I recently attended this great conference! What a desire; reaching QLD reaching the world. Isn’t that what we want to do for Jesus? Reach the world for Christ’s sake…
But since starting the Global Mission Partners (GMP) ministry I have been trying to figure out how local and global mission fit together? Are they in competition? How do we have a focus on both at the same time?
So in hope of some answers I will attend a number of conferences including RQRW and Everywhere Mission.
RQRW started with a video of quotes from people about mission. Hearing these helped me see a snapshot of the diversity of attitudes towards mission in Australia:
- “If we say mission is so important, then why do we do it so badly?”
- “Why are we sending missionaries overseas when we have so much need right here in Brisbane?”
- “Asylum seekers who arrive here on boats are queue jumpers. Why don’t they just wait in line like everyone else? We don’t want them here.”
- “In a multi-cultural society like Australia, can we call a church that is full of white people a gospel-centred church?”
- “Muslims really scare me.”
After this there were a number of videos/interviews of people who are about to leave for global mission or who are already doing it. They were able to explain that although there is need for mission in Australia (which they would never deny) there is also need for mission in other parts of the world. One difference being that there is an established church and Christian community in Lismore, Brisbane, Australia, whereas in other parts of the globe there’s not. And therefore there is a need for the local church to send out Christians to these areas.
Mike Raiter further emphasised this point in his talk when her referred to Brisbane as being rich, Sydney, fat and Melbourne rich in terms of Christians and resources. He recommended more people being sent out by the local church to the gospel poor places of the world.
The conference was ended with a video of quotes from missionaries and Bible teachers:
- “The best remedy for a sick church is put it on a missionary diet.”
- “We owe Christ to the world, to the least person and the greatest person, to the richest person and to the poorest person, to the best person and to the worst person; we are in debt to the nations.”
- “I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness that in a land flooded with light.”
The information from this conference will be useful to help the GMP team make further progress on SCPC’s partnerships with our GMPs, and in doing this giving everybody at church a role to play in God’s global mission.
Leave a Reply