No retirement from Jesus - Roger Day’s story

Roger Day still works in the business his dad started way back in 1974. He was sixteen years old when he joined the business. Originally a print shop, it has now morphed into ‘Ridgee Digital,’ which along with traditional printing like offset and screen printing, now includes signage, website design and hosting as well as laser printing. Roger is still involved in the day to day running of the business, despite being eligible for retirement. 

But Roger has no intention of stopping work, either in the shop, or in his busy role at church. In fact, he has just taken on a new role as well: as student, through Vocational Bible College (VBC). 

Roger first became a Christian around eighteen years of age. His time working near a local Christian bookshop led to him giving his life to the Lord at a rally in the centre of town. He now attends Seed Community Church in New South Wales, which is just across the Murray River and state line from where he lives and works in Swan Hill, Victoria. 

In his church ministry role, Roger wears many different hats. “I’m the treasurer, I’m the secretary, I’m an elder. I’ll be preaching this weekend, but I don’t preach all the time,” Roger explains. With no paid ministry staff at his church, Roger has taken on some aspects of keeping the community going. The small congregation started 13 years ago as a church plant, and while they are small, Roger has remained consistently involved across that time. 

Roger heard about VBC through a FIEC (Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches) conference in Stanwell Tops last year. Principal Andrew Beddoe got up to talk about what VBC was doing. In prayer groups at the conference, Roger had just been asking his prayer group to pray for him to be better equipped for ministry in his church, so when Andrew started talking, he sat up and listened. 

“I didn’t know what to expect to be honest, but when Andrew talked about it he said it was for people who don’t want to write a 5000 word essay, and I thought, that’s me. My wife Helen and I realised, hey maybe God’s saying something here,” Roger says. 

Roger had known Bruce and Robyn Bennett for years, and spoke with Robyn towards the end of the conference where she indicated that she thought about doing VBC too. At the conclusion of the conference and after chatting with Bruce Bennett, he realised Bruce also had a strong VBC involvement.

Starting study was something Roger found a bit daunting. “I started work when I was 16 years old. I was a high school dropout who didn’t make it past year 10.” 

Roger started off doing five courses - Ministry and Life, Christian Ethics, Old Testament 2, Preaching and Reformation Church History. This workload was too hard to balance with other commitments, so he went down to three subjects for now, but will pick the other two subjects up again next year. This understanding and flexibility has been one of the things about VBC that has allowed Roger to study. 

Another part of what Roger values about VBC is how practical the program is, and how integrated what he is learning is with his ongoing ministry role. In his preaching class, Roger feels he has learnt to structure a message better and make it much more coherent. 

For his first “official” VBC sermon, Roger preached on Jeremiah, especially from chapters 41, 42 and 43. It’s a big chunk of scripture, but narratively important. Roger has been working on this sermon in his preaching class, and was able to do a practice run in a recent class.

The Ministry and Life class has also been particularly useful for Roger. “I have a tendency to put my hand up for too many things sometimes,” Roger admitted. “So it’s teaching me how to balance things and how to organise life a little better. You can’t organise everything, but you can make sure you are making time for your family.” 

For others who may feel it is too late to try some new study, Roger encourages them to give it a try. “You never stop learning really. And if you’re looking at retiring from work, well, I’d suggest that a Christian can’t ever really retire from ministry!”

As Roger continues his studies, he asks for prayer that his mind would stay sharp, to learn the things he needs to learn, and that he would be able to honour God through all the work and study he does.