Meet the Officer – Captain Natalie Frame
1. What is your current appointment, and what do you find most satisfying about it?
Along with my husband Scott, I am currently the Corps Officer of the Bayside Corps, which is on the beautiful Redlands coast furthest east of Brisbane. We think it’s the best appointment in the country!
One of the satisfying aspects of the role, which has resulted from a uniquely long appointment of 13 years at Bayside Corps, is the depth of relationship and mission partnership that we get to enjoy with many community partners in our city, including other Salvation Army expressions, other local church congregations and leaders, Indigenous elders and leaders, other care agencies, schools and chaplains. This reality sees us being able to provide holistic care to so many in our community, encompassing the material, emotional, financial, social/relational, and spiritual aspects of care to individuals and families.
We are finding that the temperature is hot, and the level of trust is maturing across our city for churches and organisations to partner well and be revealers of hope in our community in unity, and this excites us greatly.
2. Away from the appointment – if that’s possible! – what do you do to relax or unwind?
I unwind best when I’m running a park run, soaking in a hot bath, or sitting in a café by the ocean with a good coffee and my journal. I also just enjoy hanging out with my husband and three amazing teenage children, watching movies, playing board games and eating, or spending time with our wider families, including siblings, parents and nieces and nephews.
3. What’s a favourite Christian song, and why do you like it?
Look, there are many, and I am not great at choosing favourites. But one that has come to the front of my mind again recently, which plays on our local Christian radio quite a lot, is called ‘If I Don’t Have You’ by Love & The Outcome. It’s helping me to stay Jesus-centred at the moment, reminding me that if I don’t have Jesus at the centre of it all, then I don’t have anything of true worth! In terms of a worship song, for similar reasons, it would have to be, ‘Yet Not I but through Christ in Me’ – To this I hold, my hope is only Jesus. All the glory evermore to Him. When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat: Yet not I, but through Christ in me!
“I would recommend above all else is giving everything (plans, dreams, motives, future, resources, gifts, talents) to God, and allowing him to lead the way.”
4. If you could have a good talk with a biblical character apart from Jesus, who would it be and what would you talk about?
Initially, my answer was going to be “any one of Jesus’ disciples”, as I just want to soak up the stories of what it would have been like to journey so closely with Jesus when he was on earth and how they grew in their trust of who he was to the point of continuing to give all for Him. But I have also been discussing with a friend recently what it would have been like for Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac. As a result, I have found myself wanting to understand the mind and heart and journey of surrender and trust of Abraham. I guess the two are linked in the sense that what draws me to both the disciples and Abraham (and many other biblical characters, of course) is the attraction of a life of surrender and trust, no matter the consequence and outcome. In a way, we are all on the same journey, and I suppose we feel connected to these characters as we live out our own journeys of surrender and sacrifice and trust in him. My heart and Spirit never get weary of hearing the stories of those who give their all to him and go on the adventure of full surrender.
5. If you were talking to a group of Salvationists and they asked if you recommended officership or not, what would you say?
My short and decisive answer is yes, I would recommend officership to those who God may be calling to officership – there is nothing I would rather be doing in life than what I get to do now. But I want to qualify my answer by saying that what I would recommend above all else is giving everything (plans, dreams, motives, future, resources, gifts, talents) to God, and allowing him to lead the way. We are all called by God to be missionaries in this world in every space we live, work and play, so if God is given full reign in one’s life of how that missionary service plays out, I recommend that.
*Interview by Lerisse Smith
