A Return to Faith
After growing up in a Christian family, Darcy stopped seeing the need for church as a teenager. Church was replaced by sport and adventures.
“I’d been told that Jesus loved me and that he died for me, but I didn’t really ever grasp the ramifications of that.”
Darcy’s pursuit of adrenaline and thrills nearly cost him his life. A rock jump gone wrong became a near death experience, leaving him crying out to a God he had run away from. It was a wake up call.
“I started to have this sense that I was only here because God had me here, but I just didn’t know what I was here for.”
It took a while before Darcy returned to church through some old friends at school.
“The way they lived really stood out to me. Here I am trying to figure out what I’m here for, and these guys had a deep sense of purpose. They were passionate about the gospel, and they were relentless at inviting me to church.”
The Bible and the gospel spoke clearly to him.
“I thought I had Christianity all figured out. When I opened the Bible and read it my first reaction was: “I’ve totally missed the point. This is so different to what I thought it was.””
“The gospel was preached to me in a way that was so real, and it really gave me a choice. I felt that pull of, if I do this, it’s an all-in thing, there’s no going back. I was worried that I might miss out on all life had to offer. I came to realise that this was what I was searching for was there all along. Jesus says in John 10:10: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Nursing and Church Planting
Darcy met his wife Bella at church and started a career in nursing.
“Being in the workforce taught me how to love people. Seeing people at their lowest and being able to care for them in those moments, that was key in teaching me and growing a heart for it.”
Around the same time, God was growing his heart for mission. A trip to outback Australia, visiting missionaries in remote communities, left him with a question he couldn’t shake.
“I was really blown away by some of the missionaries up there and what they were willing to give up to see the gospel go out. I didn’t come away thinking I want to do cross-cultural ministry. I came away thinking, what can I do to be part of this?”
When his church announced a church plant in Coff’s Harbour, Darcy and Bella joined the planting team.
“It was one of those moments of realising, we don’t have any commitments, we don’t own a house, we don’t have kids. If we’re going to go, now’s the time.”
An Unexpected Apprenticeship
After a year of nursing, Darcy’s pastor Tim asked him to join the church staff team and do MTS.
“I really loved doing ministry and wanted to do more. I still didn’t see myself as a ministry person, but I reluctantly said yes, thinking, two years, what can I lose by giving this a crack?”
“It was such a privilege. God started tearing down some of those perceptions of myself and some of the things holding me back, and I became more open to ministry as a long-term thing.”
“Bible college wasn’t on the radar. I was in Coffs Harbour, and the idea of going felt crazy given what it would take to leave. But I started feeling the pull of, if this is what I’m going to do for the next 40 or 50 years, I need to get trained, I need to be equipped. So I started doing one subject online at SMBC while working, just chipping away.”
“I loved that part of my week. It was a highlight where I could just switch off and hook into class, and I found it so fuelling.”
Darcy resisted full-time study. Leaving the church plant felt like a real cost. But older Christians kept saying: if you’re going down this path, you’ve got to consider stepping out and getting trained.
What finally moved him was a podcast about a pastor who had stepped away from a ministry partly because he had resisted formal training and wisdom from elders.
“Someone commented, who is he to ignore the way saints have been doing this for hundreds of years before him? That made me think, who am I to think I could handle God’s word without surrounding myself with the history and the people who’ve gone before? That was a really big, humbling moment of going, yeah, I think I need to go.”
“I definitely felt the cost of it. It was a really hard decision that I just didn’t want to make for a long time. But something that really helped was a lot of older people from church said, “oh, we’re so happy you’re doing this. Your time at college will be a drop in the bucket, it’ll be over before you know it.”
Life on Campus at SMBC
Darcy’s online study at SMBC gave him a taste and head start for Bible college. He had expected prerecorded lectures and a lonely grind through content. What he found was genuine interaction and faculty who clearly loved what they were teaching.
“I was blown away by the level of interaction and the character of the faculty here. They would teach a lecture and then with twenty minutes to go, they’d step away from their notes and start going for it, as if they had a sermon prepped.”
“It was just so clear that the lecturers loved the gospel and were passionate about seeing people captured in love for Jesus. If I’m going to be surrounded and influenced by anyone, these are the types of people I want to be around.”
“It was just so clear that the lecturers loved the gospel and were passionate about seeing people captured in love for Jesus. If I’m going to be surrounded and influenced by anyone, these are the types of people I want to be around.”
Darcy and Bella chose SMBC because it was an opportunity for the whole family live in community on-campus. They wanted to be on the same journey together, building a spiritual foundation for their marriage and ministry.
“I didn’t want this to be something where I’m off from 9 to 5 and she’s out on her own not getting the same community and investment. I wanted to bring Bella along with me in all of this.”
“It’s been really good. I live less than 100 metres from campus. I can see my boys at morning tea, and they’re very much a part of this community just as I am.”
“I remember when we got here feeling nervous about what it might look like with young kids and how we’d fit into community. One of the first lunches, our kids were having a tantrum in the middle of the courtyard and we’re just thinking, oh man, this is so embarrassing, how do we handle this? And Derek, the principal, just sits down next to us and goes, “yeah, sometimes I feel like doing that too.” I thought, oh yeah, this is such a kind, compassionate community that’s just so willing to take on family and all that means. It’s really unique and special for a prestigious academic institution. You don’t really get the two.”
God at Work Through Bible College
The years at SMBC have been stretching in ways Darcy didn’t anticipate.
“Something that one of our lecturers, Jasmine, said early on when I got here was that there’s the academic curriculum you’ll do here, but there’s also God’s curriculum. That distinction was really helpful in thinking that God has stuff for me here that I need to grow in and see.”
Stepping away from the Coffs Harbour plant was also harder emotionally than he expected, partly because he had convinced himself the ministry needed him. Six months later, he was chatting with friends back at church, and everything was going well, if not better.
“It exposed some of that ministry pride in me that needed to be exposed.”
The classroom has been humbling too.
“Doing Christian history, I realised my understanding of Christian history was basically what we see in Acts and the epistles, the Reformation, and then today. There were so many big events that I was so naive of. It was really humbling to see the breadth and the weight of it.”
“And then coming and being around folks who have been on mission all across the globe and done ministry in all different contexts. Sharing the classroom with people who are passionate about going to crazy places – it helps me see the big picture of what God has been doing and what he is doing.”
Asking the Right Questions
For anyone wondering whether formal training is really necessary, Darcy has a reframe that has shaped how he now thinks about every decision.
“I’ve come to understand that asking ‘God, what do you want me to do?’ isn’t actually the right question. The question to ask is: what is God doing, and how can I get on board with what he’s doing?”
“I’ve come to understand that asking ‘God, what do you want me to do?’ isn’t actually the right question. The question to ask is: what is God doing, and how can I get on board with what he’s doing?”
“When I ask that question, whatever I can do to position myself more and more to see the good news of Jesus go out, that’s worth doing.”
“For some people asking that question, the answer might be coming to Bible college. It might not be. But if God is about seeing the lost get saved and edifying his people, then it’s worth us doing everything we can to get on board with that.”
For Darcy, that question led to nursing, then to a church plant, then to MTS, and then to Bible college. It wasn’t a clear path from the beginning, but a journey of seeking to position himself best to joining God at work in the world, and listening to the people around him.