The Call ISSUE 19 AUTUMN 2021
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SETTING. CAPTIVES FREE. Meet local partner Helen, walking alongside women in Thailand
YOURINES L PRAYENRSIDE IS I e2 See pag
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CH URCH MI SSI O NSO CI E T Y. O RG
WELCOME TO THE CALL AND PRAYERLINES Once again, in this issue we have combined The Call and Prayerlines into one magazine, as we are still working remotely amid COVID-19 restrictions. We know that some of you prefer a smaller format Prayerlines separately, so we have made that available online. You can download and print a separate Prayerlines A5 booklet at churchmissionsociety.org/prayerlines
The Call is a platform for global voices in mission. In these pages you will get to know people from around the world who are joining in God’s mission in a variety of ways. By sharing their stories, insights and reflections, our goal is to give you hope that God is still at work in our world and to inspire you to put your own mission call into action, if not with Church Mission Society then with someone – but preferably with Church Mission Society.
IN THIS EDITION 04. Mission news
What God is doing through your prayerful support.
10. Setting captives free
Church Mission Society Watlington Road, Oxford, OX4 6BZ
Local partner Helen brings hope and freedom to women on the edges in Thailand.
T: +44 (0)1865 787400 E: info@churchmissionsociety.org
16. Listening for the long haul
Read about a church building community connections following their PMC journey.
churchmissionsociety.org
18. Annual review
An overview of the 2020–2021 financial year at Church Mission Society.
/churchmissionsociety @cmsmission
If you have any comments about The Call, please contact the editor: the.call@churchmissionsociety.org. Opinions expressed in The Call are those of the authors, not necessarily of Church Mission Society. Church Mission Society is a mission community acknowledged by the Church of England Registered Company No. 6985330 and Registered Charity No.1131655 (England & Wales) and SC047163 (Scotland). Also part of CMS: The South American Mission Society, Registered Company No. 65048 and Registered Charity No. 221328 (England & Wales); The Church Mission Society Trust, Registered Charity No. 1131655-1 (previously 220297). Registered and principal offices of all above entities: Watlington Road, Oxford, OX4 6BZ.
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22. Two-gether for mission
Be inspired by members of the CMS family raising money for mission.
28. Back for the future
Meet Andy Roberts, the new director of international mission at CMS.
30. How to…
Paul Bradbury shares his experience of building missional community.
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1–3 OCTOBER 2021
WELCOME
Prayerlines F 1 OCTOBER // GLOBAL
TIME IS OF THE
ESSENCE ALASTAIR BATEMAN, CEO, CHURCH MISSION SOCIETY
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ver recent months, we have had the joy of coming together as a CMS staff team in person after such a long period apart during the pandemic. We first met up in July in a local park, taking time to socialise, worship and pray together. Having seen most of the team only via Zoom for more than a year, it was wonderful to be with them in person in glorious 3D! We also gathered in the office early in September. It was great to hear news from the international team and in particular welcome Andy Roberts, our new international mission director. Many of you will already know of Andy and his wife Rose as CMS mission partners in Brazil, and Andy brings with him a wealth of experience. I’m excited about his infectious passion for mission and I’m delighted that our head of communications has interviewed him – you can read that on page 28. Spending time together has reminded me of the importance of time and how we use it. In this issue of The Call, we celebrate people and churches who have invested time in mission. Their
stories remind us of the immense value of spending time listening and building relationships, and that making disciples takes time. I’m encouraged by their stories of walking with people on the edges and investing time over the long haul. From local partner Helen walking with women in Thailand (p. 10), M and his family being supported in their walk in Africa (p. 12), to a church seeing long term change and building community connections for years after completing the Partnership for Missional Church journey (p. 16). And we celebrate our regional manager for Africa, Steve Burgess, who has spent nearly 40 years working in mission – we will miss him immensely as he retires this month. Steve has been a great source of wisdom with regard to CMS’s work in Africa and I have always valued the deep relationships he has cultivated over the years, with the CMS-Africa team in particular. Do pray for him, and for us as we seek to recruit his replacement. Read more of Steve’s story on page 14. And finally, we are grateful to some of our staff, who spent time on a sponsored walk to raise money for CMS – read about their journey on page 22. May reading this issue be an inspiring use of your time!
“Spending time together in recent weeks has reminded me of the importance of time and how we use it.”
Mission associate Andrew Leake (until recently a mission partner in Argentina) has recently taken on a new role helping Compassion in their response to climate change globally. Pray for wisdom and discernment of the first steps as he develops a strategy to engage people where they are.
WEEKEND FOCUS Saturday–Sunday 2–3 October
GUIDED ALONG UNFAMILIAR PATHS By Eric and Sandra Read, equipping churches in holistic mission and demonstrating natural farming models in the Philippines On a few occasions early last year (preCOVID!), God brought to our attention Isaiah 42:16: “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.” Little did we realise how much things were about to change – for all of us. Our new venture, of inspiring people to care for the environment through opening up our farm to the public, has certainly put us on an unfamiliar path, but it does make the farm a much more integral part of our ministry. The income will also enable us to start the next plan of day camps for children and youth. Pray for God to continue guiding Eric and Sandra along these unfamiliar paths, turn the dark to light and make the rough places smooth. Pray for the Lord to bring people to join them, 3 and for God’s sustaining grace.
4–8 OCTOBER 2021
Prayerlines M 4 OCTOBER // BRAZIL Daniel and Sarah Brito Medeiros serve with ReVive, a charity working with children who have survived abuse, trafficking or exploitation. Daniel and Sarah ask for prayer for the children at ReVive to know Jesus and be transformed by his love, and for God’s Spirit to be poured out in local churches.
T 5 OCTOBER // HONDURAS Earlier this year, mission partner Steve Poulson married Lindsey (nee Kalk), and they are now in the UK, connecting with link churches, family and friends and for training. Pray for them as they prepare to return to Honduras together to mentor and create safe spaces for at-risk children and young people to grow.
MISSION NEWS
Uganda: Bringing healthcare to the Batwa community Women and children from the often-marginalised Batwa community in Uganda are now accessing vital healthcare services, thanks to the efforts of the team at Potter’s Village in Kisoro, including mission partner Nicci Maxwell, who started visiting a local Batwa community prior to the pandemic. Knowing that Batwa people (a pygmy group forcibly evicted from their homes in the 1990s and scattered across the region) are often hesitant to accept offers of help from outsiders, Nicci approached with some anxiety. She was pleased when they responded with interest and good suggestions about what would be helpful:
Children in the Batwa community in Kisoro now receive medical care from Dr Nicci Maxwell
“Within a fortnight we were up and running.” Nicci now describes the visits as a highlight in her week. This scheme is funded by an Australian church that has long had a heart for Batwa people. Nicci shared with her CMS supporters that five Batwa babies have been safely delivered and more and more children and pregnant women are receiving medical care.
W 6 OCTOBER // GUATEMALA “Pray for people who come to our home for time apart to meet with Jesus and know how much they are loved by him,” write Mark and Rosalie Balfour, who host retreats at their home, Betania, as part of their role of providing pastoral support for Street Kids Direct workers.
Th 7 OCTOBER // BRAZIL Please pray for mission partners Andy and Kati Walsh as they go through CMS mission partner training this autumn and prepare to join Jimmy and Katia Rocks in Florianopolis, where they will be involved in outreach through Vineyard Floripa and teach at New Wine discipleship school.
F 8 OCTOBER // ARGENTINA “The Diocese of Northern Argentina has lost many older leaders in the past two years. Pray for equipping and accompanying of younger men and women for transforming mission in church and community,” write Catherine Le Tissier and Nick Drayson, who coordinate the AMARE women’s organisation and serve as primate of the 4 4 Province of South America respectively.
le vaccinated in w hundreds of peop sa a ind Ol in ch ur O Farol ch worship in person ey couldn’t meet to th ile wh ing ild bu their
A beacon of hope in Olinda As Brazil entered its second wave of COVID-19 in early 2021, shorttermers Becky and Evaldo Reid Rodrigues’s church, O Farol (“The Lighthouse”), opened its doors to the community as a vaccination centre for over two months, seeing about 100 people a day vaccinated. Even though places of worship remained closed, this was a way to use the building as a place of life and hope for the city. With their
pastor Anderson’s agreement, Evaldo spoke to the coordinator of vaccination operations at the Olinda city council, and suggested the church building as a vaccination centre. Within a week, the church was preparing to receive people for their vaccinations and members of the church were signing up to volunteer as stewards, with Evaldo coordinating the schedule. As word spread, more people began coming to O Farol to be vaccinated, and the state news team visited the church twice.
Lamenting the loss of local partners
The Sacred Bean cafe is a dream come true
Bean dream comes true In July, the mayor of Derby officially opened the Sacred Bean coffee shop in the city centre – a dream come true for founding pioneers Rev Darren and Jo Howie, who launched the Sacred Bean coffee roastery a few years ago. Sacred Bean combines two of the Howies’ passions – delicious coffee and rehabilitation. Darren,
for pioneers Darren and Jo Howie
who once struggled with heroin addiction, trains exoffenders, recovering addicts and other socially excluded people in the art of coffee roasting. Out of this, both a thriving ethical business and a community have emerged, where marginalised people are finding healing and purpose. Jo says her CMS pioneer training helped make this dream a reality.
Farming God’s Way When COVID-19 was causing job losses and food shortages in local partner Rachel Karanja’s local community north of Nairobi, she helped them embrace Farming God’s Way to provide sustainable, long-term help. Rachel had previously trained communities in this simple tool, designed to equip the poor to come out of poverty through biblical farming principles. Early in the pandemic, communities already using the method were able to donate food to needy families out of their surplus. Rachel and her husband, Pastor Joseph, were able to train a group of local men and women in Farming God’s Way, and soon they were up and running. Although the farmers’ first project wasn’t a success, they kept at it and their harvests grew bigger and bigger. Through coming together to farm God’s way, members of this community have learned new techniques and harvested enough produce for each of their households as well as a surplus to sell.
Dr Lalita Edwards
Partnering with brothers and sisters from across the globe in God’s mission is one of CMS’s great joys and it a Jean Bosco Tshiswak was heartbreaking to learn of the recent deaths of two longtime friends and colleagues, Dr Lalita Edwards (Pune, India) and Jean Bosco Tshiswaka (Lubumbashi, DR Congo). Both showed remarkable compassion to people at the margins of society – Lalita among sex workers and their children as well as the transgender community, and Jean Bosco among children forced to live and fend for themselves on the streets. Jean Bosco led Kimbilio, meaning “a place to go for safety”, an organisation offering shelter and education to homeless Congolese children, reuniting them with family where possible. Likewise, Dr Lalita was director of Santvana, a home for HIV- and AIDS-affected children. Our prayers are with the families and loved ones of these cherished members of our global family.
An impressive potato harvest for a com
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munity in Kenya
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MISSION NEWS New pioneer pathway puts African theology at the centre Church Mission Society has launched a new route through our Pioneer Mission Leadership Training focused on the African Church and its impact on faith in the UK. The first of its kind in the UK, the course looks at Africa as a creative, vibrant centre of Christianity and site of theology for the 21st century. Through the programme both African diaspora students and those from other ethnic backgrounds will gain an understanding of God’s work in Africa, and among African Christians in the
From tourism to creation care In the Philippines earlier this year, people were escaping the city and going to the countryside for day trips, even paying just to photograph a patch of sunflowers.
ation care New cafe to inspire cre
UK and around the world. Led by African scholars, students will study modules on African Church history, African Pentecostalism and African traditional religion, alongside modules in CMS’s existing MA in Theology, Ministry and Mission. The first student intake started in September 2021 – and applications are already being welcomed for 2022 pioneer.churchmissionsociety.org/ma (read more on page 20.)
Congratulations
Mission partners Eric and Sandra Read, who equip churches in holistic mission and run a farm where they demonstrate natural farming models, hit on the idea of opening up their farm to the public to promote creation care. With a new cafe in beautiful farm surroundings, Eric and Sandra have an ideal platform to teach and inspire people about creation care. Visitors can hear a short story about a particular aspect of creation care and see it in action on the farm. “We hope we can encourage people to think of preserving and improving the environment as something enjoyable, as an opportunity and God-given responsibility rather than a burden.”
FOR MORE STORIES AND MISSION RESOURCES GO TO: churchmissionsociety.org 6
NEWS IN BRIEF
Congratulations to the ethical cleaning company Clean for Good, which won the Against All Odds Living Wage Champion award, for paying and promoting the Living Wage in a sector where low pay is sadly the norm. CMS is a founding investor in Clean for Good, which is based in London.
Please pray Please pray for mission partners Bishop Nick Drayson (northern Argentina) and Joel Kelling (Jordan) who are both involved in conversations ahead of the upcoming Lambeth conference, planned for summer 2022. Pray that God’s mission will be on the Lambeth agenda and for fruitful connections in the conversations taking place.
“We have amazing supporters, so thanks as ever for all you do!”
FINANCE UPDATE
Charlie Walker, director of finance and corporate services at Church Mission Society, shares gratitude for God’s provision and for CMS supporters.
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nother year and another audit done. This is the second time the audit has happened remotely, but the finance team rose to the challenge amazingly and met all the requests of the audit team. As you will see on page 18, given the challenges we’ve faced, there is much to be thankful for, especially given the uncertainty of everything back in March 2020! Let me draw out some key areas. Firstly, our income from individuals was well above previous years, thanks to our brilliant supporters responding to an appeal in May 2020. Secondly, our legacy gifts totalled more than £2 million. Thirdly, our investment income was high, with £400k from a trust for a specific
purpose – we are so thankful for this special payment and are well underway exploring how this huge blessing can be best used. This also helps explain, in part, why our income exceeds our expenditure for the year, because we have not yet spent that money, and other restricted income, for their intended purpose. I mentioned last time that I would do a challenge to celebrate CMS’s 222nd birthday, and you can read all about it on page 22. It was a great day, and we are delighted (even if our legs aren’t) that we all managed to get to the end! I also loved reading about Clive Main and his painstaking painting of his church railings. We have amazing supporters, so thanks as ever for all you do!
WEEKEND FOCUS Saturday–Sunday 9–10 October
FOR FREEDOM By Ian Adams, mission spirituality adviser at Church Mission Society This reflection is connected to the article Love in the time of (not) belonging on page 26. For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 (NRSV) What if Paul’s bold declaration to the people of the churches in Galatia is also for you during this season in your life? What might that mean for you? Paul is clear that the freedom for which we are made is not indulgent, but a freedom won for us by Jesus Christ, grounded in our belonging to him, a freedom for life and for mission. As you enter prayer today, allow the idea of God’s gift of freedom to settle upon you. What might you need to let go? What might, in God’s grace, become possible? Gracious God, thank you for the freedom that you are gifting to me in Christ. Give me courage to let go of what is binding me. Give me grace to step more deeply into your calling for me. In the name of Jesus Amen Email: ian.adams@ churchmissionsociety.org 7
11–15 OCTOBER 2021
Prayerlines M 11 OCTOBER // S EAST ASIA I and S are mission partners in training, preparing to lead an international congregation and offer teaching and discipleship. In their new context, where Christians are a minority and direct sharing of faith is not allowed, pray for God to use them to encourage the local community of Jesus’ followers.
T 12 OCTOBER // THAILAND Pray for local partner Helen AvadiarNimbalker as she walks alongside women trapped in the sex industry (see article on page 10). As there are many more women who need help, pray for this ministry to grow despite those who want women to remain trapped in the industry.
W 13 OCTOBER // AFGHANISTAN Please continue to pray for Afghanistan – for safety, especially for women and minority groups, for those who have been displaced and for aid to reach those who need it most.
Th 14 OCTOBER // SOUTH ASIA B and K, working to prevent human trafficking and encouraging the church to take action, write that desperation and suffering will be at an all-time high for many due to the last year, creating circumstances favourable to a trafficker. Please pray that traffickers and those who facilitate it will be exposed and their plans stopped.
F 15 OCTOBER // NEPAL After over a year in the UK, pray for Andrea and Andrew Young as they prepare to return to Nepal and make the transition from digital to face-toface pastoral care for United Mission to Nepal in Kathmandu, Tansen and Okhaldhunga.
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WORLD VIEWS
THE LAST ENGLISH BISHOP? This year marks half a century of serving God’s mission in Latin America for Bishop Nick Drayson, who has recently been elected Primate of the Anglican Church of South America. Returning from an extended period in lockdown in the UK, he reflected on his learning and hopes that one era is ending…
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hen I boarded a Greyhound bus in New York, as a skinny 18-yearold heading for Mexico, little did I imagine I would be where I am now. Of the last 50 years, I have physically spent about half in Latin America, mainly in Argentina, but with frequent visits to almost every country in the region. For a couple of longish spells, I worked in Europe but always with Latin America in my mind. I have always found joy in the variety of cultures and languages in Latin America. My first assignment in Argentina was to help with the translation of the New Testament into Chorote, a language spoken on and near the river Pilcomayo. It is wonderful to grapple with the relationship between very different worldviews as described in the Scriptures and in an indigenous language in the semi-arid tropical Chaco forest. I learned so much about discipleship from inductive Bible studies held on the university campus, from the response to revolutionary ferment in the cities, from the solidarity with the rights of Amerindian peoples to the land, and from the church planters and
evangelists who ministered boldly in the power of the Holy Spirit. It has been a formative privilege to work alongside both missionaries and nationals in the formation of local leadership, and developing appropriate strategies for different contexts in which to live out the gospel. I would like to see a new generation of transparent, humble and God-fearing men and women, who will build on our wonderful heritage, and develop appropriate ways of doing leadership, training and administration for the Latin America emerging from this pandemic. Since Waite Stirling was appointed 150 years ago as the first Anglican bishop (for the whole of South America), the region known as the Southern Cone has had a series of more than 20 excellent missionary bishops, nearly all British. In recent years a few national bishops have been appointed, some of whom have not continued in their ministry. Today there are many more nationals than missionaries, and I would love to be the last of a line, so that the Latin American Church is led by Latin Americans – and of course Amerindians.
OUR ADVENTURE, OUR STORY Mission partner M, working in East Asia, shares a reflection on her family’s experience in the pandemic.
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hrough the pandemic, the message that has resonated most with me is “stay home, save lives”, especially “stay home”. When we felt that the world was coming to an end, embassies were calling their people home: come back, you will be safer here. But for many of us mission partners, there is no other home. I am so grateful that we have stayed healthy and I don’t underestimate what a difficult year it has been for so many, but for me the pain was when I realised we didn’t have a home. This is complicated because our family hold different passports and most countries closed their borders. I thought we had found a home in the country where we serve, and we had purchased very pretty locally-made furniture for it. I cleaned it very hard the day we moved in. Our local friend came every day to help with childcare. Her family had been looking after us for nearly three years: driving us to the hospital late at night because our son had a high fever, bringing medicine when we were sick. We didn’t get to say goodbye properly, but thankfully we kept in touch. The day before we left, our boys spent a whole morning playing with the neighbours on the street. It only took a few months for them to forget the language completely. After a few weeks in a
neighbouring country (where we had travelled for a short trip simply to deal with visas), we flew to Europe to stay in the house where I grew up. It was empty, had a garden, toys and clothes. It was the obvious choice, but my husband was concerned because of the pandemic situation there. It was freezing the day we arrived with our flip-flops and shorts – with nonessential shops closed, we hadn’t been able to buy warm clothes for the journey. We were safe, we went for walks and rediscovered the village where
what it would look like to have a normal life. Visiting the UK always feels a bit like that. Planning to return to our context, we have now moved to East Asia. The boys are attending a new school and we are hoping and praying conditions will be met for us to go back. For months, my husband and I have talked and prayed about ways we could continue to live our missionary lives while avoiding storms like these. But God has made us stronger and more resilient. He has reignited our sense of adventure
“God has made us stronger and more resilient. He has reignited our sense of adventure and renewed our desire to stay in mission.” I grew up, but we didn’t feel we belonged. Asian hate is very much a reality in that part of Europe and every time we visit, my husband experiences it. After a few months, we moved on to the UK. We felt loved and looked after and were blessed by generosity. Our boys settled in school and made friends. What a joy it was to watch them run and laugh with the neighbours’ boys. But it was an illusion, a glimpse of
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and renewed our desire to stay in mission. The crisis brought the vulnerabilities of our lifestyle to the surface. However, unless we decide to give up on our call, we must learn to accept our fragility, knowing that God will give us strength. I was longing to go back to our “precovid life”, but now I have come to realise that this chaotic, uncertain and nomadic life is exactly the life I want to live: it is our adventure, it is our story.
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COVER STORY
SETTING CAPTIVES FREE IN THAILAND
Around three million women and girls are trapped in Thailand’s sex industry. But Asia-CMS local partner Helen AvadiarNimbalker has an exit plan. WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE TRAPPED IN THIS? “Many say some women make a choice to say yes to this life. When you get to know them, you understand that a lack of options is not choice,” Helen explains. Some girls are sold to traffickers by their parents, who desperately need the money and don’t realise that their daughters will be forced to sell sex. Women who have left home on their own often can’t get a job due to a lack of citizenship papers. Others are single mothers who can’t provide
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for their children on a minimum wage. Once women are in the industry, their dignity is eroded and it’s not long before they feel worthless. But in this dark situation, God is working.
GLIMMERS OF HOPE IN THE DARKNESS Local partner Helen has a passion to reach women and girls who are trapped in Thailand’s sex industry and help them get out. “I visit the bars, massage parlours and places that employ women for the commercial sex industry almost every day. I talk to the owners and spend time getting to know the ladies. My background as a trauma counsellor helps me a lot during these informal chats with the women, knowing what to ask them and how to help them to feel safe with me and be comfortable enough to talk. What I have learned is
to not see them as women in the sex industry, but just women who need a new friend or someone who cares with no agenda for further exploitation.” One woman who needed a new friend was Chinda, a single mother who was drawn into the world of prostitution because she couldn’t afford her son’s medication and her children’s education. In a bar one evening, Helen remembers, “I noticed Chinda, standing in the corner looking depressed. I asked her if she wanted to play pool with me. She immediately had a huge smile on her face. We played a few games, and I asked her what her favourite food was. I started having dinner with her once a week. A deep bond and relationship grew from there.” Through spending time with Helen, Chinda has discovered Jesus’ love and her life has changed dramatically. Now, Chinda has committed her life to Jesus and made the bold decision to leave the sex industry. She is
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Top and left: Helen with Chinda when she said yes to Jesus, changing her life forever Top right: At Baan Romyen, women are offered the chance to learn new skills which can provide a source of income
“This has been the key to seeing a breakthrough with the women, giving them hope that they do have the options to choose a better life, one that they can create with our help and guidance.”
… AND BUILD building a new life for herself and helping others to do the same.
HELEN’S EXIT PLAN: HEAL… Helen and her team have set up a centre called Baan Romyen (“safe, protective, peaceful home”) in the middle of the red light district, where they run the Heal and Build plan. They have close to a hundred women come through the centre every month, but they want to reach hundreds more. Their one-year transition programme is designed to offer at-risk, vulnerable or sexually and physically exploited women a place where they can prepare to walk out of the industry and safely into a world that has become unfamiliar. At the heart of the programme is community; friendship and mutual support is key to every woman’s journey to freedom. The women worship and study the Bible together daily and do church together every Friday at Baan Romyen. Meals at the centre always involve lots of fun and laughter. Every week, Helen and other collaborating organisations also meet to pray and worship at a bar, with the permission of the owner. This is the same bar where Chinda used to work and meet clients. Now the owner of this bar and her daughter work at Baan Romyen, too! The programme starts with basic healthcare, one-on-one trauma counselling, group therapy, art therapy and sessions that encourage women to dream again.
The programme goes on to teach women about their true identity in Jesus and builds their confidence through life skills training, selfdefence workshops, basic English classes, and helps them to finish school and get their driving licence. Helen and the team offer empowerment through alternative job skills. Women can learn to sew, make jewellery, journals and household items, and do simple beauty treatments, giving them a new source of income. “We currently have more than 30 women on our Heal and Build plan, 15 of whom we employ. We hope to be able to support at least 10 more women over the next few months.” Chinda was the first to get her driving licence and sign up for school to get her high school diploma, and several other women are following her example. Now, she is the director of the programme alongside Helen, who is the trauma counsellor and project adviser teaching and guiding Chinda as she takes on leadership responsibilities. The most important role Helen carries, alongside her husband Vincent, is that of a spiritual adviser and teacher to people on the edges.
GIVE
To get involved and support Helen and other local partners to reach more people on the edges, go to churchmissionsociety.org/harvest2021
WEEKEND FOCUS Saturday–Sunday 16–17 October
IMPATIENCE WITH GOD By Andrea and Andrew Young, who are providing vital pastoral care for United Mission to Nepal in Kathmandu, Tansen and Okhaldhunga Relent, Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Psalm 90:13–14 (NIV) There are times in our lives when we wonder why things are taking so long to change and we can become impatient with God. Like the psalmist, we want to shout, “How long will it be?” as we wait for the next stage in God’s plan. I guess for many this has been a common sentiment as we wait for the pandemic to end, or at least subside sufficiently for “normal life” to recommence. While we have continued to work with friends and colleagues in Nepal via the internet, we have been longing to be able to return to Nepal and work face-to-face again. So, we have been waiting in anticipation of God’s unfailing love, and the day we will sing for joy!
PRAY
Pray for Andrea and Andrew as they continually submit to God’s timing and his 11plan.
18–22 OCTOBER 2021
Prayerlines M 18 OCTOBER // UGANDA Mission partner Malcolm Pritchard asks for prayer during a time of transition for the diocese and Archbishop Janani Luwum Theological College in Gulu, Northern Uganda, where Malcolm promotes spiritual development. Pray for the person of God’s choosing to take up the post of principal at the college.
T 19 OCTOBER // RWANDA Local partner Josias Nkusi coordinates CMS-Africa’s activities in Rwanda, supports around 100 champions and trainers, and teaches on CMS-Africa courses. Please pray for their women’s training and Financial Freedom for Families (F4), for people to enrol on the courses and engage with the content.
FEATURE STORY
WALKING
TOGETHER IN MISSION
Mission partner M reflects on his journey into mission, and how God has used Church Mission Society walking alongside him in remote and challenging contexts.
W 20 OCTOBER // DR CONGO Short-termers Anthea and Martin Gordon, based in Goma, ask for prayer for all those rebuilding livelihoods, schools and churches following the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in May. Pray for Anthea in her work with Tearfund and Martin in his work as vicar general.
Th 21 OCTOBER // KENYA Please pray for CMS-Africa staff member Lucy Ochieng, who lost her husband, Phillip, in July. Pray for comfort for Lucy and her two daughters as they grieve their loss and try to find a way forward.
F 22 OCTOBER // UGANDA Mission partner Helen Kisakye is a dance advocate who is also involved in a crisis pregnancy group, offering help to girls who suddenly find themselves pregnant. Helen writes, “Pray that more girls in vulnerable situations will be reached through partnerships with churches in rural as 12 well as urban settings.”
CRYING OUT FOR GUIDANCE
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s a teenager I was disillusioned with a school that pushed me towards academic success and money-oriented careers. I moved to an agricultural college as I loved the outdoors, but this didn’t satisfy me either. I was crying out for guidance and had a profound experience of knowing God’s presence with me for myself. As I began seeking my way in life, someone lent me a book called Bruchko, about a teenager who followed God’s call to work with tribal people in the jungle. He went alone, got attacked and shot with an arrow by the very tribe he was looking for, and then eventually was adopted as one of them. Once
he had learned their language, he was able to reinterpret their mythology in the light of Jesus, and many followed the Good News. I’d never heard the term “mission”, but I remember a strong sense of God telling me, “Go and live like this.” I was ready to get on a plane the very next day!
JESUS LOVES ALL PEOPLE I began doing short-term trips with my church to run summer camps in the former Soviet Union. Then I began to travel to remote lands such as Siberia, Mongolia, even Timbuktu! I wanted to find out how the gospel is applicable to nomadic and remote peoples, and to learn from those who were trying to reach them. Traditional models of church buildings and weekly services simply don’t work
Photo: God is at work in the remote parts of the earth and it’s a privilege to be a part of what he is doing
when the people are nomadic, but I knew that Jesus loves all people. Africa didn’t particularly interest me because of the heat and mosquitoes, but at the invitation of an African friend (who grew up as a nomad in the Sahara) I went to visit. I ended up working in West Africa among a nomadic desert tribe for over 12 years. I loved sitting around the campfire as the stars came out, telling stories from the Bible in their language. My heart is still there, but terrorism and kidnapping threats make it impossible to visit my friends in those nomad camps.
WALKING A FINE LINE Now my wife and I work with a tribe of mountain people in another part of Africa. It’s a very restricted country so we have to be creative in how we live. We have a company taking tourists into the mountains. This gives us the freedom to be in villages, to share God’s love with locals and especially to pray for them. No one from this region has ever refused us praying peace and blessing for them in Jesus’ name. We are always walking a fine line between being ambassadors of the coming Kingdom and living in a country where open Christian witness is not allowed. We want to communicate God’s presence and love while avoiding misunderstanding. We strive to be peacemakers, bringing the gift of peace and forgiveness Jesus offers. It’s hard sometimes to see much fruit, as society is such a strong influence. People don’t have the freedom to think beyond what family and community require them to be. We have found that prayer opens the door and enables
people to discover God working in their own lives, beyond our words or stumbling apologetics!
SUSTAINED FOR A LIFETIME As we enter mid-life, with kids in tow, we face very different challenges. CMS has the experience and capacity to help sustain us on the field for a lifetime of ministry. Through their rigorous selection process and training, we have felt reaffirmed in the call of God on our lives. For me, it’s 20 years since I first began to follow God’s call, so it’s been great to be examined and affirmed in this way. CMS brings expertise in financial planning and thinking through
When we left West Africa (before joining CMS), I really struggled during that time of loss and difficulty and went through a “dark night of the soul”.
NO LONGER ISOLATED I know that CMS has “got my back” to help us survive and thrive. They are very professional and quick to help out with our needs. Recently I was talking with my field leader about the challenges of balancing family life, working from home and ministry. He quickly found someone with similar experience, who was willing to talk with me and counsel me through these issues. I don’t have to feel as isolated as I used to. CMS has also put us in touch with more churches and networks of praying people, which makes us feel upheld during the difficulties we go through. God is at work in remote parts of the earth and it’s a privilege to be a part of what he is doing. I am grateful to CMS for the partnership that enables me and my family to be sustained and effective here!
“CMS has the experience
and capacity to help sustain us on the field for a lifetime of ministry.” long-term issues, something I was never very good at on my own. They have been good at raising our profile and at annually reviewing our work so that we can be equipped and thriving. We appreciate the breadth of experience CMS brings. They have been a huge help in the practicalities of family life on the field. We know they have robust systems of debriefing and counselling, should we need them.
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If you sense God calling you to “go” in his mission, get in touch with our recruitment team on vro@churchmissionsociety.org
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FEATURE STORY
38 YEARS OF
PROCLAIMING THE GOOD NEWS IN AFRICA As CMS regional manager for Africa Steve Burgess is retiring, we reflect on his 38-year journey with CMS. Despite this, Steve was confident he wasn’t going to be a missionary. He returned home to the UK, where he met someone very interesting: an Australian named Cathy.
CALLED TO PROCLAIM THE GOOD NEWS
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teve’s first taste of Africa as a young man was doing voluntary work in Tanzania and Malawi during his holidays from the National College of Agricultural Engineering, and he volunteered in Kenya after finishing his degree. Later he joined an Anglican diocesan team although he wasn’t a Christian at the time; through working alongside Christians and learning about Jesus through their actions as well as their words, Steve says, “eventually I just said yes to Jesus.” 14
Steve was seeking God’s will for his life. “One day Isaiah 61 was read at a conference, and it spoke to me: ‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he has sent me to proclaim the good news to the poor...’ and I just said, ‘Well, God, how am I going to do that?’” Steve felt God was calling him to continue working with people in Africa, and approached CMS. They told him to go and figure things out with Cathy first, so Steve went to Australia. “When Cathy and I were thinking about getting married, I said, ‘Well, if you get married to me, we’re going to Africa.’ She said,
‘Okay.’” They got married, came back to the UK and applied to CMS together.
JUMPING INTO MISSION TOGETHER When Cathy, Steve and their first child arrived in Kenya in 1987, the house they had been promised was just four posts in the ground. When they moved into their half-finished house seven months later, the bath was still on the veranda, but Steve talks about it like it was the best days of his life. What really mattered was being there and being able to work with local people. Steve’s role was to support the Diocese of Mount Kenya East’s community development programme, through irrigation and water management and agriculture. Cathy would focus on childcare initially, and be part of the lively, multicultural women’s fellowship. Based in Isiolo, in the middle of Kenya, they were at the end of the tarmacked road. “It was a
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Top left: Hand pump installed in arid Turkana, 2000 Top middle: Cathy, Steve and their three children in 1994, when they moved to the Diocese of Eldoret Top right: Cathy with a TEE group Left: Steve in a well as a rope and washer pump is installed, 2003
gateway to places where people lived nomadic lives. A lot of people didn’t know Jesus, a lot of people were struggling to survive. At that time, one side of Isiolo was Christian and the other side was Muslim. So it was a really interesting place to be. I just loved it. I loved northern Kenya and engaging in grassroots development work there together with the Anglican Church.”
FROM ISIOLO TO ELDORET TO THE UK The family spent six years in two different contexts within the same diocese, and welcomed two more children during that time. In 1994, they moved to the Diocese of Eldoret. At the top of Steve’s new job description were some very familiar verses: Isaiah 61:1–2, echoing God’s calling on his life in this role, too. While Steve worked with an integrated rural development programme, providing support on water and irrigation and hygiene and sanitation programmes, Cathy developed a role coordinating the Theological Education by Extension programme in the diocese, helping Christian leaders in remote rural places to study the Bible and theology. After 10 years in the Diocese of Eldoret, they returned to the UK in 2005 and finished as mission partners. Steve joined the CMS office team as a regional manager for mid-Africa, and found that Luke 4:18–19 was a key passage, echoing Isaiah 61:1–2 again.
A SHIFT TO INDIGENOUS MISSION Part of Steve’s role as regional manager for Africa has been to support the vision of CMS-Africa. CMS was very well known in Africa, having established the Anglican Church there, built schools and
WEEKEND FOCUS Saturday–Sunday 23–24 October hospitals and sent many, many missionaries. Nevertheless, CMS had always had a vision for decentralisation and indigenous expressions of mission. So, in 2008, CMS-Africa came into being as an autonomous organisation. Where possible when visiting dioceses, bishops and church organisations in Africa, Steve did so with colleagues from CMS-Africa, to build stronger relationships. Along with seeing CMS-Africa take the reins, Steve has really enjoyed connecting with and encouraging people in what God has called them to do – whether training artisans in Kenya to build water tanks or, more recently, facilitating people from the UK making their own contributions to mission in Africa. He has particularly valued visiting people in mission: “They are just an amazing bunch of people.”
A FINAL WORD Poignantly, the CMS UK staff Bible passage for 2021 is also Luke 4:18ff, an echo of Isaiah 61:1–2, which Steve says he will take into whatever God has for him next. So, what would Steve like to see happen in mission in Africa over the next 10, 20, 30 years? “For people to know Jesus. I mean, it’s that simple, isn’t it? I think we’ve got to keep Jesus at the centre of what we do. But in doing so, engaging as equal partners, each contributing their gifts and skills to God’s mission and learning from each other.”
NOT TO CONFORM, BUT TO BE TRANSFORMED By Moses Bushendich, international director of CMS-Africa Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2a (NIV) This verse inspired CMS-Africa’s vision: Renewed mindsets, transformed nations. During the last year and a half, facing key changes including changes in strategy, changes in context and changes in personnel, our vision statement and the words of the apostle Paul have meant much more to me than ever before. With the launch of the new CMSAfrica strategy for 2020–25 came the realities of COVID-19: restricted travel, restricted meetings, suspended church worship. This meant mission activities that usually depended on face-to-face meetings were severely limited or stopped completely. CMS, our main partner, also engaged in a strategic review. At CMS, too, there were personnel changes and long-time friends and colleagues Paul Thaxter and Stephen Burgess retired. Within CMS-Africa, one staff member left and another lost a spouse to COVID-19. Over the past 18 months, change has been a constant. A renewed mindset is more real than ever before. We have all changed and are still looking to God for the new opportunities in each change. Pray for God to help Moses and PRAY his colleagues at CMS-Africa not to conform but to be transformed and to transform 15 through the renewing of their minds.
25–29 OCTOBER 2021
FEATURE STORY
Prayerlines M 25 OCTOBER // LEEDS Please pray for Awais Mughal, who has restarted face-to-face English language classes for asylum seekers and refugees. Pray for safety for all learners and for Awais, during language sessions as well as when connecting with women in other contexts.
T 26 OCTOBER // OXFORD Pray for CMS’s HR and health and safety teams as they help the senior leadership team navigate a gradual return to the office over the next few months. Pray for wisdom for how to best to support staff well-being in this season.
W 27 OCTOBER // IPSWICH Mission partner Michael Green reaches out to and supports refugees, particularly refugees from the Middle East, some of whom have come to faith in Jesus and face difficulties with their families as a result. Pray for wisdom and sensitivity for Michael as he supports people of different cultures facing a variety of issues.
Th 28 OCTOBER // KINGSTON Mission partner Andrea Campanale, serving those who would describe themselves as spiritual rather than religious, writes that SpiritSpace continues to meet online on the first Sunday of every month, drawing together a small community of spiritual seekers from around the world. Pray for people to encounter God through these meetings.
F 29 OCTOBER // HULL Anna and Chris Hembury are sharing life with people on the margins in various ways including through the sewing collective Orts, where people of all faiths and none share conversations, laughter and tears. Pray for the group to continue to encourage each other and grow in 16 16knowledge of Jesus. their
Bestwood Park church in Nottingham continue to see the effects of the Partnership for Missional Church journey
LISTENING FOR THE LONG HAUL Chris Easton, lay pioneer minister at Bestwood Park church, an AnglicanMethodist church on a large outer estate in Nottingham, shares the long-term impact of participating in the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) journey.
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joined the church 10 years ago, when they were exploring being involved in PMC. It wasn’t always easy as one of the first churches in the UK to participate, but it equipped us to engage with our community and we’re still using those principles. There are 25,000 people living on three estates here: Bestwood Park, Top Valley and Bestwood estate. These communities are all in the bottom 10 per cent on the index of multiple deprivation, with issues typical on outer estates and a lack of hope. The PMC journey centres around spiritual practices and for me, coming in and trying to do pioneering mission work, it helped to focus on what we were trying to do in being more missional and more engaged with the community.
TRANSFORMATION THROUGH LISTENING The practice of “Dwelling in the Word” (an approach to reading a passage from the Bible to help us listen to one another and to God) was quite transformational. It was empowering people to feel that they’ve got a voice. It got everyone engaged with God’s Word, and then everyone listening to each other and trying to discern what God might be saying through each other. The spiritual practices also encouraged us as a church to talk about God more, to ask God, “Where are you at work?” In our services, we have times to share where we have seen God at work. It builds up people in their Christian faith to recognise that God is at
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at the front saying welcome to church and preaching that Sunday and that had an impact.
CONTINUING TO LISTEN
During the pandemic, food parcels were delivered in partnership with local primary schools
delivery as scribed her meal One recipient de a bag”. a “weekly hug in
work and to have greater expectation that God is going to do more. PMC helped me to think about how we want to be a church where people get involved in worship. Our services are very interactive, even our prayers. We ask, “What are we going to pray for today?” and we pray about it. As a church we’ve been growing. When I started, it was a small elderly congregation, whereas now we’re about 75 adults and 40 children and young people. We’ve grown in different ways and part of it is learning from these spiritual practices.
PEOPLE OF PEACE Another key element of PMC is to do things in partnership, with “people of peace”. We’ve come across people in our community who we partner with – continuing long after we finished the PMC journey. A few years ago we heard about people being isolated, and felt God was prompting us. We held a community meeting and asked, “What are your experiences?” Everyone said this is a massive issue. We looked at models for social eating, for people to eat together. And then we asked, “Where should we do it?” The community said, “Let’s do it at your church.” So in June 2017, we launched Bestop Kitchen, a weekly social eating event. It grew from the first week – when we were overwhelmed by 50 people – to gathering 80 or 90 people every week.
During the pandemic we have delivered meals to vulnerable adults – between March 2020 and May 2021, we delivered 9,800 meals, along with food parcels, in partnership with our local primary schools. People have come to Bestop Kitchen and just felt valued, loved and supported. And even with the food deliveries, people have felt cared for. One recipient described the brown paper bag the food came in as her “weekly hug in a bag”.
REFLECTING OUR COMMUNITY
Over the past 18 months, we’ve been encouraging the church to look for opportunities to listen to people. It might be just smiling at someone on the street, saying hello, or it might be a bit deeper, listening and offering to pray with someone. One man, who has been coming for a little while, gets buses everywhere and just asks God, “Who do you want me to encourage today?” One day he was at a bus stop and there was a woman who looked quite sad. He said, “Are you alright?” She burst into tears. She had lost her husband the week before. This man listened to her and said, “I’m really sorry. I’ll be praying for you, that you know that God is with you in your pain.” He wouldn’t describe himself as the most eloquent of people, but that’s God using him. He shared that story, and he said, “Chris, that’s God using me, isn’t it?” It’s been amazing. There’s a phrase, right at the start of the PMC journey: “Be detectives of divinity.” It’s just asking God, “Where are you at work, what are you doing?” And really listening to our communities, trying to serve the need and partnering with others. We’re trying our best to listen. We probably do it quite badly, but we’re just trying to listen.
Our leadership team is really diverse – that’s something we’ve worked on, moving towards being a more diverse church and more intercultural. Our community was changing and our church was growing. And we needed to evolve because our leadership needed to represent that. I don’t necessarily think that because we’ve done PMC we’ve become more diverse – but because of the impact of PMC, of us listening to God and how he’s shaped us, more local families have TRY IT come to join us. We actively looked at how to encourage them to become part of our church council, leadership teams, youth work and so on. Recently a woman whose family joined the church said that when she To find out more about the came through the doors, Partnership for Missional Church there were people who journey and taster events, go to looked like her – as soon as she came through the churchmissionsociety.org/pmc door there was somebody
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ANNUAL REVIEW
A YEAR IN REVIEW 2020–2021 AT CMS Come and see some of the new things you helped us achieve in the 2020–2021 financial year.
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114 MISSION PARTNERS ACROSS 37 COUNTRIES, in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America
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INCOME FROM CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES WILLIAM LEECH TRUST INCOME
ASIA
GIVING FROM CHURCHES AND GROUPS
£214K
£9
Thanks to your prayerful support, CMS people in mission crossed boundaries, forged new paths and shared the love of Jesus around the world. We are so grateful that you have been on this journey with us – we couldn’t do it without you! LATIN AMERICA
OTHER INCOME
INVESTMENT INCOME INCOME FROM TRADING ACTIVITIES
GIVING FROM INDIVIDUALS
TOTAL EXPENDITURE:
£7.4m
For every £1 spent on fundraising, we raised £9.49
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WEEKEND FOCUS Saturday–Sunday 30–31 October
BUILDING WITH GOD ELY
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49 CHURCHES PARTICIPATED
in Partnership for Missional Church online
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64 LOCAL PARTNERS AROUND THE WORLD in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America
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LOCAL PARTNERS
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19 LOCAL PARTNERS
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This is a short summary of the financial year 2020–21. To see more info or the full audited accounts, go to churchmissionsociety.org/annualreport
By Anna and Chris Hembury, who are sharing life with people on the margins in Hull and helping them to connect with themselves, each other, the planet and God Hebrews 3:4 “For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.” (NRSV) I (Chris) was surprised the other day to see one of my work mates strolling across the grass reading the Bible during our tea break. It was actually the same New Testament I had spotted a few months earlier in a run-down caravan on the building site where we were working. I had thought to take it, with a view to handing it on to someone, hopefully in a God-ordained Holy Spirit-filled moment, but for some reason I felt prompted to leave it be. And it seems God was already doing a bit of forward thinking. My work mate shouted over to me, “Hey Chris, what does this mean?” He had started reading the story of the widow’s mite. We read through it together. I offered my thoughts about the widow and my friend offered his about the other characters, with a few expletives. I then aired the idea of taking the Bible and maybe giving it away. “No,” he firmly said, “I am going to keep it in the van.” That felt like a good day’s work. Pray for God to continue to PRAY use Anna and Chris in Holy Spirit-filled moments like this one. 19
1–5 NOVEMBER 2021
Prayerlines
FEATURE STORY
M 1 NOV // NETHERLANDS Mission partner Berdine van den Toren-Lekkerkerker has spent the last 18 months teaching Christian leaders in Africa and Asia via the internet rather than in person. Pray that doors will open again, so Berdine can visit to teach and support students in their context.
T 2 NOV // ISRAEL/PALESTINE Local partner Wilhelm Polikhronidi is the manager of a Christcentred rehab centre in Be’er Sheva, helping former addicts restore their relationship with God and overcome their addictions with his help. Please pray for rehabilitants to grow strong in the Lord and ready for independent and healthy life outside the rehab.
W 3 NOV // NORTH AFRICA Mission partners P and S ask for prayer as they settle into a new context in North Africa. Pray for divine appointments, a long-term home and a good internet connection. Pray for them to stay centred on Jesus in the midst of a disorientating situation.
Th 4 NOV // MIDDLE EAST Local partner N asks for prayer as he and a team run English and computer courses for Muslim women and young people in prison. Pray for God to open doors for the team to share the love of Jesus, and for God to soften people’s hearts so learners are ready to hear.
F 5 NOV // ISRAEL/PALESTINE Mission partner Anne Plested, English teacher and fundraiser at Bethlehem Bible College, asks for prayer for peace with justice and equal rights for all in the Holy Land. Pray for God to amplify peacemakers’ voices, increase their 20 20 influence and use them to effect change.
POST-COLONIAL
PIONEERING? As Church Mission Society launches a new study route focusing on the African Church and its impact as part of our Pioneer Mission Leadership Training, Jenny Muscat from the communications team caught up with Harvey Kwiyani, who will be programme leader for this route. Jenny: What is the new MA route launching this year? Harvey: It’s a Masters focusing on world Christians in Britain, starting with the African diaspora. We bring three modules focused on African Christianity, and African Christianity in the diaspora, together with modules already in the pioneer Masters. Our students get the best of both worlds: to understand Africa and African Christianity better, but also to understand mission and leadership in the UK context better.
Jenny: Can you say something about the context of African diaspora Christianity in the UK? My understanding is it’s pretty vibrant. Harvey: Yes, African Christianity in the UK is the growing part of the Church. If there’s church growth in the UK, it’s mostly the African Church and the African Church is growing because of migration, still, mostly. That also reflects the growing influence of African Christianity in world Christianity. We know that Africa has more Christians than Europe at the
moment and there’s a shift in the centre of gravity. That shift has missiological implications – now Africans have to engage in mission in ways they have not done before. And the growing presence of African Christians in the UK and Europe becomes part of that story of Africans engaging in mission.
Jenny: What excites you about the course? Harvey: Oh, quite a few things. I grew up in Africa, so I know what an empowered African church can do. And therefore, I hope this Masters will help empower and equip the African church in Britain, and that will help in the reevangelisation of Britain. But I’m also excited that we are creating an intentional space within CMS where African and British students can learn together and learn from each other. I believe that theologically, we are always enriched when we have crosscultural discourse. Africans have some things to learn from Europeans and Europeans have some things to learn from Africans. And when we put them in a room together, to learn together, we expect that the conversations that come out of there are going to be very important for the wider body of Christ.
Jenny: Can you tell me a bit about the new modules?
happened in African Christianity. This helps the British students to appreciate that church history is not necessarily European history. And for the African students, it helps them get an identity that connects them back with African Christians. African Pentecostalism is important because chances are, if there is an African church somewhere in your neighbourhood, it’s going to be an African Pentecostal church. If British Christians want to learn about African Christianity, they have to learn about African Pentecostalism. For the African students, that module allows them to again claim their identity and be confident that it’s not wrong to be a Pentecostal. Let’s own this and figure out how this can help us be good evangelists in Europe. Now, to understand African Pentecostalism, you also need to understand African religion. To understand an African, you need to understand the African worldview. And so, the third module, African traditional religion, goes after that question: What makes the African an African? What’s their worldview? What’s their culture? Professor Andrew Walls said, “If you want to learn something about Christianity in the 21st century, you have to know something about Africa.” And I am adding to that, if you want to learn about Africa, you have to learn about African Pentecostalism. And to learn about African Pentecostalism, you also have to understand African traditional religion.
world. That change has happened so fast that we are just beginning to catch up with it. And part of the catching up will be organisations like CMS being intentional about working with the diaspora. So the hope is that with this Masters, putting together Africans and British Christians, we create a movement that will be able to articulate what’s going on for the wider body of Christ. People who will be able to work together across cultures, British and diaspora, to show what mission looks like in the 21st century. We’re hoping to create a movement of post-colonial missionaries who will be able to work across cultures and races. Harvey Kwiyani is a Malawian missiologist and theologian who has lived, worked and studied in Europe and North America for the past 20 years. He has researched African Christianity and African theology for his PhD, and taught African theology at Liverpool Hope University. Harvey is CEO of Global Connections, programme leader for the Africa-focused route of the CMS pioneer MA and founder and executive director of Missio Africanus, a mission organisation established in 2014 as a learning community focused on releasing the missional potential of African and other minority ethnic Christians living in the UK.
Harvey: The modules are African Church history, African Pentecostalism and African traditional religions. African Church history is designed to help both African and British students Jenny: Beyond CMS, what do understand that Christianity has been in you hope might be the impact? Africa for a very long time. Christianity reached Africa before it reached the Harvey: The world of mission is UK. And Africans have been involved in changing. Fifty years ago, a typical mission in Europe before – during the missionary would be a white European LEARN first 600 years of Christianity, one of the working somewhere in Africa. Today, strongest hubs was in North Africa, and a missionary can be anybody from missionaries would come from North anywhere working anywhere in the Africa and work in Europe. The module allows us to go through the 2,000-year To find out more about this pathway and Pioneer Mission history and pick up themes Leadership Training, go to pioneer.churchmissionsociety.org that show the continuity and the changes that
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Banbury
TWOGETHER FOR MISSION!
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This year, Church Mission Society celebrates 222 years(!) of being part of God’s mission in our world. To celebrate, the CMS family have been doing 222-themed activities to raise vital funds for mission.
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n Friday 3 September, several CMS staff set out to walk a combined total of at least 222 miles for mission. Some staff walked an adventurous 27 miles along the canal from Banbury to Oxford, while others walked part of that journey. Between 15 staff members, we reached a total of more than 300 miles and more than £6,500 raised for mission!
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WEEKEND FOCUS We are grateful to Clive, who has celebrated Church Mission Society’s 222nd birthday by taking on a unique fundraising challenge – cleaning and painting 222 church railings!
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faithful supporter of CMS and former mission partner himself, Rev Clive Main, along with his wife Judith and church, St Barnabas, Homerton, has supported CMS mission partners Ben and Katy Ray for many years. Now, he’s getting alongside them in a new, imaginative way as he revitalises the church’s perimeter fence with
a fresh coat of paint. By the time he was 80 railings in, Clive told us that it was tedious work but he was really enjoying the chance to chat with people on the High Street as they passed by. Thanks to the generous support of family and friends, he smashed his target of £1,000 and has raised over £4,500, including Gift Aid. Well done, Clive!
IT’S NOT 222 LATE TO JOIN IN! Could you join our walking colleagues and Clive by completing your own 222 challenge, as we come Two-gether for Mission? Email fun@churchmissionsociety.org for information on how you can get started – Danni would love to help you. Or go to churchmissionsociety.org/fun to request your fundraising pack.
Saturday–Sunday 6–7 November
LAYING DOWN OUR OWN PLANS By R, who is working for a family of four churches in the Middle East involved in various ministries including church planting, outreach, youth and children’s work, discipleship training, prayer events and strengthening local Christian groups Can you think of a time when your plans and God’s plans did not match up? What did you feel? What questions or doubts went through your head? Like many of you, my plans for this year seem to have been derailed. This has been another year of disrupted schedules, messed up plans and many strange happenings, resulting in many questions and some doubts. However, it brings me great comfort and peace to know that instead, God’s good and worthwhile plans are still being fulfilled. God says through the prophet Isaiah: “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8–9 NIV) It is this reality that helps me to rest in the knowledge that God is in control, and I welcome his plans over my own. May we be able to submit to his plans even if that means laying down our own. Pray for R as she continues to lay PRAY down her own plans and rest in the knowledge that God is in control. 23
8–12 NOVEMBER 2021
Prayerlines M 8 NOV // MANCHESTER Lee Higson, pioneer curate who took a module with CMS and is leading a church plant, is passionate about mission and discipleship, and runs a charity that uses kayaking, canoeing, powerboating, survival and bushcraft experiences to connect with men and women living primarily in areas of deprivation. Pray for people to connect with God though this ministry.
ANVIL Journal of Theology and Mission
T 9 NOV // SOUTH LONDON
Sharpen your mission thinking at churchmissionsociety.org/anvil
Pioneer student Hayley Humphreys and her church have a vision to open up their church space as a cafe and community hub, and potentially a project to repair bikes and give them to victims of bike theft. Pray for the team to meet others doing similar work who can offer guidance.
W 10 NOV // UK-WIDE Pray for the online pioneer module Chaplaincy and Contemporary Christian Mission being taught this month. Pray for students to grasp the distinctive ministry of chaplaincy in mission and connect the course content with how God wants to use each of them in their specific situations.
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Th 11 NOV // WORCESTERSHIRE
Pray for the pioneer module Make Good, exploring missional entrepreneurship, being taught next week. Pray for participants to gain the tools they need to take their ideas from concept to the 24 stages of a business plan. initial
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More info at churchmissionsociety.org/events
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F 12 NOV // NORTH DEVON
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Sarah Jayne Hewitt is a DTh research student at CMS and community missioner for Christ Church, Redditch, Worcestershire. She writes, “Please pray that God will shape the community needs assessment I’m undertaking with my new community so areas of pioneering and outreach can be readily identified.”
CMS WALES AND BORDERS ONLINE CONFERENCE
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“GREAT TEACHING – INSPIRING AND ENCOURAGING” For more info contact: Jane Fulford, jane.fulford@btinternet.com
NEW MISSION PARTNERS
MISSION PARTNERS W E N Meet the newest mission partners to join Church Mission Society.
I Christine and David Torrance Location: Kondoa, Tanzania Our call: To contribute to the theological education of local Christians as we experience together discipleship and ministry in Kondoa. Our role: Teaching at Kondoa Bible College, local discipleship and community involvement.
n Kondoa, there is a great need for theological training. We have been invited, and feel called, to be part of meeting that need. This means putting David’s theological training and our shared experience in ministry at the service of the people of Kondoa. We are excited to learn in a vibrant diocese and join in where called. The Diocese of Kondoa, north of Tanzania’s capital Dodoma, is a predominantly Muslim area where the Christian faith is growing rapidly. The Anglican Church has grown from 7,500 in 2012 to nearly 20,000 in the 2019 census. The bishop of Kondoa, Given Gaula, eagerly desires theological training for local Christian leaders to give them a solid basis from which to teach and to make ministry more effective.
W I and S Location: South East Asia Our call: To come alongside people to preach, teach, disciple and help lead them into a transforming encounter with Jesus. Our role: To lead an international congregation and join in local Anglican development work.
e are excited to be called to a Buddhist-majority country in South East Asia, where there is much poverty but also rapid development. It is outstandingly beautiful, with many peoples and languages. While there is an indigenous church, Christians are a persecuted minority and sharing faith is very difficult. We will be leading an international, English-speaking church congregation and will be involved in the local arm of the Anglican Church’s development work. This project has permission from the government to teach English and run a residential programme to improve opportunities for young people.
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Due to local poverty, most Christian leaders in Kondoa either work on a voluntary basis or are paid very little. Leaders who undertake theological training elsewhere often find better paid work and do not return, leaving Kondoa with a diminishing pool of trained Christian leaders. This, along with the local cultural context, means that both new and existing leaders need solid theological training tailored to them. David, with a PhD in theology, has been invited to teach at Kondoa Bible College and looks forward to equipping local theological educators who can in time displace him. We can’t wait to see with our own eyes what God is doing there, and has been doing for many years already.
Our involvement is a vital point of Christian contact with the local community, demonstrating and carrying the good news of Jesus. We both love to disciple people in the Christian faith and to see them equipped to reach out and disciple others. We hope to see members of the international congregation and of the development staff grow in confidence in their faith and be equipped to build relationships with the local people they work with and teach. We long for the Holy Spirit to move, bringing new life. Like CMS, we are called to love and serve people on the edges, to share the good news of Jesus alongside local Christians. We are excited to see what God will do!
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MISSION SPIRITUALITY
By Ian Adams, mission spirituality adviser for Church Mission Society
LOVE IN THE TIME
OF (NOT) BELONGING Who are you? And where do you belong?
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earnings for identity and belonging have been around a long time. In each era and setting these issues take on new characteristics and open up new perspectives. Humans have always seemed to long to belong to a group – perhaps family, community, tribe or nation – finding strength and meaning there. In our own time and context, the desire to recognise and express the self has particularly come to the fore, alongside a new appreciation of how our individual identities have been shaped by the experiences of those who have gone before us. So what might be a Christian approach
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to identity and belonging, and how might this be a gift to us and our world? This is inevitably a complex area, and one that touches on tender issues for many of us, myself included. My prayer is that this brief reflection might act as a helpful starting point in engaging with the questions. It’s clear from the Gospels that Jesus acts from a sense of the dignity and worth of the individual. He sees people and notices individuals in the crowd, particularly the forgotten or those on the edge. He engages with their stories, and calls individuals to follow him. But Jesus also nurtures a disciple community and prepares them for their communal life of prayer and witness. This pattern of God calling both individuals and communities runs through the Old and New Testaments. In his letter to
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the churches of Galatia, the apostle Paul addressed themes of identity and belonging. Their particular issues – notably how Gentile believers might find their place of belonging in Christ and in his community – were of course different to those we face now, but the principles that we find set out by Paul in Galatians 5 may help us in the quest for identity and belonging. And Paul begins with a bold declaration: For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1 NRSV) Paul states that we are made for freedom! Why then should we wish to be, as he puts it using an image common to the time, enslaved? In his context Paul has in mind a particular symbol of identity and belonging – circumcision – and sees reliance on this act by Gentiles as a form of servitude. The only enslavement he is interested in is our service to each other, to the community. To do anything else is, as he puts it, an indulgence.
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Galatians 5:13–14 NRSV) We belong with and to each other. Love for each other must be our goal. And Paul points out how enticing and destructive it is to denigrate the other – to cast doubt on their belonging. If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. (Galatians 5:15 NRSV) How might we live with love for our neighbour? Paul identifies the means for such a life as coming from a renewed sense of our belonging in God, and then living out from that belonging. He calls us to… Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16 NRSV) to reject… quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy (Galatians 5:20b, 21a NRSV) and instead to allow God to shape us for good, and to guide us into a life of tenderness: By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22–23 NRSV)
As we seek to follow Jesus the Christ and find our belonging to him (Galatians 5:24) and with him in God (Colossians 3:3), tenderness towards others must become our practice. This will require us to commit to the prayerful work of letting go of our own priorities, and re-orienting ourselves each moment, each day, each season to Christ. And then to seeking at all times to rediscover our God-given at-oneness with each other, our mutual belonging. In the farewell discourse of John 14–17 the Gospel writer records Jesus as praying for his disciples in this way: That they may be one, as we are one. (John 17:11b NRSV) This is, of course, the sort of bold sentiment that got Jesus executed. Earlier in the discourse Jesus reveals how this at-oneness might be realised: Abide in me, as I abide in you. (John 15:4a NRSV) The gift and challenge of the Christian path is its foundation in the person of Jesus, and our moment-by-moment participation with him in the life of God. Beneath all our human stories here is the bedrock of our identity and belonging. He is the foundation upon which our other belongings and identities can be recognised and lived with tenderness and generosity. Thanks be to God, this may be how we might live and love in the time of (not) belonging.
Images taken by Ian Adams
WEEKEND FOCUS Saturday–Sunday 13–14 November
FOR FREEDOM By Ian Adams, mission spirituality adviser at Church Mission Society This reflection is connected to the article Love in the time of (not) belonging on page 26. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and selfcontrol. Galatians 5:22–23 (NRSV) Paul’s description of a life that is free is beautiful. And this life of freedom always has an outward momentum. It is not just for our benefit, but a gift to those around us, characterised by love for our neighbours – a tender life. Give space today to the fruit of the Spirit described by Paul. Reflect on how these things are taking shape within you at this time. Ask for the grace you need to go deeper into the freedom of Christ. God of grace I pray for a renewal of your freedom in my life; grow this fruit of your Spirit in me; bring me to a new maturity; and so may your Kingdom come and your will be done. In the name of Jesus Amen Email: ian.adams@ churchmissionsociety.org
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15–19 NOVEMBER 2021
Prayerlines
INTERVIEW
M 15 NOV // BRAZIL/UK In the process of moving to the UK, Becky Reid Rodrigues returned in July and it is hoped her Brazilian husband Evaldo will be able to join her after about a year. Pray for Becky as she works in the UK and Evaldo as he continues to advocate for adoption in Recife.
T 16 NOV // PERU After several months in the UK, mission partner Pat Blanchard returned to Lima in July, where she ministers to over 100 children with disabilities and their families with therapies, workshops and pastoral care. Pray for wisdom for the future of the Shalom ministry and the children’s therapy centre.
W 17 NOV // PARAGUAY Mission partner Tim Curtis is working with church leaders in the Chaco, developing study materials and promoting use of the Scriptures. He writes, “Pray for better connectivity and Wi-Fi for indigenous people in the Chaco. At present they are mostly not able to participate in Zoom meetings.”
Th 18 NOV // BRAZIL Mission partners Jimmy and Katia Rocks, sharing Jesus with people through their church, Vineyard Floripa, write that they have a thriving women’s ministry and have launched a men’s ministry as well this year. As men and women find encouragement, accountability and community through these ministries, pray for the church to grow in Christlikeness.
F 19 NOV // PERU Mission partner Anna Sims, currently in the UK on home assignment from her role in prison ministry in Peru, asks for prayer for women who have been released and returned to their passport countries during the last year, that they will continue to adjust and for healing of their relationships with their families, 28 especially with their children.
BACK FOR THE FUTURE CMS’s new director of international mission, Andy Roberts, reflects on relocating from Brazil (where he and his wife founded ReVive, a charity working with vulnerable children) to Britain, making disciples and unlearning colonialism. He shares his hopes for the future for CMS with Naomi Rose Steinberg. What will be the hardest part about moving to the UK? The biggest challenge will be for our family: Rose, my wife, is Brazilian. For her and our kids it will be their first extended time away from our Brazilian family. I’ve lived in Brazil for almost half my life. Maybe I’m too Brazilian now for British tastes?
Why not stay in Brazil? With ReVive, we’ve been lucky to pioneer something that God placed in our hearts. It might be comfortable to stay. But it’s time to pass things to local leadership, which I’m passionate about. And to take on this fantastic role. Even though CMS is 200+ years old, it feels as if something new is happening: with our founding principles in mind, we’re entering a new stage of pioneering.
Speaking of local leadership, in your experience, is there a good model/formula for partnership between Westerners and nonWesterners in mission? We didn’t follow a model, though we’ve seen firsthand what not to do: how ministries can be starved of life by a foreign missionary holding onto control when there are local leaders waiting and willing to take things on. So I wouldn’t say there’s a blueprint, but the foreign missionary has to be willing to share leadership and responsibility. Mission is an interchange.
Are you concerned that you’ve imported a Western model into Brazil? When I first came to Brazil at age 18 I had a white saviour mentality. I remember thinking basically, “These Brazilians are so blessed because I’m coming.” But I didn’t speak the language, I didn’t know the culture. I soon realised I had much to learn, from the street kids and from the local church. Though in material poverty, they were spiritually richer than I was. Coming back to the UK after six months, I was broken. For my next outing to Brazil, I was ready to learn. And I’d met Rose and she helped me. She’d say, “That doesn’t work here, that’s not how you speak to people, that’s not how you run meetings.” I learned organically. And our ministry developed in a less colonial way I hope. But of course, it’s a challenge to evaluate this impartially.
You were young on that first trip, but you aren’t exactly old now. Will this be an advantage or disadvantage in this new job? I am very aware of my youth and my whiteness. I think we’re moving away
from assuming leaders should be older, white, British, male. I am British, but I hope to come with a Latino heart and youthful enthusiasm, including enthusiasm for combatting colonial tendencies that still exist despite great efforts to move past them. For example, there’s increasing focus on working with local partners; we need to ensure this isn’t just rhetoric, that we are truly listening to our global family. I’m hoping my experience of learning to be guest, not host, will translate on a larger scale.
Not to be too provocative, but if, after decades of trying to be less colonial, it’s still a struggle, should we stop sending Westerners? I think God calls people overseas and as disciples of Jesus we should be involved in global and local mission.
Jesus and is making more disciples. And I’d go a step further – a disciple is someone who’s involved in God’s mission. You cannot be a follower of Jesus without understanding that you’re called to mission.
When you look at the global picture, what are some key trends affecting mission? Most foreign missionaries are being sent to nations with a strong Christian presence. Fewer people are going to where it’s harder to be a Christian. CMS is sensing a call to partner with people in spaces with minimal Christian presence. Also, as technology becomes ever more universal, I’m inspired by digital opportunities. I also feel the continuing pull to unlearn colonialism. The Bible doesn’t say God so loved the world that he sent money or signed a contract – he sent himself. So going back to your question, should
“You cannot be a follower of Jesus without understanding that you’re called to mission.” But I recently read about a UK pastor who spent three weeks in India teaching people how to preach. I thought, “What does he know about preaching in an Indian context?” So, we must ask, what is the nature of our involvement? Are we coming from a place where we truly believe God is already at work in another context?
You used the word “disciple”. How much do you think of your role as disciple-making and how can you tell if someone is a disciple? I think everything we do in mission is ultimately about making and building disciples. A disciple loves and follows
we still send people – Jesus sent himself. So we need to do likewise. But the Bible says Jesus emptied himself – we must walk in humility as we go.
PRAY
Pray for Andy in his new role and for him, Rose and the children as they settle into their new home.
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HOW TO...
HOW TO... BUILD A MISSIONAL COMMUNITY By Paul Bradbury, pioneer minister in Poole, Dorset
I lead a small charity called Poole Missional Communities which, since 2008, has been exploring and experimenting in mission among people with little or no background in Christian experience. We talk a lot about missional community as the kind of basic unit of mission in all we do. WHAT IS A MISSIONAL COMMUNITY? Here’s our working definition: Missional Community is a flexible term to describe a group of Christian disciples who form community with a particular missionary purpose. A common commitment to prayer and living out the Christian faith together are the basis for their mission as a community. Mission can be to a particular place, a particular age group or subculture, or around a particular mark of mission e.g. care for environment, social justice. More recently we have sought to describe some of the principles of missional community. Missional community is not really a form but what happens when a group of people intentionally set out to share life and ministry together with a common set of values inspired by the gospel. 30
THE SMALL, WEAK AND UNLIKELY Recently I was reading 1 Samuel 17, the story of David and Goliath, and started to reflect on the connections it was making for me with missional community, particularly in the times we are in. The context of 1 and 2 Samuel is of a significant shift in the life of the people of God as the time of the judges morphs into the era of the Kingdom of Israel. Israel asks for a king, just like all the other nations, and God reluctantly gives them a king. But there is a constant theme of the small, weak and unlikely person being chosen over the strong one who looks like the sort of person a king should be. It is similar with David and Goliath – David, the youngest of all the sons of Jesse, who has already been chosen to succeed Saul, comes against the classic powerful warrior. He rejects the armour of Saul, another rejection of the normative cultural expectations of kingship, and advances on Goliath with nothing but a
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sling and “five smooth stones from the stream”.
DAVID OR GOLIATH? Sam Wells has written on this story, reflecting how the Church in our age continues to think we should be Goliath when really, are we not called to be David? Small, vulnerable, armed with nothing but five small pebbles and a slingshot – and our faith? I believe the Church is being called into a time when it must learn again to trust in the small, the local, the relational and in the rather ordinary business of building connections and being neighbours and loving people in the midst of their lives. We have trusted too much in the big and the flashy, the technique and the enterprise. But the world hungers for authentic human relationship and for an encounter with God that is embodied and trustworthy.
FIVE SMOOTH STONES So what might be the five smooth stones of missional community? Here’s my take: Small – Christian community that is small enough to enable us to be “one another”, to adapt quickly to the changing world around us, to be participative and foster belonging. Slow – Christian community that rejects the accelerating pace of modern life with events and programmes that must always be better and more popular than the last. Community that doesn’t exhaust people, that is humanising and spacious enough for the voice of God to be heard.
Local – Christian community that is local and deeply attentive to its context, not just so that it can respond to a perceived need on its own terms, but so that it can join in with the story of a place and make authentic connections between the life of a community and the good news of the gospel. Simple – Christian community that is earthed in people’s lives, the kitchen table, the back garden, the cafe and the street, that is stripped of all the accumulated hindrances of buildings and staff teams and therefore simple enough to give space for relationships to be the priority. Hospitable – Christian community that is open: open to the leading of the Spirit, to building the Kingdom in partnership with others, to conversation and dialogue as means of doing mission with others, to discipleship as a journey together into which we invite others as co-learners. That’s my take for the moment. It’s a work in progress. This material originally appeared on Paul’s blog at hislightmaterial.wordpress.com
ONLINE
Poole Missional Communities has produced a resource to enable people wanting to form missional community to get started – more information is at poolemc.org.uk/resources
WEEKEND FOCUS Saturday–Sunday 20–21 November
SOMETHING NEW OUT OF SCRAPS By Anna Sims, involved in prison ministry in Lima, Peru, currently on home assignment in the UK Earlier this year, trapped in my flat at the beginning of the incredibly strict lockdown in Peru, I decided to have a go at a patchwork quilt kit. I got a taste for the craft and as the pandemic raged on, I carried on sewing. I relished the order brought to a chaotic stack of fabric through cutting straight lines and making uniform shapes. I love the different stages, the infinite possibilities of fabric scraps, colourways and patterns. My desire is to create something beautiful and coherent out of a mishmash of patterns and colours. The more I make, the more God speaks to me through the process, gently whispering to me through the rough edges about the hidden and the celebrated, through the layers of pretty fabric and coarse but necessary wadding. He speaks to me of creating new things out of old scraps. Creating new things that have wonky lines or scars from the needle. He reveals final products that don’t look how I imagined them. I give thanks to our loving creator who continues to transform us into something new and beautiful, no matter how many wonky bits we are in when we come to him.
Pray for God to use Anna’s PRAY time in the UK for restoration and to make something new out of what she offers to him. 31
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Prayerlines M 22 NOV // JORDAN “Please pray for Joel’s work helping facilitate one of the online Bishops’ Conversations in advance of the Lambeth Conference,” write mission partners Fiona and Joel Kelling, who are working to support and strengthen Christian communities across the Middle East. Pray also for the church and community mobilisation work Joel is coordinating between the Diocese of Jerusalem and Tearfund.
T 23 NOV // EGYPT Mission partners Joe and Sarah, serving with an Episcopal school in Egypt, ask for prayer for Christian colleagues to be witnesses to Christ through their love and care for the students, around 90 per cent of whom come from the majority religion.
W 24 NOV // SPAIN/N AFRICA A couple serving in Spain and North Africa, sharing Christ with everyone, especially Muslim people, ask for prayer for wisdom to disciple their children in the love of the Lord. Please pray for wisdom as the family continues to work around changing travel restrictions as well.
Th 25 NOV // THE BASQUE COUNTRY Local partner Daniel Scott has sold over 1,000 copies of his book of poetry in the Basque language, Euskaldun, sharing the good news with many people. Pray for this book to continue to reach people with the gospel, and for local people to take charge of the church following Daniel’s return to his home country of Argentina.
F 26 NOV // LEBANON Local partner Tamar Dawood is a youth leader who hosts and produces videos that tell young refugees’ powerful stories of how God has revealed himself to them and changed their lives. Pray for God to use these touching stories to draw more 32 to him. people
STAFF UPDATE CHURCH MISSION SOCIETY STAFF AND PEOPLE IN MISSION CHANGES CMS STAFF CHANGES WELCOME TO:
Andy Roberts, director of international mission (September); Tina Hodgett, South Central Regional Training Partnership pioneer hub facilitator (September); Harvey Kwiyani, programme leader on Africa-focused route through pioneer MA.
FAREWELL TO:
Joanna Barrington, communications and social media assistant (August); Catriona Brickel, individual fundraising lead (September); Steve Burgess, regional manager for Africa (September) (see page 14).
PEOPLE IN MISSION CHANGES
previously served for 11 years with SAMS in Chile and Argentina. Andrew and Maria Leake in Argentina have ended as mission partners after 22 years of service, as Andrew begins to work full time for Compassion International. They are however remaining with CMS as mission associates. Andy and Rose Roberts with Sofia and Julia in Brazil have ended as mission partners so that Andy can take up the role of director of international mission at CMS (see page 28). Andy and Rose founded ReVive International, working with vulnerable children in Recife through safe houses and developing fostering possibilities, and ran training for others looking to start such projects.
MISSION PARTNERS ENDING SERVICE:
NEW MISSION PARTNERS:
David and Shelley Stokes are retiring after 11 years serving in northern Argentina, David training church leaders and Shelley working with AMARE (women’s organisation affiliated with Mothers’ Union). They have worked particularly, though not exclusively, with the Wichi people. This has been their second period in Latin America; they
Lea and Petra Williams with Olivia and Ted are beginning service in Brno in the Czech Republic, one of the most secular countries in Europe. Their role will be to lead the Anglican congregation in Brno and develop a vibrant Christian community where people can explore faith, meet Jesus and grow as disciples.
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BOOK REVIEW
STORIES THAT WILL STIR YOUR SOUL… John and Olive Drane review Pioneer Practice, the latest book from Jonny Baker, director of mission education at Church Mission Society.
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eople often say you should never judge a book by its cover. Well, this one might be an exception, because the cover tells the story of the contents rather effectively – a lonely figure wandering along a halfmade road through a landscape full of both promise and potential danger. This image just about sums up what the book is about. We live in a culture that is indeed full of enormous promise, as people look for new ways to live with whatever the “new normal” might look like. Yet this is
with stories of what pioneers (many also a challenging space in which to of them graduates of CMS’s Pioneer share the good news of Jesus in ways Mission Leadership Training) are that will connect with the hopes and doing in different contexts. There is an fears of today’s people. abundance of advice on practical issues Pioneers can easily be for would-be pioneers, along with an misunderstood even by other honesty and realism that reflects the missionally-minded Christians, as difficulties as well as the joys of working they generally find themselves called with God in spaces where no church has to inhabit cultural territory that can ever gone before. Stories that will stir seem intimidating and alien. The first your soul sit alongside reflections about page of the book describes pioneers what can be learned from enterprises as those who “have a gift of not fitting that have come to nothing. And it’s in” while questioning the usefulness of all wrapped up in a visually attractive “business as usual” – not because they package. Get yourself a copy – even if are dismissive of established forms of your calling is completely different, you church and mission, but because they will certainly learn something helpful dream of what might be rather than and be blessed by reading it. mourning the loss of what once was. They are fired by the knowledge that God is not confined by our defeatism. On the contrary, God is already at work John and Olive Drane are mission theologians in ways that often surprise us and and practitioners who share a passion for a invariably look different to anything radical approach to Christian discipleship. most of us can imagine. Pioneers are They have worked extensively with Christians of many different traditions all around the called into this territory, to be partners world. in whatever the Spirit is up to. That can all sound exciting and inspirational, but what does it look Pioneer Practice is available like on the ground? That is where this from getsidetracked.co for £13. book comes in,
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COMMUNITY NEWS DEATHS OF FORMER STAFF AND MISSION PARTNERS JULY 2020 Dr Anne Philips (Nigeria and Sierra Leone 1954–93) AUGUST 2020 Dr Ann Rowntree (Uganda 1968–76) Desiree Warner (India 1960–69)
WEEKEND FOCUS Saturday–Sunday 27–28 November
SEND US A PRAYER We invite you to write to us with a prayer request and we will count it our privilege to pray for you: info@churchmissionsociety.org
M 29 NOV // MADAGASCAR Please pray for the Diocese of Toliara, a very young diocese created in 2013. Pray for more integrated and holistic discipleship, for God to raise up new leaders and for local partner Florent Lahitody as he coordinates discipleship programmes and equips Christian leaders to disciple others.
T 30 NOV // SOUTH AFRICA Caroline and Dick Seed, training Bible teachers through George Whitefield College, ask for prayer for the development of Theological Education Development Services as it moves into a closer relationship with the college and expands the range and scope of its training. Pray for the Lord to raise up suitably qualified people to take this work forward.
SEPTEMBER 2020 Dr Allan Bapty (Rwanda and Burundi 1954–63) Kathleen Richards (Sudan 1952–54, CMS staff 1967–76) Joyce Smith (Uganda 1964–72) Marjorie Toward (Sudan 1951–60) OCTOBER 2020 Margaret Beaver (India 1952–71, CMS staff: candidates secretary 1973– 81 and personnel secretary 1981–86) Rev Geoffrey Charrett (Uganda, 1960s) Jill Singyard (Burundi and Rwanda 1966–90) NOVEMBER 2020 Rev Gordon John Hansford (Hong Kong 1968–77) Norma Westlake (Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda 1957–77, 1982–89) John Lawson Whitlock (Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya 1956–74) DECEMBER 2020 Rt Rev Patrick Harris (SAMS Argentina 1963–80, then President of SAMS) Eleanor May Jago (Uganda and Nigeria 1962–72) Joan Peaston (Pakistan 1969–79)
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Michael Perrins (Pakistan 1961–64) JANUARY 2021 Gavin Barr (CMS staff 1986–94) Joanna Butler (Sierra Leone 1973–77) Muriel Janet Evans (Uganda 1954–72) Rev James Robert McManus (India 1964–79) FEBRUARY 2021 Dr Marguerite Ackroyd (von Bergen) (Burundi and Rwanda 1959–76) Rev Pam Cooper (Japan 1967–2008) Grace Lillingston (Webster) (Nigeria 1968–84) MARCH 2021 Muriel Ann Found (Bull) (India 1954–63) Dr Lena Partridge (India and Nigeria 1954–69) APRIL 2021 Rev Pippa Soundy (CMS office volunteer) Joyce Wood (Kenya 1949–72) MAY 2021 Madge Quinn (Mission associate, Uganda 1960s–90s) Rev John Self (Pakistan 1976–92) JUNE 2021 Iris Poulton (Uganda 1955–66) JULY 2021 Jonathan Pinhey (Pakistan 1961–63) Jennifer Stutley (Clark) (Burundi 1974–77)
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To find out more about our people in mission go to:
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PLACES WHERE WE ARE PUTTING OUR CALL INTO ACTION 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.
Argentina Belgium Bolivia Brazil Britain Burundi Cambodia Central African Republic Chile Colombia Czech Republic DR Congo Ecuador Egypt Ethiopia Germany Guatemala Honduras India Indonesia Israel/Palestine Jordan Kenya Lebanon Malawi Malaysia Mozambique Moldova Nepal Netherlands Nigeria Pakistan Paraguay Peru Philippines Romania Rwanda South Africa South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Uganda Ukraine Uruguay
YOU CAN HELP MORE PEOPLE BECOME FOLLOWERS OF JESUS. GIVE TO CMS TODAY
Ashamed, abused and feeling worthless, Chinda hated working in the sex industry. But her children’s education and vital medicine to pay for, she could see no way out. Yet CMS local partner Helen saw her. Not as a sex worker, but as a beloved child of God in need of a friend. By providing for her basic needs, encouraging Chinda to learn new skills and, most importantly, introducing her to Jesus, Helen showed Chinda the way to a new life. With your faithful support, local partners like Helen will be able to reach more people in need of a friend. Give to CMS this harvest and together we can reveal the truth of Jesus’ love to people who don’t yet know he’s for them.
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