FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION

MARK THOMPSON, PRINCIPAL

When Thomas Moore, the boat-builder turned pastoralist and magistrate, left in his will both property and money to establish a college, he had in mind the training of a new generation to live and serve as disciples of Christ.

He was deliberately providing for the education of ‘Protestant youth’, who would participate in the spread of the gospel in a land far away and very different from his homeland. Moore died in 1840 but the college he envisaged did not open its doors (on his property in Liverpool) until 1856.

Our generation is the beneficiary of those who in past generations attended Moore’s College both as teachers and students. Each generation in this college has wanted those who follow them to be better prepared and more effective than they have been in reaching the country and the world with the gospel, and nurturing in faith those who have already heard. The great commission which Jesus gave the apostles just prior to his ascension has always found an echo in all we do at Moore College: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you’ (Matt 28:19–20).

The simple fact is, though, that each generation faces new challenges that could not have been anticipated by those who went before them. Those first three students at Liverpool, meeting with William Cowper (the first Principal, William Hodgson, did not arrive in the colony until months after the College had opened), could hardly have imagined a world war (let alone two), a national government, the technological advance and social disintegration of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the devastation of the Spanish influenza pandemic in 1919 or that of COVID-19 almost exactly a hundred years later. The world is very different from what it was in 1856. So is Australia. So too are we as ordinary Christian people seeking to follow ‘all that [Jesus] commanded’ the first apostles.

What will the next generation face? As I write this, we are in the middle of the pandemic. None of us have experienced, or could really have imagined, this kind of dislocation, and the widespread fear and anxiety that goes with it. I don’t know when this will end. I don’t know what will have changed forever when this does end. How will months of social distancing, enforced online education and business meetings, affect us in the long-term? The last fifty years or so have seen one government decision after another slowly unpicking the social fabric we have taken for granted for centuries. When such an event as this pandemic comes on the back of such deep and dramatic change in how we see ourselves and how we organise ourselves, what will be the consequences?

Yet it is at precisely this point that we can have tremendous confidence in the gospel of the crucified and risen saviour. That gospel is, as it always has been, the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1:16). The context in which it is proclaimed keeps changing — it has for over two thousand years — but the content of what is proclaimed remains the same. So when the pandemic is over, we will still be doing all we can to make known who Jesus is and what he has done. We will still be calling ling people to take hold of forgiveness and new life, to repent and believe. We will still be looking forward to that day when all l the brokenness we have experienced will be done away with forever. And we will need more and more people to do that in a world where that brokenness has been out in the open and has shaken the shallow confidence we once had in ourselves.

The next generation of gospel The next generation of gospel workers — wonderful men and workers — wonderful men and women who will give themselves women who will give themselves to go anywhere at anytime to to go anywhere at anytime to share with anyone the announcement and summons of announcement and summons of the gospel — will need to know the gospel — will need to know God deeply. It will not be enough God deeply. It will not be enough to pass on what we have heard to pass on what we have heard from others. We will need to be from others. We will need to be able to show by our lives that we able to show by our lives that we have been with Jesus. The next have been with Jesus. The next generation will need to know generation will need to know what God has made known to us what God has made known to us in his word with both a depth and in his word with both a depth and clarity that means they can share clarity that means they can share it with bewildered and anxious it with bewildered and anxious neighbours and friends. They will neighbours and friends. They will need to know how to think about need to know how to think about life and discipleship and ministry life and discipleship and ministry in a way that is directed by God’s in a way that is directed by God’s word and eff ectively intersects word and eff ectively intersects the lives of those they seek to the lives of those they seek to reach for Christ. They will need reach for Christ. They will need to love those entrusted to their care by walking alongside them and sharing with them the most important news they could ever hear.

Moore College keeps growing and that requires both a nimble flexibility (in the light of changed circumstances) and tenacious faithfulness (in the light of an unchanging gospel). We are about preparing gospel workers not just for this moment in time but for the years to come. What I call a deep, broad and sustained immersion in the word of God, in the context of a loving, learning fellowship, and in vital partnership with local churches, must remain at the centre of what we do. It is critical. This generation too wants the next to be better prepared and more effective than we have ever been. So we must think and plan, not just for the next five years but for the next fifty.

We want to see Thomas Moore’s dream realised in ways he could never have imagined. We want to see our graduates in every corner of the world speaking about Jesus and living out among different groups of people a life of humble, faithful discipleship. We want to see them as instruments of the living God, who are equipped and eager to play their part in God’s great plan of being all things under the feet of Jesus. Then it will be their turn to look to the generation to follow and prepare them to do so the same — until Jesus returns in glory.