Ministers Desk 15th July 2012

Last Sunday Barry Jardine, Maureen Witheyman and I worshipped at Newlife Uniting Church where we met the Moderator of the Solomon Islands, Wilfred Kuripeto.  In his sermon the Moderator shared the history of the Methodist church in the Solomon Islands.  In 1902 Rev John Goldie, his wife Helena and a small group of others left southern Tasmania and travelled to the area that is now known as Munda in the Solomon Islands.  Rev Goldie was a probationer Minister in his early 20s.  Yet he heard the call of God to go and he was faithful to that call.  The Moderator preached on the Great Commission in Matthew 28, “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  In reminding us of this passage he praised God that people like the Goldies, and others, in the past had gone when they had been sent.  He further encouraged us to be obedient to God’s call to go where we are sent. 

The people of the Solomon Islands still today give thanks to God for the missionaries who took the gospel to the Solomon Islands 110 years ago.  Since then the word missionary has dropped out of our vocabulary, except when talking about people from history.  Yet the importance of mission and the necessity for each of us to be a missionary continues to this day.  For many years the church saw the idea of mission as being something that we sent people overseas to do.  That no longer applies in our time.  There are probably more people in Brisbane who need to hear the message of Jesus, than there are in the Solomon Islands, and God is calling us, his church to take this message to our friends, family, workmates and neighbours.  Disciples are missionaries.  The mission of God remains for us to go and tell others of the good news of Jesus Christ.  It may be that like John and Helena Goldie we travel to another country and culture or we may stay in our own country and culture.  However, like the Goldies we are called to commit the totality of who we are to the mission of God, wherever we are placed.

Identifying ourselves as missionaries causes us to rethink how we spend our time, what we do with our church buildings and resources, what priorities we set and who we spend our time with.  Concentrating ourselves in this way causes us to have a prevailing concern of “what has God called us to do and be for others in the particular time and place?”  We therefore move ourselves out of an inward focus and toward a focus on others.

A focus on mission requires a growing faith, because mission can be costly.  The results of mission are not always immediate, so we’re required to trust the future to God.  We are often called to exert more effort than we might find comfortable, therefore we need to lean on God for strength.  We can be confronted with situations that are not familiar, we therefore need to rely on the inspiration of God to get us through the unknown.  Being involved in mission grows our faith as we see the results of lives transformed, people who find new relationships with Jesus, answers to our prayers and a reassurance that God is continually at work in our lives and the lives of others.

As disciples of Jesus we are called to go and live as missionaries.  What is your mission field?