Tasmania to the world
CMS Tasmania director Scott Sargent is excited about new workers offering to serve with CMS. Here he invites us to share his joy in building partnership with new CMS missionaries.
When I began as State Director of CMS Tasmania in November 2016 we only had one missionary unit deployed to the nations, a family serving in South East Asia. This year that doubled to two units as we deployed another worker to South Asia. A few months ago our small branch received the news that a third unit have been accepted by both our branch and CMS Australia as workers-in-training. They are a couple who (God willing) will move to Cambodia after their St Andrew’s Hall training next year.
In the middle of all this excitement I’m very aware of the challenge of raising support for this gospel work, as well as renewed thinking about the nature of partnership.
In my private devotions I have been slowly working through one of my favourite letters, Philippians, where Paul writes, “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1:3-6)
All gospel ministry is a partnership, and long-term cross-cultural mission is no exception. ‘Partnership in the gospel’ lies at the centre of all that CMS and its workers do.
How partnership works
Partnership is between the CMS branches all around Australia who promote global mission and raise up future workers, and CMS Australia who train, place and care for them when they are deployed on a term of service. That partnership is also between workers and branches, and the churches that both send and link with those workers, and individual supporters who enable their ministry to occur.
The partnership between the branch and worker, and their supporters (both churches and individuals) runs two ways. The workers bless their link churches and supporters by encouraging them to think about how they can be more missional locally, and by giving them the opportunity to pray for and give towards global mission. In turn the churches and supporters bless the workers by cheering them on, praying for them and giving so that they can go to the nations.
In the case of CMS Tasmania, having new workers offering for service is wonderful. However, this will also see our annual quota (the money we as a branch send forward to CMS-A so that workers can deploy and stay on location) roughly triple in less than four years!
We need your prayers
More than ever, we need both the prayers of the whole CMS fellowship, and people who will partner with CMS Tasmania by giving sacrifically, generously and gladly so that we can annually meet our obligations to fund our gospel workers.
Just as Paul daily thanked God for those who partnered with him in his gospel ministry, the workers and staff of CMS ‘thank God every time we remember you…praying with joy because of your partnership (with us) in the gospel’, as you pray, care and give to those who go in Jesus’ name and power to the ends of the earth for a world that knows Jesus. You can see this partnership reflected on Day 31 of the CMS Prayer Diary, where we ask all supporters to give thanks for the involvement of the wider CMS fellowship.
Give
You can support CMS missionaries by contacting your local branch (see back page for details), or by going to www.cms.org.au/give and specifying where you want your support to go.
