Summer Under the Son

Heaps of people have been asking me about the future of SUTS, CMS Victoria's mega-summer missions conference.

Our Branch Council's public announcement at SUTS2013 that we would not be returning to the Philip Island Adventure Resort site was received with understandably mixed emotions.  Many have loved the family-friendly, summer beaches-and-swimming-pools, feel of the Island.  But everyone I spoke with also understood that it came at a high financial cost which made it difficult for many to attend.  Everyone also appreciated the fact that we had reached capacity at that auditorium, and that for SUTS to grow we need a new and larger venue.

All the feedback indicates that there are three non-negotiable elements to a successful SUTS:

1. Excellent expository Bible studies and engaging missionary sessions
2. Jesus-centred, full-care children's ministry programme (that allows parents a whole morning off)
3. Extensive opportunities for fellowship and catching up with CMS friends 

The staff team, under the direction of Branch Council, is actively seeking an alternative venue.  The team spent a morning at Belgrave Heights this Monday checking it out.  No decision has been made yet, and we are still looking at possibilities.  If you're interested in the future of SUTS, please PRAY for us, and for our search.  We really need God's help and provision to secure a great location for 2014.  We need a venue which will enable us to tick the three boxes mentioned above.

The future of Youth SUTS at Philip Island's CYC campsite is also under review; a separate set of issues and elements apply.

I'd appreciate all your prayers for the staff team this month, and also your feedback.  Feel free to post here, or on FB, or message me privately if required.  Under God, we're looking forward to a truly excellent SUTS2014!

How to become a CMS missionary

What are the steps to becoming a missionary with CMS?  The question comes up quite a bit, which is tremendously encouraging for someone in my position!

The person who has administered applications in Victoria has just retired.  Myrla left me a document outlining a forty-eight point process!!!  What??!?  

Let me make a few brief points about CMS missionary culture:

- we aim to place long-term cross-cultural Gospel workers

- long-term means something like a decade or more

- we believe that the longer a missionary stays on location, the more effective they are for the Gospel

- that kind of staying power requires thorough preparation, training and careful selection

- it also requires a high level of support and pastoral care throughout the deployment

- under God, everything depends on the quality of the people we send

So the forty-eight point process reflects the care we take in selection and training. Truth be told, it also reflects on the history and complexity of a missions society that's been around since 1799!  

I'd be happy to talk about more details - just ask if there's something you want to know.  If you're a person interested in missionary service, here are a few pointers:

- talk to your pastor and ask what they think

- start a prayer group with trusted friends who know you well, get their wisdom and discernment

- get to know the different missions agencies - we're different!  

- check out websites, publications, missionaries, keen supporters

- make a time to have a coffee n chat with a staff member (like me!) or drop us an email

CMS....

- requires that our missios have the equivalent of one year of full-time theological or Bible college training 

- never works independently, all our missios work under the authority and leadership of a local partner with whom we have a partnership agreement

- the CMS process can take up to two years

- it all starts with a conversation with someone like me (good thing I'm friendly, and like good coffee)

Mmmm... coffee...

Partnership in Mission

What does partnership in mission look like in the twenty-first century?  Is our role simply to pray, care and give so that missionaries can go?  Is there more to it?

Here’s a challenge for us: read Paul’s letter to the Philippians through in one go.  Scribble all over your Bible with some coloured pencils to work out some themes.  Notice the preponderance of ‘gospel’ and ‘Christ’.  Notice how the Gospel shapes Paul’s self-identity, prayers and ambitions, and relationships.  Notice how the Gospel shapes the partnership between the Philippian church and Paul the missionary.  

A friend and colleague, Sam McGeown, notes four ‘mutuals’: mutual prayer, mutual care, mutual suffering, and in mutual giving and receiving.  I’d like to focus on mutual suffering, for I think that’s what I’m weakest at.

First, notice that Paul is obviously suffering for the Gospel.  He is in chains defending and confirming the Gospel (1:7).  Because of this suffering, the Gospel advances as Paul preaches in prison and the church is emboldened to speak the Word (1:12-14).  This often happens for me, that others’ faithfulness in difficult ministry makes me bolder in mine.  As they suffer, we are made bold!  Does that happen for you?

Second, know that testifying to Christ may invite strange looks, gossip, and being marginalised in our workplaces, universities, schools, neighbourhoods, groups.  That’s Gospel partnership that involves mutual suffering!  1 Peter 2:12 puts it this way:

‘Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.’

Are we determined to live such lives this year?  Are you willing to be accused of doing wrong because of your Christian living?

Third, mutual suffering must be quantified.  Suffering is not notional.  Paul spells it out for the Philippians.  Prison.  Envious trouble-making rivals (1:17, 28).  Sorrow and worry over the health of friends (2:26).  Illness and the danger of death – for ourselves and for those we love (1:20, 2:26-30).  Separation from loved ones (2:26).  There’s an acknowledgement of the opportunity cost of giving to missions (4:19).  I give, so I won’t buy a new flat screen tv or take that expensive holiday.  It helps me to quantify ‘suffering’, and to thank God for the privilege of partnership.  Have you counted the cost of your mission partnership this year?  Will you thank God for it? 

Will you pray with me for an increase in mutual suffering for the Gospel cause in 2013?

(First published in CMS Victoria's Branch Matters, February 2013.)

Praying for power

Most Australians are innately suspicious of power.  When we spy a tall poppy, our instinct is to lop its head off.  Preferably unceremoniously.  Suspicion of authority and power is blamed on that ‘convict past’.  It’s so pervasive that even a migrant like me has absorbed it to some degree. 

‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ – Lord Acton.  So we are right to be suspicious of power.  Right?

Actually, the Scriptures give us a mandate to pray for power!  And to pray for power for ourselves, for each other and for our fellow-servants in the Gospel work.  It’s in Ephesians 3:14-21. 

‘I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power…’ v16

But what sort of power is Paul asking God to strengthen the Ephesian Christians with?  Four observations: 

First, it is power that comes from God’s infinite storehouse of wealth and might, ‘out of his glorious riches’.  God’s power!  For us!  A mighty power, and a holy power – untainted by sin and corruption. 

Second, it is power to ‘strengthen’ us.  What is achieved is a spiritual strength that will enable us to dominate any evil influence.  That’s real power!  It achieves all the things Paul writes about in the next three chapters.  Culminating in chapter six, Paul writes, ‘Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power… Put on the full armour of God’. 

Third, it is a spiritual power.  It is ‘power through his Spirit in your inner being’.  It is the kind of power that comes with the indwelling Holy Spirit, who lives in every converted Christian believer, transforming us from ungodliness and unholiness to become increasingly godly, holy, wise, loving, humble, servant-hearted and … powerful.  Powerful in a way that the world struggles to understand, but still recognises when it acknowledges true godliness and wisdom working for peace and justice. 

Fourth, it is a Christ-in-you power.  For the purpose of that power, is ‘…that Christ might dwell in your hearts through faith’.  The verb ‘to dwell’, indicates living or dwelling in a place in a settled or established manner.  We pray for a power that results in the exuberant, un-self-conscious exclamation, ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!’  (Gal 2:20). 

Christian believer: would you pray for this sort of power?  For me, for CMS missionaries, for your church members, for yourself?  Would you use Ephesians 3:14-21 and the four observations above to pray for our shared Gospel ministry in Christ?  Please do!

Here is a great book on prayer sure to reinvigorate your prayer life through the Scriptures: ‘A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from the Prayers of Paul’, D. A. Carson.  Buy two copies – give one away! 

(First published in CMS Victoria's Branch Matters bulletin, December 2012.)

Jonah

One of my resolutions upon being appointed to serve at CMS was to work through the Bible book of Jonah.  It’s so full of wisdom, insight and sharp truth for the cross-cultural mission enthusiast.  And a fair share of irony, paradox and hubris too. 

My young children love the story of Jonah and ask for it often.  They delight in knowing all the answers to my questions!  ‘Where did God send Jonah?’  ‘Neee-neee-veeeeehh!!!’  What did the Lord tell him to do?  ‘Tell the people to stop doing baaaaa-d things!!!’  Our discussions usually then trend towards whether it was a whale, a large fish, or a leviathan.

The plot of the book is simple enough.  God tells Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, but he runs away.  God sends a storm and then a huge fish.  Jonah relents and preaches to the Ninevites.  They repent and turn to God.  But here’s the sting in the story: Jonah becomes bitterly disappointed in God for saving an evil and wicked people.  The book ends with the Lord posing this question:

“Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

Indeed, Jonah the prophet is revealed as having a deep seated antipathy towards people not like himself.  If it is possible for a genuine prophet of God to be so unlike God, so ungodly, unloving, unkind, then it is also possible that Christians and churches might harbour that same anxiety that the loving Saviour might choose to save … people not like themselves.  People who look different, speak different, eat different, relate different, smell different, choose different, spend different, honour and shame different... 

May the Lord keep Christians from such ungodliness!  May the Lord replace our hearts of stone with hearts of full of loving concern for all the peoples of the world and, indeed, our neighbourhoods.  Perhaps there is someone not like you in your immediate vicinity.  What would it mean to be offer hospitality, kindness and the word of grace to them this week? 

ps. I’ve found Peter Adam’s recent sermons from Jonah helpful.  They were preached earlier this year at Christ Church Ormond.  Go to http://www.ormondanglican.org.au and search for ‘Peter Adam’. 

New job, new lease of life on an old blog

So, I've got a new job with the Church Missionary Society.  I'm the State Director for Victoria, Australia.  CMS is a missions agency with 200 Australian missios (that's missionaries) serving in seventy locations around the world.  Every continent except Antarctica, although I for one would be interested in hearing from you if you'd like to be sent there.
With a new job, comes a new lease of life for this blog. Let me know what you think I should do with it!