It is sometimes said of a person, “They’ll need three people to replace him”.
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When Rev David Hassan leaves Tamworth Presbyterian Community Church at the end of the year, someone will be looking for a new pastor, a new army chaplain and a new ambulance chaplain.
For 16 months, David has been part-time chaplain to the 12/16 Hunter River Lancers. He has now been invited to take up a post as full-time chaplain to a unit based in southern Queensland.
He will be responsible for the pastoral care and moral development of 400 men and women in his unit. He will go wherever his unit goes.
It is no small thing to be an army chaplain. How do you teach family men and women how to deal with issues of killing and dying?
“Emergency services are very special people,” he says. “When everyone is running away from danger, you are running into it. It’s not just physical injury. There is moral injury as well.”
Tamworth Community Presbyterian Church was formed 26 years ago when it was recognised that there was room in Tamworth for another Presbyterian church. It is a small church with a big emphasis on families.
They run a Boys Brigade, Girls Brigade, a prison ministry and a Chinese ministry.
TCPC has always been a strong supporter of the wider, inter-church ministries of Tamworth.
Visitors to a Sunday service at South Tamworth Public School at 10am will find a friendly, informal time of worship and teaching with a Sunday School running concurrently.
While David grew up in a Christian home, he hastens to add that didn’t make him a Christian.
“But when I saw real, costly forgiveness being acted out in the church, it made me want to be a part of it, and, in turn, to share it with others,” he said.
“When Christians act like Jesus, we see His love coming to the fore and it’s compelling. It compelled me.”