Good afternoon School. Please be seated.

I’d like to invite Felix Paul to deliver today’s reading

Today’s reading comes from Matthew 17:14-20

Jesus Heals a Demon Possessed Boy

When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

“You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

This is the Word of the Lord

Rectors Comments:  

Thank you, Felix.

Today’s reading was all about having faith in God and yourself. Believing in yourself.

I’d like to share with you a story for nature and science that further illustrates this point.

Fleas are tiny but remarkable creatures. They can jump 18cm straight up into the air. If you were a flea, that means you’d be able to jump up to the top of the Big Ben clock tower in London - about 100m. The length of a football field.

What is even more remarkable about the flea, though, is that this quite extraordinary physical ability to jump, can be limited by one really simple intervention.

If you put fleas into a jar with a lid, they’ll try to jump their usual height, and they’ll bang their heads. They’ll keep doing this for a while. But after three days, they learn to jump just below the lid. They will learn and then believe, after just 3 days, that this is how high they can jump and won’t realise it’s only half the height they’re capable of. When you take the lid off – they will only ever jump the height of the jar - until the day they die. 

We, as humans, are just as capable of limitation. Think about the things that you don’t think you can do because somebody has told you you can’t or you’ve told yourself that. As small children, we believe we’re capable of anything. I’ve got a school exercise book from when I was about 7 years old when I wrote that I was going to be a Scientist when I grew up. I didn’t even know what one was, but it sounded cool. By the time I was 13, I’d learned to limit myself, like the flea. I let my thoughts and people around me limit my ambitions. I’d decided I could never become a Scientist – I wasn’t clever enough to go to university. I’d had the lid placed on my jar and I’d stopped jumping. In the world in which we live, there are so many influences slamming that lid down and telling us “that’s not possible” or “you can’t do that.”

As we grow up, we learn to protect ourselves from the embarrassment and pain of failure by stopping trying. We create little invisible prisons for ourselves within which we operate without even realising. So you might say “I don’t put my hands up in class because…well…that’s not something I do. I won’t sign up to learn the drums because…well…I haven’t done anything like that before. Audition for the school musical? What if I’m no good on stage. I’ve never danced or sung before. Should I go for an Excellence endorsement in NCEA 1? But what if I only get merit?

So my message to you today as you settle into Term 1 and set your goals for the year is to tell you that your jar has no lid. 

This is the attitude that got people to the moon 52 years ago. When announcing the vision to put a human being on the moon within seven years, President JF Kennedy said:

We choose to go to the moon.     We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because…that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win. 

This is called moonshot thinking, boys. So set yourselves some goals for this year and remember, your jar has no lid. Jump as high as you can.

Today, we’ll be acknowledging a number of young men who are doing just that. As they come up on stage, think about how they are not limiting their potential and think about how you are doing the same, as I know there are many of you who won’t come on stage today who are doing just that, so congratulations to you too. If you think you may be only jumping to the height of your jar, stop limiting yourself. Reset, establish some new and challenging goals and see where it takes you.

I’d now like to invite Mr Barry up to read out our Academic Award winners.

I will commence with awarding academic ties and centurion awards to the following students who were absent from assembly last week.:

Academic Ties:

Tuawhio Porima

Kees Tomlinson

Academic Centurion:

Tom van der Gulik-  ( Absent from last week)

Citations:

Level 1

Henry Meech

Hugh Kilsby

Kings Tupuola

Jonty Good

Tom Porter

Level 2

Felix Paul

Ed Train

Matawhero Wakefield-Sciascia

James Young

Oliver Lys

Academic Colours

Jack Barclay and Academic Tie

Ben Barker

Daniel Brown

Boston Christensen

Benjamin Cox

Tomas Druzianic

Thomas Goodisson

Jack Hartree

Patrick Larkin

Jared Lines

Kevin Lu

Will Meech

Thomas Murphy

George Newman and Academic Tie

Oliver Newton

Matthew Nichols and Academic Tie

Matthew Quinney

Lanson Randell

Barvick Ravla

Charles Roil

Tino Savea and Academic Tie

Ben Sloan

Ben Speers

Julian Tangney and Academic Tie

Bryn Thompson

Jasper Wallace and Academic Tie

Tim Wilson

Jack Wilton

Henry Windhager and Academic Tie

Maclan Wright

Bruno Wylie

Jason Yang and Academic Tie

Gold:

Edward Brougham and he will also be receiving his Academic Centurion in Agribusiness Level 2.

Finley Duncan

Zachary Fitzgibbon

Matthew Goodwin

Zac Maulder

NZ Scholarship Winners

Zachary Fitzgibbon - English

Tom Goodisson - Accounting

Zac Maulder - Accounting and Economics

Jack Wilton – Accounting and Economics

Finley Duncan – Accounting, Drama, Economics, English & Statistics

Thank you, Mr Barry and congratulations, boys.

Please join with me in singing the hymn How Great thou art

HYMN 

Thank you, please be seated.

We will now begin the sports report, and because our Sports prefect is one of today’s recipients, I will as Mr Howlett to begin the report.

You can find the sports report, under sports news on the College blog

Congratulation to all those boys who were recognised today.

For those of you heading to Hamilton for the St Paul’s exchange I wish you well and please remember to represent Lindisfarne well both on and off the field. Turn up organised with all your gear in the correct travelling uniform and make sure your conduct is outstanding at all times. I wish each and every one of you a wonderful weekend.

Reverend Dunnett will now close our assembly in prayer.

Article added: Friday 12 February 2021