This week, we had the privilege of hearing from our 2025 College Captains, Imogen and Joshua, as they shared their leadership vision for the year ahead. With clarity and enthusiasm, they reflected on a profound question posed to them during their leadership camp: Who does God say we are? Drawing from Genesis 1:26-27, they reminded us that we are made in God’s image:
"Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.”
If we are created in His likeness, then we must ask—who is this God whose image we bear? The answer lies in 1 John 4:16: "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”
God is love. And if we are made in His image, then we are Created in Love. This truth forms the foundation of our College Vision for 2025—Created in Love. As we embrace this vision, we give thanks for the ways God has worked in our College and in our lives through His unwavering and abundant love. Our prayer is that His love will not only be revealed to us but will also flow through us in the way we love and serve others. May we glorify Him in all that we do, remembering that we were created as we were meant to live—Created in Love.
Vision Speech
"Good afternoon, staff and students. As your college captains, we have the privilege of sharing our vision for 2025 on behalf of our leadership team and the Year 12 cohort. Before we reveal our theme for this year, I want to briefly outline to you what a vision is. A dictionary definition tells us a vision is what we hope to achieve. In the context of our College vision, we need to consider two things; what we hope to achieve and, more importantly, what does Christ hope to achieve in us. While this question may seem huge and even impossible to answer - what does God hope to achieve in us? We’ve found that the answer, at its core, is quite simple.
The question we need to ask ourselves is, who does God say we are? Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.” If we are made in His likeness, then who is He? Who is the God that we are made in the image of? Well, during our leadership camp we were tasked with describing God – a pretty difficult task, I know. But what we came up with, while not perfectly encapsulating God in a single word, described His constant, unchanging, and overflowing nature.
The verse we have based our vision on this year is 1 John 4:16, which says, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them”. I want to highlight the word lives. Different translations use many different words like ‘being in Christ’ or ‘abiding in Christ’, but what I love about this translation is the word ‘living’ - the idea that being loved by God or loving other people doesn’t just occur as a decision in a moment of selflessness or on a day when you’re feeling happy or wanting to be kind. Today, this verse suggests to us that living in love rather alludes to a constant, unchanging, overflowing heart posture towards God and towards others, which you may notice is a very similar description we used in describing who God is – constant, unchanging and overflowing with love.
With this in mind, I’d like to link back to our verse from before, Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.’ We’ve just discussed who this God is that we are made in the image of – that is, a God of Love – so if we are created in His image, then we are Created in Love. Students, this brings us to our College Vision for 2025 – Created in Love.
I am constantly reminded by Mr Smith of the core instruction God left for us as his disciples – love God and love others. What greater vision could there be for our school than the one God has already laid out for us! This is the ultimate vision God has for us, not only as Northsiders but as Christians. This vision is a life-long transformation, which we encourage you to lean into this year as we explore our theme, ‘Created in Love’.
I’m sure one of the questions you have right now is what does this actually look like? The Old Testament tells us of the perfect and holy law that we as humans cannot fully satisfy in our relationship with God. But in the New Testament, not only are we told how to live and to love others, but God provided a living example of His love in Jesus Christ. If you’re sitting here today thinking practically, how would I actually show love to other people more than I am - the answer is to look to Christ. He sets the ultimate example of love for us as Christians.
In the same way, God embodies love in His relationship with us, we are to embody that same love in our relationships with each other. That’s the very core of our vision. There’s a quote that captures this concept beautifully – “As loved people, go and love people towards becoming the kind of people who go and love people.” I encourage you to intentionally seek out opportunities in our school community to love others. Encourage one another, reach the unreached**, support those who feel unsupported, and take an interest in your relationships. If everyone love,s then everyone is loved.
As we present this vision for our College to you, we thank God for the ways in which He has worked in our college and in our lives, in His constant, unchanging, and overflowing love for us. Our prayer for us as a College is that He will continue to work and to not only reveal His love to us but to work through us in the love we show to other people so that we may glorify Him in everything we do. Northside, we were created as we were made to live - ‘Created in love.’
God Bless you all."