About

If you're in a hurry: I'm a follower of Jesus who writes about theology, faith, and Christian formation. I'm married to Jane — 26 years and counting — and we have two daughters, Honour (20) and Alexis (15), who are braver and more loving than I deserve. I currently work in operations at Youth Ministry Futures — a mission agency working to build a better future for youth ministry across Australia by investing in long-term, full-time, well-formed youth ministers.

But if you've got a few minutes, the longer version is more honest.

I wasn't supposed to be here.

Not in a dramatic way. Well — actually, yes, in a dramatic way.

In 1995 I was homeless, using drugs and alcohol most days, estranged from my family after a lifetime of abuse, and had attempted suicide twice in the previous twelve months. I wasn't searching for God. I didn't believe in one. I figured everything was random chance — a big bang, then noise.

Then one afternoon, kicking a soccer ball on the front lawn of a housing commission house, I looked up at a tree. Sunlight caught the leaves just so. And a thought broke in that had never been there before: There must be a God.

I didn't manufacture that thought. It arrived. And with it came the strange conviction that this God was good, and worth finding.

A few days later I was on my way to score when I walked past a church. I still don't really know why I went in.

What happened next was disorienting. The preacher stood up and began to describe my life — the pain, the trouble, the hopelessness — with a precision that made no sense to me. Bear in mind: I was experiencing a lot of drug-induced paranoia. My mind went immediately to the only explanation that seemed to fit. The church had organised a surveillance operation. They'd followed me around, collected intelligence, and handed it to the pastor, who was now reading it back to me from the pulpit.

I was, in other words, absolutely certain I'd been set up.

What he was actually preaching — I came to understand later — was simply the story of every person living outside of Christ. He wasn't describing my life. He was describing the life. The one we all live when we're chasing the wrong things. He just happened to be describing it with enough accuracy that a paranoid, homeless, drug-addicted young man in the third row felt personally surveilled.

He knew what I hadn't yet put into words: I was chasing death.

When he invited people forward for prayer, I went. I don't remember what he prayed. I remember what he did next: he gave me a Bible. I took it back to where I was staying, opened it, and couldn't stop reading.

What I found in those pages changed everything. Not gradually. Suddenly. Within months I was at Teen Challenge in Kyabram — a residential rehabilitation centre. I stayed for three years. Somewhere along the way, rehab became study: Youth Work and Biblical Counselling. Jane was there for the same course. We emerged very different people from who we'd arrived as. I also left with a wife. The rest, as they say, is history — though "history" doesn't quite capture what it feels like to watch your own life get rebuilt from the ground up.

The road since then hasn't been smooth.

Years later, I spent five years studying theology at Ridley Melbourne, working toward ordination in the Anglican Diocese. My focus was Old Testament and Hebrew, and church history — particularly Thomas Cranmer and Jonathan Edwards. I gave everything to it — interviews, meetings with bishops, spiritual directors, psychological assessments, the lot. I was accepted as a candidate and was an ordinand awaiting priesting.

Then I was rejected. No explanation. Just: not suitable for ordination.

What followed was three years of depression. Real, clinical, grinding depression. I remember the morning I told Jane I couldn't do life anymore — she was trying to hand me our three-month-old daughter Alexis before heading to work, and I turned away. I couldn't explain it to her. I could barely explain it to myself.

Depression is a cruel master. It doesn't respond to logic or willpower. It just presses.

Getting out wasn't one thing. It was an accumulation — a good doctor who didn't judge me, medication, a church that kept the gospel on repeat without demanding I perform, new friends I hadn't been looking for, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, of all things. Something about desperately trying to keep your limbs attached while someone attempts to choke you has a clarifying effect on depressive rumination. It got me out of my head and back into my body. I'm still grateful for every endorphin.

I'm still a little bit like Eeyore. But I have a lot of Winnie the Poohs in my life. And I'm still standing.

What I actually do

I write. Mostly about theology, Scripture, and what it looks like to follow Jesus in the ordinary mess of life. I try to write the way I'd want someone to write for me — honestly, without pretending hard things are easy, and without making faith sound like a system you master rather than a person you trust.

I currently work in operations at Youth Ministry Futures — a mission agency working to build a better future for youth ministry across Australia by investing in long-term, full-time, well-formed youth ministers. It's the kind of work that draws on everything: the years of study, the hard seasons, the things I've learnt from people who were kind enough to teach me.

Most of my career has been as a generalist — web developer, graphic designer, communications, strategy, service design, sales and marketing. Diverse skills for a divergent mind. I ran my own practice at bjh.dev for a number of years, working with leaders and organisations I found genuinely interesting.

I'm also deeply interested in the intersection of faith and doubt, spiritual formation, and what it means to read Scripture carefully without flattening it.

A few other things worth knowing

I probably sit somewhere on the autism spectrum — undiagnosed, but the clues are hard to miss. I walk with an unusual gait. I go deep on niche topics with an enthusiasm that surprises people who don't know me well. I find casual social situations genuinely awkward — the small talk, the standing around, the not-quite-knowing-what-to-do-with-your-hands.

And yet I find people endlessly fascinating.

Tolkien wrote that you can learn everything about a hobbit in a single afternoon — and yet, after a lifetime, they can still surprise you. That's more or less how I feel about every person I've ever spent real time with. People are walking mysteries. Getting to know them properly is one of the best things a life can be spent doing.

So if I seem a little awkward at the party, please don't take it personally. I'm probably already very interested in you.

On Jane

I proposed after two weeks. We married six months later. I was 22; she was 20. People had good reason to be sceptical.

Twenty-six years on, I can tell you with complete confidence: they didn't know what we knew.

Jane is Dr. Jane Hickey — academic, disability advocate, and Associate Director of Inclusion and Diverse Learning at Saints Knowledge Institute. Her PhD explored the experiences of university students with hidden disability. She has given a TEDx talk. She publishes. She teaches. She is, by any measure, formidable.

She is also the kind of person who does all of this without ever telling you how hard it was or asking for credit.

She supported our family through years of my study, raised two daughters with extraordinary care, and built a genuinely significant career in the margins of everything else. I am not an easy person to be married to. She has loved me anyway, through every version of me. That is not a small thing.

What this site is for

Primarily, it's a place to think out loud — about Scripture, theology, faith, and the strange business of being human before God.

I write for people who take faith seriously but aren't interested in easy answers. People who've had the rug pulled out and are still trying to work out what they believe. People who want to read carefully and think clearly.

If that's you, you're welcome here.