IT IS a miracle Pastor Shayne Goldfinch is alive today.
A childhood marred by extreme domestic violence meant Shayne could easily have become another statistic, but instead he is alive to tell his tale.
“I shouldn’t be here, that’s no exaggeration,” he said. “My mum and I should be victims of domestic violence.”
Shayne has been the pastor at Collie Church of Christ for the past two years, making the move to town with wife Mel and three of their four sons.
Since arriving in town, he has immersed himself in the church and the community.
Shayne has walked a long road to get to where he is today, starting from a turbulent childhood in New Zealand.
His father was an alcoholic, involved in crime and was abusive towards Shayne and his mother.
“What I thought was a normal childhood wasn’t,” Shayne said.
“There was a lot of trauma. A lot of violence.
“He would get drunk and chase us around with loaded weapons, and he made us believe it was normal. He was a narcissist.”
By the time Shayne was five, his father’s criminal past had caught up with him and the family made the move to Australia, but the violence continued.
Shayne recalls an incident that has haunted him ever since.
“He’d been drinking, and the drinking was getting worse,” Shayne said.
“Next he grabbed a gun. My mum ran and I ran and hid in the dog’s kennel.
“He was calling my name, and he opened the flap of the kennel calling my name, but he couldn’t see me.”
When he looks back on the incident, Shayne sees it as a mini miracle from God.
Incidents such as those were common occurrences in his home, and it seemed normal for Shayne.
It wasn’t until he went to spend a week at the home of his uncle when he was 10 years old that he realised his father’s behaviour was not normal.
“I thought they were faking it until I saw that real family nucleus,” he said. “It made me angry.
“I was trying to live a normal life, and go to school, but I was coming home shaking in fear.”
Shayne said he lost his way after leaving school.
“I was on a journey,” he said.
“I thought, what’s the point of living a good life, I had seen people lying and cheating.”
He became friends with a man who was struggling to “live the right life”, and he in turn introduced Shayne to someone who “wasn’t a good guy”.
“He liked me, and we became friends,” Shayne said.
Shayne can vividly remember walking into a bar one time.
“Everyone at the bar moved out of my way, because he was friends with me,” Shayne said.
“It was a defining moment, I realised I was becoming my dad.
“I looked at many things and did a lot of research and eventually looked at Christianity.
“I felt God was saying ‘test me’. In other religions you couldn’t do that, you couldn’t question.
“I went home and sat on the couch and asked God to talk to me.”
Shayne said at that moment, thoughts of his father came to him.
“The thought came to me to forgive my dad,” Shayne said. “I called dad and told him I wanted to forgive him. We had been estranged at that point.
“I told him the scenario that came to my head of his childhood and he cried. There was no way I would know what had happened to him.”
Shayne said he started to realise that God had been there with him his whole life.
“I saw God crossing over in my life, like the dog kennel incident.”
Over the years Shayne has attempted to find a happy place with his father, and he is now at the point where his dad is more like a mate.
“It wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t become a believer,” Shayne said. “I would have been bitter like my mum.”
His tumultuous childhood is what made him who he is today.
“I wouldn’t change my past because it led me to where I am today,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be as strong as I am now.
“I can empathise with people who are going through something similar.”
Shayne would go on to find a career in sales and agri-science, but when he and Mel were attending Calvary Chapel in Perth, he felt the call to go into ministry.
“It’s hard to explain, I kept getting a thought about ‘apostle', which is someone going out and sharing the gospel,” he said.
Mel’s father was a church pastor, so Shayne already knew how tough the lifestyle was.
“When you’re the pastor, when you go astray you’re not just leading yourself down the hole, but others, it’s the double punishment,” Shayne said. “That scared me.
“Darryl (his father-in-law) said a lot of people go into pastoring because they want to be at the front, but that wasn’t what appealed to me, because I’m an introvert. I wanted to guide people.”
Shayne attended bible college while also working at Calvary as an associate pastor and in the youth ministry.
He made the move to Byford Baptist Church as an associate pastor before eventually being promoted to senior pastor.
Shayne said there can be a lot of challenges in his role. “You have two hats, you are a leader and you have to lead, but you want to get along with the people you work with,” he said.
Since arriving in Collie, he’s had a big focus on community, helping to organise carols in the park, the Australia Day breakfast and community events including visits by Dale Christian School.
“We (the church) want to be part of the community, not separate,” he said. “The gospel says there is a God who loves you and he wants us to care for others, not just ourselves.
“People need to understand that when God said to love your neighbour, it wasn’t just a nice thing he said.”