Where Are They Now?
Nathan Lee
Where Are They Now? Nathan Lee
When Nathan was 21 and a new Christian, he became involved in the youth ministry at his church. Now, he is the assistant chaplain at Trinity Grammar School, a boy’s school in Sydney’s inner west. In his spare time, he still loves skating!
For Nathan, being a chaplain means wearing many different hats, “For me, an average day includes a mixture of teaching English and Christian Studies classes, speaking in Chapel, leading prayers in assembly, running a lunchtime Bible Study group, coaching basketball, and attending to the administrative tasks needed for all those things to happen.”
But Nathan feels that this diversity opens up opportunities, “I get to love the students and the staff at school, and share Jesus with them.” He still finds it amazing that he gets to speak to 1,000 people every week through the chapel services, “it’s frontline evangelism.”
The Biblical foundation that Nathan built as a student at Youthworks College was fundamental to his role as a chaplain. He would encourage others to do theological study. He believes that, “for maximum employability, it’d help to have both a theological qualification and an educational one.”
Nathan believes that Youthworks College gave him a, “Framework for teaching the Bible and a foundation for ministry”, that was right for him at the time. While he played ping pong and escaped with his friends to eat KFC, he appreciated the, “Nice link of theory and practise” at college.
After college Nathan accepted a position in the university ministry at UTS but had second thoughts. He decided he needed some time out of ministry. He thought that he, “Just needed to work in a regular job before doing something as emotionally taxing as ministry”. He wanted to get his marriage off to a good start. He thought having a regular job would, “Take off a bit of pressure.” Then a year later, he got back into youth ministry at St Thomas’ North Sydney.
When Nathan left this position he wondered, “What can I do next?”. He decided he wanted to teach and did a Diploma of Education. Nathan then ended up teaching English and Visual Studies at Richard Johnson Anglican school.
Because Nathan had worked as a youth minister in the past, many opportunities opened up to him at the school. He thought, “I can give a talk at Chapel. I can help run the lunchtime group, and I was already teaching Biblical Studies and I got more and more involved in that.” This made him consider becoming a chaplain at a school, especially because the new headmaster at Trinity had been a chaplain and would understand the role. Nathan thought, “This merges my role as youth minister and as a teacher, this could be really good.”
Nathan has now been the assistant chaplain at Trinity for 5½ years and still loves it. He is married to Kat and has three children; Felicity: eight, Hugo: six, and Susana: three.
Prayer Points
Nathan would love to grow in wisdom in knowing what can be said and done in a Christian school in a secular culture. Sometimes he finds himself walking a fine line.
The chaplain at Trinity has left after 26 years in the role, please pray that he school would find the right person.
Prayer for Nathan as he prepares his talks for the KYCK conference this year.