I am just back from a very encouraging weekend working at building networks of Christians to encourage each other into a lifetime of full-time paid Christian service in the Anglican Church in Sydney.
Out of the ashes of the old Club 5/challenge conference on the October long weekend I’ve been away with around 200 other Christians from Sydney organised by Phillip Jensen, Joshua Ng and Carl Matthai and feel very very upbeat.
At the Anglican Port Hacking Conference Centers the UNSW/Unichurch ministry had one conference center, the Asian ministry Focus another and in a third conference center there were a whole lot of us from churches across the diocese (mostly people considering future full time Christian paid service either within the Sydney Anglican Church or beyond as missionaries).
We gathered in the evening in the main auditorium to hear Phillip Jensen on Jesus and the way he formed a mission minded network.
At our center in the morning there were Bible talks from Moore College Principle John Woodhouse (at the other centers there were other bible teachers, programs and talks). After John on 1Timothy we broke into groups of 8-16 from each of the new diocesan mission areas. We had two seminar groups during the day focusing on the convictions that drive us as Christians ministering in our particular Anglican churches. There were single sex practical ministry small groups after lunch working on how to write talks and give testimonies.
What did I like? I actually thought it worked as an Anglican initiative. I liked that all day we met as groups from our mission areas (I ended up leading one of the two groups from the inner west). This meant that when there was only one person present from a particular church considering full time paid ministry, they were linked up for future networking with other local Christians from nearby. And I loved praying with others for the gospel in our local area.
I thought it was great that in our small group we were visited for one session by CMS veteran Peter Blowes (who was able to answer questions from his 20 years experience on the mission field) and in another session we were visited by John Woodhouse. The people in our group who were considering doing ministry traineeships were able to drill John about ministry in churches and how to choose a theological college.
I liked that CMS general secretary John Bales was around the whole weekend and people from our church considering mission work were able to bale him up and have lunch and ask their questions about the possibilities of being missionaries in Fiji (they’ve already been camp parents on the Year 13 Youthworks trips to Fiji and now have the a taste for mission work).
I liked that the group of eight of us from Village Church/Christians in the Media were able to listen to lots of interviews from up the front with people who were a little bit further down the track in making ministry decisions and go and directly ask their ministry questions of Archie Poulos.
I was encouraged that there were uni students present, but actually glad that they were mostly off at another conference center during the day (and then with us all together at night). I thought it was excellent for the workers from our ministry who were wrestling with the pain of giving up career and financial security to do this separate from the students.
I was also encouraged to see old friends and to work alongside them in ministry as God raises up the next generation of Gospel ministers.
My thoughts for next year. The conference organisers are thinking beyond a conference to a network. Already the group of mission minded twenty somethings from the inner west are planning to meet again to pray. I imagine the networking next year will be even more explicitly aligned with the new mission areas being established as part of the Anglican Church, Sydney Diocese.
e are looking forward to our ‘Amazing Vision of Jesus’ series starting soon on the book of Revelation.
