Becoming Global

Rodney shares with us a little about this recent mission conference:

I recently attended the 'Becoming Global' conference at Sydney Missionary and Bible College at Croydon SMBC. It was a course designed to equip people to encourage and support others going on Short Term Missions from their Church. Overall the Conference gave me an insight into why we should go on Short term missions and how we can actively participate in this. I've never thought of Myself as "Mission Orientated" and even before attending the Conference I thought to Myself this will be kind of redundant for Me. However I still felt compelled to attend. I was convicted that I didn't have to sit on the sidelines, but rather I could play an active and vital part in this particular aspect of Missions.

Attending also convinced me that we are all Missionaries in terms of the work that God has called on us to do. We are Missionaries by way of being chosen to tell people about God through the course of our "everyday lives", this is the Grace of God to us. Missionaries are not "Super Christians", but simply have been given a different part to play by God. Being freed from this misconception was liberating. It basically means that even though we may not physically be going, we are still doing the work of God, and therefore actively participating on a whole other level.

If we see ourselves as the family of God in this place (Fairfield), then what we are doing is sending members of the family to another part of the world to preach the Gospel and are standing with them in this. Sharing in their hopes, dreams, failures and sufferings. Regardless of our "Experience" we have still gone forward with the Gospel. It's very important that we all see ourselves as playing an active part in this.

Other things I took out the Conference was ways we can do this practically at Church ie: Putting the idea of missions into peoples hearts and minds, so by the Grace of God they may feel compelled to go on short term missions in the future. Having a team that actively prays for and supports people who feel encouraged to take that step. In this regard our in some ways is already doing this which is encouraging. On another level I'm absolutely sure that this is very daunting for the group of people currently preparing for the Mission trip at the end of this year. They definitely need our encouragement, support and prayers .We need to help them in both emotional and practical ways. This can mean financially, but more importantly being there to listen to them and also in some cases to be a shouder to cry on.

The Becoming Global Conference showed me that we can do these things actively in our Church and realistically create a "Mission orientated Church" that hasn't forgot about what's happening on it's doorstep, but also reaches out Globally."

Rodney Clarke