apprentices there asked me if I wanted to catch up during the week to read the Bible with

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him. And so some of those things I was more willing to do than others. But for the one-to-one in

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particular, I remember when he asked me just in my head thinking, no, because this was my attitude to

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the Bible. I don't need to read it. I know what I know and I'm comfortable with that. So I was

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thinking no, but because I was there and I was just doing what everyone else did, I said, yes.

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And so, yeah, eventually that became my favourite part of the week. I just realised, oh, there is a

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lot I don't know. And it is actually pretty good to uncover that and to think about the implications.

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And really that's what it was, thinking about the implications of this faith I had on my life,

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because I had the faith, but it didn't really have an impact. I wasn't really living particularly

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Christianly. I wasn't really following Christ all that well, but discovering the implications of the

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Gospel and what that means for taking up your cross, denying yourself, following Jesus,

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that's where it really started to change for me.

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Would you like to sponsor a Moore College student? Your gospel partnership would help a student live

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and study in College community to make the most of their communal and theological learning.

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As a partner, you'll receive their personal prayer updates and you'll be blessed by a wider

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vision of Christ's kingdom work at College and beyond. The Moore College Student Support Fund

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directly assists students to afford living and studying at Moore Theological College,

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and it does this through supporters like you. We administer the fund to make sure that the students

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in the fund receive what they need. Gifts to the fund two dollars and over are tax deductible.

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To find out more and to support a student in the Student Support Fund, visit the Moore Theological

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College website at moore.edu.au and click on give, then Specialised Funds

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and Student Support Fund. We thank you for your support. For the first time ever, we are conducting

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a listener survey to help us to get to know you and how you interact with the CCL podcast.

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We'd love it if you could fill it in. There are only 10 questions and there are stuff like how

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long you've been listening to the podcast, whether you listen on your phone, your tablet, or your

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computer, or if you just read the transcripts and what you most like and least like about the podcast.

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episode description or the show notes or visit ccl.moore.edu.au/podcastsurvey.

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That's one word. ccl.moore.edu.au/podcastsurvey. Thank you again for your support.

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And now let's get back to our program. So you told me you didn't finish your science degree in the

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end and you ran out of subjects you were actually interested in. Yes. So what did you do next and

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why? Yeah, so through that time I was getting more and more involved with the Christian group

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there on campus and just really started to realise this is what I love doing as kind of the

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more older Christians were doing it with me when I was a first year and then when I got a bit older,

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I was doing it with other first years and realising this is good. I like this pattern of

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discovery and application and then helping other Christians do that as well. And so I was

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encouraged to try a bit of theological study and so I did a diploma of theology and that went well.

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I realised this is something that I could see myself studying further. Yeah. Is the diploma of

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theology, is it very similar to what Moore College does? Is it different? Yeah, yeah, very similar.

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Very similar to first year. Yeah. Okay. So after you finished the diploma, you got married

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and also like many of our students at college, you did a ministry apprenticeship with the Christian

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group at Charles Sturt. So what made you want to do that and what sort of things were you doing?

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And also what were some of the things that you were learning as you were doing it? Yeah, so

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the ministry apprentices when I was a student, they were faithfully serving but God used them

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incredibly in my life and I became more and more convinced that I wanted to have the same

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opportunity for God to use me in the same way. That took a long time to come to that conclusion,

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but eventually I decided that would be a good thing to do and others were encouraging me to

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do that as well. The kinds of things I was doing, it all kind of revolved around that Sunday evening

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fellowship was the kind of constant part of every week, but through the week it was reading the

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Bible one-to-one with younger Christians and doing topical courses like training growth group

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leaders or apologetics or things like that. And then yeah, leading Bible studies as well.

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Yeah. So what are some of the things that you learned while doing the apprenticeship?

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I learned a lot. I learned a lot about, because this is probably the first time I was enjoying

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what I was doing really and so it didn't feel like work to me, but I quickly learned that

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even though I was enjoying it, it was taking a toll on my energy and that kind of thing. So

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even though it was fun, I still needed to rest. And so I learned that almost the hard way.

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Another thing was when I was a teenager, I had that idea of just being really annoyed by people.

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That started to go away pretty quickly as I got to Uni and understood the implications of the

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gospel, but there was still some kind of remnants hanging around. And one of them was the

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thing that I was doing when I was a teenager, which was to be a friend of someone. And I had

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this idea that if someone wanted to be my friend, they would approach me and they would engage me

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because otherwise if I did it, I might be annoying them because that's how I felt when I was a bit

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younger. But at this stage, I'd already realised that was not a true thing, but I hadn't kind of

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got past it yet. So straight away when I started MTS, I was like, okay, no, I need to be engaging

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with people. I need to be genuine in my efforts to get to know and love people. And so that was

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the big focus of my early time in my ministry apprenticeship.

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So did the reception you received from doing that, that that surprised you?

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Not really, because it was something that I'd already learned, but just hadn't really put

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into practice yet. Another thing that's important to know is I'm a pretty massive introvert. So I

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knew that that would take a lot of effort and energy and it did, but the more I did it, the

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more I realised that it's like I'm working out a muscle. It gets easier over time and takes less

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energy. Yeah. That just required effort. Yeah. So your second year of ministry apprenticeship

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was very different to your first. Why was that? So my first year of my apprenticeship was in 2019,

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which meant my second year was in 2020 and a lot of people's 2020. Well, yeah, everyone's was

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different. And so that looked like the start of the year. Everything was happening as normal.

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We were planning our kickoff camp, our first event of the year to welcome first years into our group.

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And it was about to happen. And then, yeah, March, 2020, everything got shut down and lots of things

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changed. You can probably remember early on it was this will last a month or maybe three months,

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and then we'll get back to normal. But as it just dragged on, we realised we need to change the way

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we do things. And so like for everyone else, it was moving everything online. Yeah. Yep. It's funny,

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my Facebook memories are now bringing up stuff from around that time. And it's all the home learning

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that I had to do with my kids and glad that's over. Yeah. Yeah. The interesting thing, I was an

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introvert and I enjoyed doing the people side and engaging with people, but realised it had a certain

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drain on me when we went online. I thought, oh, okay, this is nice. A bit of reprieve from that.

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But I quickly realised, no, it's the opposite. It's even more tiring. So yeah, it was a hard year,

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that 2020. Yeah. Yeah. And in addition to the pandemic, another sad thing happened to you

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around then as well. You and your wife, Ruth, had a miscarriage. How did that impact your lives and

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your ministry? Yeah, it was a tough year to have something like that happen. It really shook us.

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And for me in particular, I was grieving and then kind of trying to pull myself back up so I could

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get back into my ministry apprenticeship and help everyone else who was having a really hard year as

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well. But yeah, it kind of just collapsed mentally. And so it was pretty difficult. I lost a lot of

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ability to do my ministry work. I can remember my trainer sent through a list of the tasks I'd

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normally take care of. And he asked me to categorise them into very hard, hard and possible

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or something like that, or doable. And I looked at it and was just like, I sent back and I said,

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then I need to have an impossible category. Cause I think out of maybe 10 things, nine of them,

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I thought were impossible for me to do. And one was hard. I thought I can try and do the hard one.

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And it was things like meeting and reading the Bible with people and running growth groups and

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things like that and helping run our online church. But the reason I think all those things were

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impossible was I just couldn't focus on things of faith or just engagement with God. I'd open the

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Bible and try to read and I just, I couldn't look at the words and I couldn't concentrate.

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But all through that time, it never occurred to me to think that God wasn't good. It just never

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left my brain. And I think that goes back to that early time where I first decided I was going to

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have that same faith as my dad. It's just, this is a really hard thing and I can't really even

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talk to God about it, but I'd still know that he's good. And I still know I will get through it on

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the other side. He'll bring me through. Yeah. Yeah. So great testimony to God's

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grace in a very difficult situation. After you finished your ministry apprenticeship,

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you decided to come to Moore College to study, which is great for us. Do you want to talk a bit

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about your decision-making process behind that? Like why further study? You'd already done the

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diploma of theology and also why more? Yeah. Well, I guess it was kind of the logical thing.

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If I did the diploma, thought, yeah, this is good. Maybe I'll try and see if I can do

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the activity of ministry, if you like, in amongst people's lives in a ministry apprenticeship.

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Thought that was good, even with a really hard second year. And then thought, yeah, I'm going to

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continue, keep taking steps in this direction and see if God keeps bringing us this way. And so,

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yeah, there was other options to Moore College and we, in considering that, realised we can't make

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a bad choice of college from what we were considering. And so there were a few kind of

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superficial or maybe factors in our decision-making that led us, leaned us towards Moore College.

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But I think the one that really put us here over some other ones was More's focus on going through

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the whole degree as a cohort together. That was because at the time, as far back as I was even

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considering doing a ministry apprenticeship, Ruth and I were thinking we might end up anywhere.

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We don't have a particular desire to do a specific kind of ministry in a specific kind of place,

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but God might put us anywhere and we're willing to go anywhere. And so we thought there's a good

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chance we might end up somewhere really isolated. Going through with a cohort of good friends,

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people in ministry would be good to have some support for wherever we end up in the future.

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Yeah, sure. Your first year at Moore was quite challenging because it was during COVID.

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Yes.

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You said your first semester was in person, your second semester was online. What was that like?

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And how did living in College accommodation help with that or not help?

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Yeah, yeah. Our first semester was a big change. Moving to the city,

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meeting hundreds of people across our year and then at our church as well.

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Yeah, it was a lot. And then going into lockdown in semester two, that was challenging,

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but there were some good things about it. It meant that we could get to know our community

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where we were living. It was about an hour away from where the main campus is. We live in some

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student accommodations as a few other families out there. We have a study hall out there. And

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although everything was shut down in the city, the dimensions of the study hall and the amount

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of people we had meant that we could meet in there physically at our computers with masks on and

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attend class. But then in things like discussion groups, we could actually turn around in our

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chairs and chat to each other, which was a good way to break it up and a good way to

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form the relationships we had out there and feel more established. Yeah.

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Yeah, yeah. I can imagine that would really help after just screens all the time.

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Yeah.

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Yeah. Now you're in fourth year. What are some of the big things that God has been teaching you

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since you've been at College?

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Yeah, so many. I was thinking about this and I think what brings everything together,

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is these two, they seem like opposite things. The fact that God keeps growing me and equipping me

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and I'm becoming more and more capable to do ministry and share the gospel with people. And

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that's a good thing for me to realise because I just generally have a not a great opinion of my

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abilities. To see the way God has grown me in that way has been good for my confidence, I think,

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in what he's teaching me. But at the same time, I becoming more and more aware of my finitude and

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my capacity or my limited capacity, I should say, as a human, but also just as me. And I recognise

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that the more I learn, the more there is I don't know. And it's kind of resulted in me having this

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disposition of confident humility, that I'm confident that God is going to use me the way

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He's going to use me, but I'm humble in that it's not me. It's been a helpful thing to realise,

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I think. The other thing is, He's just taught me to be diligent, I think. I was a terrible

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Uni student, a shocking procrastinator. And so leaving study to do ministry apprenticeship,

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and then the prospect of coming back to study was quite daunting for me. I thought I might slip

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back into that procrastination, but straight away realised God had really changed me through my

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apprenticeship, given me the kind of work ethic to be diligent and to put effort into what he had

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put in front of me. There are easy tasks and hard tasks at College, but he's given me a frame of

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mind less procrastinate-y.

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Yeah.

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Lovely. So as I said, you're now in fourth year and you and Ruth have two little kids,

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and next year you will leave College and go out into the world. So what's the plan? What are you

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thinking about ministry-wise post-College?

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Yeah. So I mentioned for a long time, we're very open to wherever God might put us. And so over the

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last three years at College, we've been trying to prayerfully discern where God might have us. So

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we're trying to narrow that down a little bit. And so there are a few things we've been trying to

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do. And so there are a few things we've, for various factors, have said, okay, it feels like

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God doesn't want us to go in that direction. Let's turn over this way a bit more. And so out of all

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the possibilities of ministry all over the world, we're currently thinking that God would like us to

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go into church ministry. And we're thinking regional ministry, country towns, that's where

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we're from. We feel like that's where God wants us to go back to. Yeah.

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Mm, great. It's almost like you've come, not quite full circle, but yeah, back to your roots

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in some way.

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Yes. Yeah.

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So what advice would you give to someone who's thinking about doing full-time ministry and maybe

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studying it more?

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Yeah. Keep thinking about it. Come and visit. That's what Ruth and I did. They do Open Week,

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I think a couple of years, and you can come any day of the year, really. Let them know, call them

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up, see if you can come and have a look around. And like I said, you can just do the first year,

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get a bit of a taste, dip your toe in the water, and ask the people around you as well,

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if you've got friends at College or in ministry, ask them what their thought processes were like,

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and see if it might be something God wants you to do.

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Yeah. That's really helpful. Well, Michael, thank you for joining us on the CCL podcast,

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for sharing your story and your journey towards ministry. I look forward to seeing what God has

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in store for you and your family in the coming years.

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Thanks, Karen.

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To benefit from more resources from the Centre for Christian Living, please visit

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ccl.more.edu.au where you'll find a host of resources including past podcast episodes,

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videos from our live events and articles published through the Centre. We'd love for you to subscribe

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On our website, we also have an opportunity for you to make a tax-deductible donation

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We always benefit from receiving questions and feedback from our listeners, so if you'd like to

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get in touch, you can email us at ccl.moore.edu.au. As always, I'd like to thank Moore College for

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its support of the Centre for Christian Living, and to thank my assistant, Karen Beilharz,

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for her work in editing and transcribing the episodes. The music for our podcast

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was generously provided by James West.