What is your purpose?

That question is one that sits at the heart of our human existence. It is a question that can consume a lifetime, with many people that really struggle to answer it.

At the heart of the question is really what it means to be human: why am I here and for what purpose do I exist? No wonder it can often feel overwhelming.

In contemporary western society, we are also often left to wrestle with this question in isolation. The world around us often screams with obnoxious forces at what we should be looking for: fame, wealth, comfort, success, to name but a few. The loudest voices proclaim that we are individuals and the ‘highest authority’ in our own lives, so we ultimately need to be able to find our purpose on our own. However, as Curt Thompson suggests in his book Anatomy of the Soul, as individuals we are often not particularly good at knowing ourselves. We can often be a poor judge of who we are, what we are good at and by extension we are not that great as individuals at working out what our purpose should be.

Curt Thompson affirms that we learn to know ourselves and our purpose best through being known by others and participating in community. This reality provides a wonderful opportunity for a place like Green Point Christian College.

Here at Green Point, we deeply believe that we are have all been created by God, in His image. It is God that gives us our purpose. He shared it with us in the opening chapters of the Bible. It was to be in relationship with God, to be fruitful, to increase and to steward and care for the earth. Unfortunately, we humans quickly rejected God and tried to take our own path, to find our own purpose. As we read in the Bible and experience in our own lives, this has not gone well. However, God persisted with us and sent Jesus to redeem and restore all things back to Himself. To help bring everything back in line with the original purpose.

Our College purpose aligns with this idea, ‘to equip students for a life of redemptive action through a holistic education grounded in a Biblical perspective.’

Here at Green Point Christian College, we want to help our students to find their purpose within our Creators purpose for us. We want them the be equipped for life and all that means for us in the 21^st Century. We want them to be literate, numerate and digitally literate. We want them to be able to learn to locate themselves geographically, historically, linguistically, artistically, culturally across the depth and breadth of their lifelong learning journey. We want them to have deep understanding of the skills and concepts they learn, so they can cultivate both knowledge and wisdom. We cultivate all these things so that they might be able to lead lives of redemptive action. Redemption is about taking what is broken, hurting or out of place and taking steps to make it right. We seek to support our students to be healers, creators, improvers and restorers in our community and in the world.

Living a life of redemptive action requires real levels of understanding, knowledge, and most of all wisdom. It is a worthy purpose and one that I commend not just to our students but to all of us as a community. Finding and fulfilling our purpose is strengthened by being together.

If you missed my welcome video in our socials this past week, please visit our website at: Principal's Welcome video.