Teaching with Purpose

Though he’s only in his second year of part-time study at Christ College, David Janzen (DJ) can already see how he’s growing in his faithful exegesis of God’s Word as a chaplain.

DJ grew up in Sydney, but he didn’t grow up in a Christian home. It was the persistent invitations from a friend at high school that ultimately led him to Christ.

“He invited me to church for nearly two years, without hesitation or fail, even when I said, ‘No, I’m really not that interested,’” DJ shares.

When he was 14 years old, DJ eventually became so frustrated with the ongoing requests that he said he would attend the youth group one Friday night—provided his mum agreed to drive him there.

“Thank God she did, because I found the most incredible community of people, the most wonderful sense of love and compassion,” DJ explains. “I thought, ‘Why do these people care so much about me?’ And that kept me coming back. I had lots of questions. I asked those questions and I found the answers not only to be rational, but to be entirely sensible and to be actually beautiful. So six months after I first went, I gave my life to Jesus.”

It didn’t take DJ long to get involved in gospel ministry.

“I started leading kids club on Sunday mornings a year later, and that really gave me a sense and a taste for ministry and what it was like to share God’s Word with other people,” DJ shares. “And I found it to be the greatest joy that I’d ever experienced.” 

At the age of 17, DJ was influenced by a talk given to his youth group by then-Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen.

“He said, ‘Whether you’re in church ministry, parish ministry, or whether you are in the workplace as a Christian, the greatest calling that you have is to share the gospel with people.’ I really took that message to heart.”

After graduating from high school, DJ decided to pursue a degree in Secondary Education.

“I went into teaching with the mindset that this is my ministry. This is where I’m going to share the gospel of Jesus,” DJ explains.

And that’s exactly what DJ has been doing for the past 14 years. After starting out in the public system, he then moved into teaching at an Anglican school.

“For the first time, I could incorporate the gospel into what I was teaching as a science teacher, and I found that to be liberating and joyful,” DJ shares.

DJ is now in school chaplaincy, and that led him to consider theological study. It was a colleague who suggested he look into Christ College.

“I thought, ‘I owe it to my friend to talk to (Principal) Ian Smith at the very least,’” DJ laughs. “So I gave Ian a call and we had a half-hour conversation. And by the end of it, I was completely sold.”

DJ started studying a Masters of Divinity part-time at the beginning of 2023.

“My hope and my goal was to grow in my capacity to exegete God’s Word,” DJ explains. “I had always been confident to stand up and speak about the Bible, but I want to know God’s Word better in the original language and to be able to explain it in our language.”

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much it’s pushed me theologically in terms of my thinking on certain things. I suspect I wasn’t ready to be challenged, so this has been really healthy and helpful. For a lot of the questions, it took someone to actually say, ‘Have a think about this. Are you doing justice to God’s Word in the way you’ve been explaining that?’” 

DJ considers being pushed in this way to be his greatest experience of Christ College to date.

“Not to just have a simple or very superficial answer, but to consider multiple perspectives. All the lecturers, without any exception that I’ve experienced so far, are really, really good at this.”