Aurélie Nicoulaz

My name is Aurelie and I'm currently living in the beautiful city of Lausanne, Switzerland.

After studying towards a PhD in genetics, I decided to move to Australia to study at C3 College. In 2015, I graduated with an Advanced Diploma of Creative Arts in Christian Ministry specialising in Contemporary Music and Worship Leading. And because I loved it so much, I studied an extra year and got an Advanced Diploma of Music Industry in 2016.

Since I moved back to Switzerland in 2017, I've had the privilege to become part of the C3 Lausanne staff, which progressively led to the role of music director and event manager. Those two roles are quite complementary; there's rarely a dull moment and for someone who needs to constantly learn new things, they are the perfect combo.

As I'm walking through this leadership journey and working with a variety of team members, I realise how much gold there is in everyone, how much God has put within us all. The more I observe the people I'm working with, the more I realise that the gold is not really present in the form of ‘gold nuggets’; it's more ‘gold layers’. You first see the obvious, but the more time you spend with people, the more they open up (sometimes a split second is enough), the more layers you discover. People are an endless well of beautiful things (okay sometimes with a bit of dirt around the edges, but hey who doesn't), and as a leader, part of my challenge - which by the way is not burdensome at all, but it is a challenge because it requires intentionality and diligence - is to dig and discover where the gold layers are, how they work in their lives and make it visible to the person and to others.

If I'm at all able to implement that as part of my leadership role in church, it is because I had been immersed for 4 years in an environment where lecturers were committed to digging and finding the gold in students. Yes, I've been trained and challenged in many aspects of life and music, but I've been loved and encouraged. This is a sweet balance I'd like to impart over here.