The Cost of Following Christ
Tim Curtis: today a dad, an Anglican minister, and university chaplain; in times past, a teenager refusing to be associated with Christianity.
As we sit in the Charles Pearson Lecture Theatre at Melbourne University, Tim talks to me about his experience becoming a Christian.
He describes how at the age of fifteen, when he was at boarding school, he refused to be confirmed, unwilling to make a public statement being associated with the Christian faith.
Fast forward to his second year of university. Tim recalls shouting at God, asking him for help after getting into a sticky situation. Later, he had a “religious experience” that marked a turning point for his mental health improving.
He was twenty years old.
Twenty-five years later, he preaches from the Bible regularly and runs a Bible study for Unichurch-goers. Tim is also a strong believer that science and faith are not mutually exclusive.
“I think it is a bit of a myth that those two things cannot be reconciled.”
He tells me how as a chaplain at the University of Melbourne, he’s observed how the Christians today are very much a “thinking community.”
It is full of bright, young people who find no contradiction between Biblical faith and the scientific understanding of the world they are taught at university. They find, in Tim’s words, “that the two fit together wonderfully.”
They have learned how to listen to both the answers science gives and the wisdom of Jesus Christ.
Another thing Tim has noticed is how different communities often become Christians together en masse.
The Great Awakenings of the 18th century saw a spike of Western Americans becoming Christian. Something similar has happened in the recent decades among two main people groups: Chinese and Iranians.
Despite government efforts to prevent Christianity from spreading in China, huge numbers of Chinese people have been coming to faith.
Yusi Liu*, a Christian from Beijing, told me about Christian exchange students she’s met in Australia who say they’ve returned to China and attended Bible studies there. Tim estimates that the church has grown from nothing to nearly 100 million people in China in the past decade.
The other people group, Iranians, come to church at a cost, Tim says.
“They’re coming from a culture where, to convert from Islam to Christianity well, if they went home, they could potentially be put in prison, or worse.
Iranian asylum-seekers who come to Australia and become Christian risk their safety and the chance to see their families again.
Stories like these are not uncommon these days. As Christianity is being more exposed, more people of different tongues and nations are coming to faith.
A former architect, Tim has been the minister of the St. Jude’s Unichurch congregation since he moved to Australia in 2012.
The Unichurch congregation has been at Melbourne University since the St. Jude’s chapel was damaged in a fire three years ago.
*For privacy purposes, Yusi’s surname has been changed
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