/karen/

An interview with Moore

Tuesday, 07 September, 2004

Despite the car being out of commision and us leaving a little later than planned, we still got to Moore College twenty minutes early. When walking from where we had parked up to the college, we ran into the guy who is in charge of all the ordination candidates in the Sydney diocese (Mark Charleston). He's very friendly—he works with my mother-in-law at the cathedral and, during the time when Ben was thinking through ordination, Ben and Pete went up to see him together (“I'll sell my soul if you sell yours!”). He walked with us onto campus and to the right place so we didn't even have to pull out the map.

The first person I spied there was Loren from QUT who had flown in just that morning and was flying out that afternoon. It was great to catch up with her. She said that they had just completed Week 7 and that all the staff team were feeling low and exhausted. (Good to hear we're not the only ones!) Others eventually filed in—interviewers and interviewees—and then Michael Hill started off the proceedings by first informing us that John Woodhouse (the principal) was on holidays, opening in the prayer and then opening the Bible with us to Ephesians. I thought that was very cool that he did that—I suppose it's to be expected since it's Moore College. I just felt very ... comfortable. Not that I was nervous to begin with (Ben was more nervous than I was about the whole thing). It was just a reminder that we were there among God's people, and even though it was for this interview thing which is supposed to be scary, I felt comforted.

There were four committees comprised of two people each. Two took one lot of people and two took the other lot of people. We only had two half hour interviews instead of three twenty-minute interviews which I thought was very sensible, though it would have been nice to have spent more time mingling with the other candidates (among whom were Ben's old Physics teacher and some MTS-ers from Campus Bible Study who started MTS the year we started in Wollongong but who were once students that we used to see around the traps).

Our first interview was with Barry Newman and Peter Tasker (Bishop of the Georges River Region and a lovely man who told me to say hi to Amanda. I've yet to meet an unpleasant bishop!) Barry greeted us by saying, “You two look much better than your photos!” They started off the interview by praying (which I again really appreciated) and they also finished the interview with prayer. It seemed like they were quite happy to go on chatting and chatting were it not for the time constraints. I really enjoyed chatting to them. Ben I think was too nervous to really enjoy it. They asked us the following questions:

(NB: Not everyone gets asked these sorts of questions but I hope they give you some idea of what they do ask. I didn't write down the questions word-for-word either—I just wrote down keywords—so I'm sure I've gotten some of this wrong.)

• Why did you put down Wuthering Heights on your list of books that have most influence your Christian understanding? (to me)
• What was it about Guidance and the Voice of God that you found helpful? (to Ben)
• (then we had a good chat about guidance generally)
• In what areas do you think you've matured in doing MTS? (to Ben)
• How do you both meet? (to both of us)
• How has marriage changed you? (to both of us)
• Given your past academic record, how would you cope if you came to Moore and started getting Passes or Pass Concededs for your work? (Not that you are going to—it's just a hypothetical.) (to me)
• What were you hoping to do after college?
• (We talked about ministry generally at this point—specifically writing ministry which they both said there wasn't a lot of options for.)
• Have you considered the possibility that you might be wanting to come to college to escape the depression? (to Ben)
• One of your referees has said that some people find you “eccentric”. Do you know why s/he would have said that? (to Ben. We ended up discussing Ben's yellow bucket and Peter's yellow trailer.)

We headed back downstairs for another little while to drink juice and hang out with the other interview candidates. We met a guy named Andrew who comes from Parramatta and has recently been to South America. He got into a big conversation with Mark Charleston about ordination. I also took the opportunity to go powder my nose and I swear it's the first time I've been in an educational institution since primary school where there wasn't graffiti on the toilet doors.

The second interview was with Lesley Ramsay and Michael Hill. This interview was a bit scarier—partly because of Michael's manner and partly because of the questions. They asked us:

• Explain to me the doctrine of election. Would you teach it to your parish? What is its importance? (to Ben. Michael also asked Ben, “Do you know who the elect are?” Ben said, “No. Do you?”)
• What is the relationship between God and your marriage? (to me)
• What do you think are the qualities of a good leader? (to Ben. He was disappointed that they didn't ask “What kind of leader are you?” like they did to Pete because he had been looking forward to saying, “A purple one.”)
• Why do you think leaders are referred to as “shepherds” in the Bible? (to both of us and I must say all I could think of was Adrian Plass)
• When Jesus ascended into heaven following his resurrection, was he a man? (to Ben)
• Why is it important that he is still a man now? (to me)
• What sort of things have you been able to do with your writing? (to both of us but I answered it)
• What sort of ministry do you want to go into post-college? (to Ben)
• (Again we had another short discussion about ministry options with both of them saying that there wasn't much in writing available and suggesting, like so many people before them, that Ben should talk to Tony Payne about it.)
• What boundaries do you set for yourselves in writing? (to both of us but I answered it)
• When preparing for preaching, how much of your time is spent on content and how much time is spent on packaging? (to Ben)
• (Then Michael asked us if we had any questions and we said we didn't so then he asked us:)
• Define “authority”.

Lesley closed in prayer. I thought of a question as we were leaving (about FEE-HELP) which Michael answered. Then Lesley said to me as we were leaving that I should check with Centrelink whether or not I could get Austudy because I have a double degree (bother!) so I will have to investigate that. The whole thing was over by about 11 am and we headed back downstairs and they told us we could go. (For some reason, other people were staying on but I'm not sure why.) Then Ben remembered that he had to give them a cheque for John Woodhouse's preaching at MYC and he groaned because he was hoping to use it to “sweeten the deal” (you do realise he was joking, yes?) So we headed back and ran into the registrar who took responsibility for the cheque and promised to send a receipt.

We find out on the 24th of this month whether we've been accepted.

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