GenR8 Ministries' Staff

Peter Robinson, GenR8 CEO

Peter grew up in Newtown, owing much to family, the school Crusader group and holiday camps in coming to faith in Christ. Involved in Sydney Uni Evangelical Union he also led at SU Family Missions at Gerroa and Gunnedah and at Crusader conferences for senior school students. After Arts and a Dip.Ed he taught at Coolah Central School, then at Muirfield High before studying Divinity in the UK, spending 4 months in the Holy Land doing archaeology and teaching about the land and the Bible.

After 5 years in Melbourne he returned to NSW as rector of Mulgoa, then served 16 years at Bomaderry in the Shoalhaven, including as chairman of the local high school Scripture board, SECET, for 13 years. The work grew to 7 teachers in 4 high schools, thanks to the unity, commitment and generosity of local churches. GenR8 CEO since April, Peter loves bushwalking and photography, and plays golf badly.

Sarah Newton, Operations Manager

Sarah is taking over from Ellena in heading up the administrative side of GenR8 and is the person to contact if you have any questions or want to know anything about GenR8 Ministries. Sarah has a Bachelor of Arts in Religion, English and Performance Studies, a Diploma of Creative Arts in Christian Ministry and a Diploma of Theology from Youthworks College. After graduating from Youthworks College Sarah worked as an SRE teacher and assistant youth minister on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Since then she has been working in administration and office management in a corporate setting. Sarah is passionate about sharing the love of Jesus with young people and is excited to be part of GenR8’s vision for schools ministry. Sarah loves being outside, preferably in the ocean, playing the guitar and writing music.

Andrew Thorburn

Andrew Thorburn became a follower of Jesus Christ in year 8 through the ministry of his local church and was also challenged and nurtured through schools ministry. He has been active in youth and schools ministry both paid and unpaid. Andrew is convinced that young people are open to think about, and in many cases actively asking, the big questions of life. Youth and Schools ministry present a great opportunity to introduce young people to Jesus Christ, the source of hope and life.

Andrew’s passion and privilege is to work with any group and anyone on the frontline in youth and schools ministry to develop, support and resource effective biblical ministry. Andrew believes that it is an amazing gift to be able to serve God in ministry and see lives transformed by Christ!

Andrew is married to Cathy and addicted to chocolate, good movies, and good blues music.

Andy Stevenson

Andy Stevenson lives south of Sydney and is married to Kim who is an Occupational Therapist. They love Jesus, Youth Ministry, Sport (all sports, but especially cricket and hockey) and hanging out with friends in cafés.

Andy thinks that schools and youth ministries are vital. When he was in Year 11, he realised that he had been in a mission field of a thousand students for five years and he had one year to go and do something about it! God has put this passion on his heart since then. Andy has worked in schools and youth ministry as a youth minister for the last seven years, as well as two years volunteer teaching in schools.

Andy believes there is much work to be done to put high school SRE on the map! We have thousands of students that are keen to talk about life, relationships, religion and God and they are getting very little to no Christian contact. The more we concentrate on the overall youth ministry of our Church in the community and work on aligning the two, the greater the future Church will be. Remember around 70% of people become Christians in their teenage years. Andy knows that to be part of this is a priceless privilege.

Mark Ohlmus

Mark was a Contract Draftsman before studying at SMBC in the early 90’s. He then taught SRE full-time at Hurstville Boys and Sydney Technical High Schools. He moved to the North Coast in 1995 in order to pioneer SRE at Maclean High School. Still teaching full-time, Mark has also been seconded by NSW Scripture Union as the Far North Coast Development Officer for Secondary SRE, since 2005. In this role he establishes new SRE positions in Far North Coast High Schools and supports and resources current SRE Teachers. With now over 90% of Far North Coast high schools being served by an employed SRE Teacher, it is obvious that God continues to do great things for His glory in this region.

Mark is a keen guitarist and loves soccer (esp. Futsal) and exploits these interests through tutoring, accompanying & coaching at Maclean High School. Mark runs a ‘girl farm!’- he is married to Lynda, has three daughters under 14 and enjoys the rural ambience and produce of 8 hens.

Dave Hall

Along with local SU volunteers, Dave coordinates, develops and supports ministry up and down the NSW North Coast. He is involved in training, equipping, recruiting and motivating local SU volunteers who are on the frontline in SU programs and is also employed 2 days a week as a Chaplain in his local primary school. Dave is passionate about the opportunities that exist in NSW to share the love of Christ in our schools especially through the SRE program but also with the more recently promoted National Chaplaincy Programme. As a regional Coordinator for SU NSW and Regional Representative for GenR8 he has specific responsibility for schools ministry from Gloucester in the South to Bellingen/Dorrigo in the North.

Dave lives in the centre of the Known Universe at Eungai Creek with his amazing wife, Lisa and two wonderful kids, Tavis and Tegan and has a liking for all things techy (especially if they can be used as sermon illustrations.)

Angelo Cavaliere

Angelo Cavaliere is married to a wonderful lady Julie, and has three children Jared 16, Jordan 14, and Nathanael 12. Angelo’s passion for Scripture teaching has never wavered especially when you realize that apart from Scripture, high school students would very rarely hear about the good news of Jesus during their high schools years.

Angelo’s decision to bring the gospel to high school students has been one of great value for him, so much that he has chosen to help other high schools have a “real deal” Christian program as part of the learning experience.

The decision to be involved in a broader capacity to bring Christianity to our high school youth began in 2005 with his involvement with Scripture Union. In 2005, with great thanks to God they have seen over 20 schools in the Hunter region and many other schools statewide incorporating Scripture as part of their curriculum.

Angelo’s role entails four main areas:

• meeting principals to establish green lights for beginning SRE
• liaising with the local churches to help establish SRE Boards made up of local denominations
• working with the Boards to see Scripture grow through years 7 to 10 at the local high schools
• inform boards about the role and benefits of GenR8

Jonathan Harris

Jonathan has recently joined GenR8 in 2009, returning home to Australia from Auckland, NZ, where he was the Ministry Leader of a Church, as well as studying for his Diploma in Theology. He has travelled to many of the continent's of the world on different Church Leadership and mission journeys. However his passion is the wide brown land of Outback Australia. He was raised around the Tamworth region of North West NSW, and is very excited to have moved back there to be near family and friends. Working in partnership with Scripture Union NSW, Jonathan's main role is establishing Scripture Boards made up of local Church members in country towns, employing Scripture teachers and Chaplains in Public High Schools. He loves networking to establish relationships that build this special ministry to schools. Besides that he has begun the the Youth Summit initiative where Youth leaders, and student leaders gather together from around the North West to learn how to disciple and mentor students that are converted in local ISCF groups and from local Christian Camping events. He believes that the mission field of the school down the road, is one of the most fruitful and vital missions in the world. The country towns of the Outback have a shortage of strong Christian youth leaders and young Christian Student leaders - losing many to private schools and Universities in the cities- he believes in building a passion for Jesus in local schools and creating a desire to be on mission in the country.

Jonathan loves his wife Wendy and their three loud children: Ben, Jack and Isabella! He likes good coffee, Apple technology, multi-media, camping around a fire in the Bush, and studying the Bible with friends.

Dean McPherson, Website Administrator

Dean owes much to his loving family to account for his coming to faith. The youngest son of a Minister, Dean has moved around growing up, but is currently based in the Inner west due to study. Studying a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Sydney, Dean works one day a week for Genr8 as a general Website administrator, and is the person to contact for anything to do with the website, or it's content. Dean is passionate about Jesus Christ, and enjoys music both as a performer and appreciator.

Rebecca Chan, Accounts Manager

Becky manages Genr8's accounts and payroll services. She has a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) with Distinction from the University of New South Wales, where she met Jesus through reading the Bible with the Christian group. She spent some time on the corporate mission field at a major accounting firm before God decided to bring her to Genr8. Becky loves being part of such a strategic ministry to see God's glory shine forth in NSW schools.

Becky loves hanging with family and friends, her church family at the North Rocks at Night plant, reading, music, social sports, and eating food slowly.