Scruffy Chaplain was created by Damien Whitington. Damien, or Damo as he prefers to be called, is one of the chaplains at Barker College, a private co-educational school on Sydney’s north shore in New South Wales, Australia.
His role sees him regularly preach, teach, coach sport and minister to teenagers, staff and parents. Damo is an itinerant speaker in his spare time, speaking at schools, youth conferences (including Katoomba Youth Convention), men’s conferences, and churches. Previous to this, Damo spent three years completing a Master of Divinity at Sydney Missionary and Bible College and six years as a secondary school teacher at Northern Beaches Christian School. He also studied Sports Science, Mathematics and History at Sydney University for four years.
Damo is a member of Narrabeen Baptist Church and has served in various leadership and speaking roles over the past 16 years.
Damo grew up in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. His house was situated between wealthy housing backing onto golf courses and housing commission situated across the road from Long Bay gaol. From an early age, it was normal for Damo to interact with people from all walks of life and he enjoyed it.
Damo did not grow up in a family that went to church, but his experience of the churches he went to made him feel as if God was distant and very formal. When one of his mates invited him to a Friday night youth group at the local church, he discovered the gospel for the first time. It took many years for it to sink in, but he appreciated that God was in fact very personal and not as distant as he first thought. His journey with Jesus began after his schoolies trip as an 18-year-old and was helped by two huge factors.
The first was the influence of Christian people who were slightly older than him. They took an interest in him by loving him, mentoring him and being patient with him. But the second was Damo’s desire to make sense of life by asking hard questions of all faiths and worldviews. He found that as he pressed hard, the Bible had some excellent answers for the hard questions he had. Whilst it was at times counter-cultural and counter-intuitive, the Bible made the most sense of life’s complexities the deeper he delved. It also appeared to be the most historically reliable. Being a Christian means Damo enjoys a relationship with God as well as living a wise and full life.
Since then, Damo has a great passion for showing others that it is good to ask hard questions and not be satisfied with pad answers. He loves entertaining and listening to opposite viewpoints to his own as we are all in danger of being narrow-minded, regardless of our worldview. Damo enjoys helping others from all walks of life discover that the truths of the Bible are deep, satisfying and sensible. It is also his hope that people engage with Bible stories the way they were first received – orally. Stories are powerful as they present a concrete truth that is easy to remember whilst hiding a profound abstract truth underneath. These stories are not children’s stories, as is made obvious through the explanation of the story videos.
Scruffy Chaplain 