How do our mobilisers seek to share opportunities to serve in Africa with local churches and individuals?
Working together
Life for me as a mobiliser, over the autumn months, was varied, maybe a little chaotic, but certainly full of worthwhile people to see and things to do that work together as we seek to encourage the church and individuals to find their place in the Great Commission.
Through my contacts with UCB Radio we’ve been asked to put together a series of 21 one minute broadcasts about cross-cultural mission with AIM. Time has been spent in putting together the plan and outlines for this, and more recently putting together the audio files ready to broadcast in January.
United Christian Broadcasters
We have a story to tell, and we’d love to tell it to those Christians who wouldn’t normally have an opportunity to hear. It’s an urgent, dramatic and exciting story of what God is doing through our involvement in so many different aspects of mission throughout Africa. And it’s the story of how the church in the UK is partnering with us to see Christ-centred churches among all African peoples.
Through a new partnership with UCB Radio we are able to share this story through a series of 21 broadcasts, hearing from many different people involved with AIM which will give a real life insight to the world of cross-cultural mission.
It’s an opportunity for UCB listeners and others online, who are unaware of AIM, to be encouraged, challenged and, we hope, inspired to find a way to be involved in the Great Commission’s aim to make disciples of all peoples. Including those who have no opportunity to hear the gospel unless someone goes to them and tells them the good news about Jesus Christ.
You can enjoy the story as it’s broadcast on UCB and through www.aboutafrica.org.uk where the story will be enlarged with additional resources and information.
November is the season for the University Christian Union Global Missions tours, put on in partnership with UCCF and the regional Mission Agencies Partnerships (MAPs). My involvement is with Central and North West/East MAPs and, as well as helping to put together the event workshops, I’ve been the speaker at quite a number. I also chair the Central MAP just now and we’ve been looking how we can better engage with local churches.
Getting the balance
Staff meetings happen three or four times each year in Nottingham for three days and are good opportunities to meet, talk, pray together and work out our strategy for the future.
I’m looking forward to leading a Church weekend in Nottingham in February – and will be preparing early to get the right balance of activity and talks that hold together and give a weekend that’s enjoyable and memorable for the right reasons, and that encourage a greater and deeper engagement with mission.
November also saw a week at the FIEC leader’s conference. A great way to network with church leaders and whilst there I was interviewed about world mission and how local mission is not enough. The interview is available on the FIEC website. (https://fiec.org.uk/news/article/why-overseas-mission)
And then, there are debriefs with short and long term missionaries, hearing their lows and highs, what they’ve learned and how these are helping them form future plans; talking with new missionaries as they plan and prepare to go on first assignments; keeping in touch with serving missionaries and recently retired ones and working with a number of new candidates as they go through the application process; preaching about mission on a number of Sundays in places stretching from Ross-on-Wye to Blackburn; and writing articles like this for Connect.