5 minutes with Fiona ...

Tell us a little about you.

I am a Christian. I am a nerd. I am a friend. I am a teacher of Science and a lover of well written sentences. I cannot spell. I am a feminist. I am a accidental but thankful nomad. I ride a moped. His name is Douglas.

What's your favourite bible passage & why?

I love the story of Hagar in Genesis 16 & 21. I love that right at the beginning of the story of God’s people, when it looks like God has chosen a particular kind of person to be his (wealthy, a particular race, male) there is this subversion of that with the story of Hagar (slave, another race, female). I love that Hagar is the first person in the Bible to name God. I love that God cares for Hagar in very practical but also very profound ways. I love that even though Hagar gets sent back to what looks like an impossibly difficult situation, God is the one who goes with her. I love that it reminds me that God sees me in my distress, but much more that he cares about all people, particularly the vulnerable, he hears and remembers their pain.

How do you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus?

I think Jesus keeps my eyes fixed on him, alone I would be floundering. People who pray for and with me are really important. I have some friends who I have been praying with via a facebook message stream for just over two years. They are women who have laughed and cried with me (sometimes only via emoji) and they are women who constantly make me want to be more like Jesus.

I love using the wisdom of others to help me move forward. I find the prayers and readings of the Common Prayer book useful to challenge my own complacency. I find it helpful to use the liturgical seasons of the year to drive me to periods of reflection, joy, lament and praise. I love listening to sermons by wise and creative people. I find taking rest and Sabbath, although not necessarily something my heart wants to do, enormously helpful in not relying on my own strength but instead fixing my heart and eyes on Jesus.

What would you like the next generation of Christian women to know?

That you are unique for your particular place and time, you don’t have to do anything anyone else’s way. Drink deeply of the ancient wisdom and then be ridiculously creative and authentic in how you live that out in your life. Just because things have been done a certain way for a long time doesn’t mean they have to be kept being done that way. Read and watch how other people (particularly women) do it, and be inspired to do it your way.

What's one thing that you love about your local church?

I love that my church never lets me be a sometime Christian - we are always encouraging each other to love Jesus with all the hours of our days, in all the seasons of our lives and with the gifts and talents that God has given us.

What did you learn about God at a time in your life you found hard?

I am broken. He is faithful.

What are you passionate about?

I’m passionate about developing a theology of social media that reflects its goodness. Social media inherently focuses on relationality and creativity in a way that often reflects what the Bible shows us it means to be human and to be in relationship with others. I am passionate about finding ways that makes sense of that and living out humanness in the image of God via online mediums.

Also Science.

What do you enjoy doing when you rest?

coffee, good books (and bad ones and fanfiction), laughing at my puppy playing with a bucket, eating breakfast in Inner West cafes, skyping my sister, netflix, period dramas, trawling tumblr, going for a run, baking, editing film, sleeping