A chance to study theology - at last! Dave Sutherland’s story

After decades of work as a primary school teacher and then an overseas missionary, Dave Sutherland has finally found a way to study theology that works for him, through VBC. 

Dave has been a Christian from a young age, with his parents, Sunday School teachers and pastors all faithfully sharing the gospel with him. As he grew, he developed an awareness of his need for Jesus, and a deeper relationship with God. As a university student, he studied teaching, and a year after graduating ended up teaching in a little Christian school in northeast Victoria, and running the youth ministry at the church there, in the town of Yackandandah. “I moved to northeast Victoria and I never moved back,” Dave recalls. 

Dave taught and led youth ministry, and met and married the prep teacher at the Christian school. Married with two kids he then completed a Masters of Education at Morling College, with a theological basis. Through this, he once again began thinking about crosscultural mission work, something he had been drawn to since he was a teenager, when he heard a visiting missionary from the Mission Aviation Fellowship speak about flying planes for Jesus. 

“It was the first time I realised that I could go and help people in far off places who need to know Jesus, and I don’t have to be a theological genius to be able to go and do that. I can just be me, be who God has made me to be, with the intellect he has given me, and go and share the gospel.” 

His mission organisation, OMF International, required more theological study before he could go overseas. He started a graduate diploma in Divinity with Melbourne School of Theology (which was then known as Bible College of Victoria), but never completed it, as OMF later decided that the theological components of his previous Masters in Education would be enough qualification for the kind of ministry in which he would be serving.

“I never actually finished a theological degree. It’s what I have wanted to do, not to just have the theological degree, but to know I have completed it and engaged in a good amount of meaty study of God’s word with people that I can learn from,” Dave says. 

Dave and his wife, Andrea, ended up working in northern Thailand, teaching English and discipleship in a small Bible school, for eleven years. “Often, when God sends people into mission, they go in thinking they are going to go and do work for God. But really it’s also about what God is going to do in them that makes a big change. The Lord molded and changed us a lot. But we also saw the lives of young adults being changed, being transformed from being half-hearted for Jesus, to being full on for Jesus,” Dave reflects.

Dave and his family returned to Australia for the sake of their kids’ education and to care for aging parents. They returned to Yackandandah, and to their church, Baranduda Community Church, who have been faithfully praying and supporting them in the years they had been on the field and still continue to do so even today. 

Almost three years ago now,  Dave stepped into the role of state ministry leader for OMF in Victoria and Tasmania. The small team he leads both cares for missionaries OMF has sent out from Victoria and Tasmania, and journeys alongside people who are considering crosscultural ministry. “We run different events, and we represent OMF at a lot of different conferences around Melbourne,” Dave explains. Later this year, Dave will be leading a team of university students back to Northern Thailand who are looking at what it could be like for them to be using their degrees in full-time crosscultural ministry in the future. 

But in his desire to be better equipped for this role, Dave kept thinking back to his longing to engage in meaty study of the Bible. “I wanted to find a way to study that meant I could still serve and not be swamped by 5000 word essays and two hour closed book exams and the stress of all that,” Dave says. 

Vocational Bible College has been able to provide exactly what Dave needs at this stage of life. He began studying with VBC in 2025, and is doing one unit per semester. He is taking a comfortable pace to both balance his other work and family commitments, and to make sure he enjoys his study as much as possible. “I didn’t want to just tick it off a list, but I wanted to actually enjoy it and revel and marvel at who God is,” Dave explains. “If I was only working two days a week or something, I would take on more subjects at a time, but that would mean it would be over even more quickly. So I’m sort of glad I’m stringing it out for as long as I can, because I get to enjoy it for longer.” 

Despite having learnt Thai as part of his role overseas, Dave admits that Greek and Hebrew have been a challenge. “Andrew is a very patient teacher.” His stand out unit so far has been New Testament 3 - Revelation. “To see that victory is already won, and marveling at the symbolism and imagery in the book, and how it connects to the rest of Scripture was great,” Dave says. 

Dave has also loved the modes of assessment at VBC, and how the approach differs from traditional academic models of theological training. “I chose VBC because I still want to be able to be a good husband, a good father, and a good worker for the kingdom of God. If I have all this extra heavy academic load on top, I’m just going to buckle underneath it. But with VBC, it’s like taking a degree in smaller chunks that are manageable, while still being meaty and good, and enable me to engage with God’s word for the purpose of helping others do the same,” he says. 

Dave knows that in light of eternity, holding a degree from a big name university or any other academic achievements will fade. But people hearing the word of God and hearing it clearly explained is what will last on into eternity. “Investing in God’s word is always an excellent venture, because these are the eternal things that truly matter,” Dave says. 

Dave asks the VBC community to pray for him, that in everything he does, everything he says, and everything he is learning, the name of Jesus would be held up and out for all to see. He wants to keep running the race faithfully for the king, and to remember he is a sinner saved by grace.