appreciated. I can never thank you enough for all the conversations, the loving hugs, the friendly smiles... and for all the laughter.”

Signing up for a Christianity Explored course, a Turkish student said, “You hear bad things about every religion, but you don’t hear anything bad about Jesus, so I want to find out about him.”

Neither of these students has become a Christian (yet), but they’ve certainly been impacted as we’ve sought to live out the love of Christ. We pray that God continues to soften their hearts and open their minds.

Through conversations with Andrew, local Christian pastors are now exploring beginning a Langham preaching program with both French and English streams. This would strengthen Bible teaching and preaching in local churches as well as the student groups.

We’re learning, afresh, that God often uses who we are, not just what we do, to bring glory to himself. Paul’s words to the Thessalonians describe a ministry of influence: ‘We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well…’ (1 Thessalonians 2:8).

Throughout the Bible God’s plan has always been that his people are to be a blessing to the nations; that we’re called to reflect Christ as we live as his disciples in the world. Especially in Lausanne.

The Right Measure of Success

CMS VICTORIA630 MITCHAM RD MITCHAM, 3132

03 9894 4722PO Box 2150

RANGEVIEW, 3132vic@cms.org.au

cms.org.au/vic

Mission

Sometimes we feel like failures as missionaries. We’ve been excited by two students becoming Christians, but

isn’t success also about growing numbers of people coming to events, joining the team or turning to Christ?

After three years we still don’t have a team of locals involved and we’re aware of more obstacles than solutions.

But God works in ways we don’t expect. He simply wants us to be faithful in trusting and serving him. It’s important to remind ourselves that it’s his role to draw people to himself and to bring about change.

“ ...God simply wants us to be faithful in trusting and serving him...”Our ministry is more about being faithful, available witnesses than about establishing a ministry in the way we imagined. And that takes time: to build relationships of trust, to understand cultural differences, for people to begin to think outside their usual ways of doing things.

If faithfulness is more God’s yardstick of success, then perhaps there is something to show for the last three years.

A Swiss-Brazilian student recently wrote to us, “When I came to iCafé I was so lonely. You guys made me feel welcomed and

Victoria

Andrew and Claire Livingstone serve in Lausanne, Switzerland, with the GBEU (Groupes Bibliques des Ecoles et Universités) training leaders who work in Lausanne and across Europe. Claire writes:

The Right Measure of Success

New Faces for SUTS 2016

Mission - not a Zero-Sum Game

Cross-Cultural Mission on the

Doorstep

Service to Others

The Back Page

Branch Matters

September 2015 Vol 9 No 8

Andrew and Claire Livingstone with other

GBEU workers

Mission - not a Zero-Sum GameEditorialPeople

Some people think of mission as a zero-sum game. A kind of Darwinian competition for resources between

home and away. We think in terms of a competition for scarce resources – both human and material.

Christ said, ‘Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.’ (John 4:35-36).

In God’s gospel economy there’s no competition between reapers and sowers, they all contribute to God’s eternal harvest.

“ ...should be no competition between mission at home and abroad ...”Likewise there should be no competition between mission at home and abroad. But often there is.

John Harris’ We Wish We’d Done More laments the old CMS emphasis on sending the best and most linguistically able missionaries overseas, causing a loss of both language and cultural translation for indigenous mission.

Strategic decisions are needed to keep gospel priorities while working within material poverty both at home and abroad – in Jerusalem and in Samaria.

The parish of Yarraville which I lead two days a week, based at St. Mark’s Spotswood, is small (c. 50) and poor materially but has greatly gifted and giving people.

“ ... put everything on a mission footing ...”On my arrival as locum, a Mission Strategy Group put everything on a mission footing. With an ageing congregation and two Op Shops which looked like closing, we were going broke quick.

We started budgeting without the Op. Shops, knowing they’d close soon, but kept our links with CMS, supporting

Steve and Jenny Sonneman in Pakistan, and now Luke and Jane in East Asia.

Their communications, and former missionaries with Interserve, CMS and TEAR have kept mission-mindedness alive for us, locally. We became a sending church, sending key people to mission to overseas students and Aborigines.

In our changing multi-cultural area, we sold St. Paul’s Church, Kingsville, to the Antiochean Orthodox Church who had hitherto paid a peppercorn rent.

“... reconnecting to a younger demographic ...”Our Makeover for Mission process is reconnecting to a younger demographic through building on our double-tennis courts (1950s C of E recreational mission) to provide a child-care centre with 130 children (plus families) attending every day.

That now brings in $130,000 per annum, some of which will go to indigenous mission as a pay-the-rent-gesture. The church building will be doubled to accommodate our 300 beautiful Burmese (Chin) Baptist refugees.

Although some said we were entitled to 90% of the church sale, we decided there were places further west than us, like the Karens at Werribee, that needed their own makeover for mission. So we took 60% of the proceeds with the proviso that, if we were short for our project, we could reclaim some of that gift.

And when, inevitably, we found we were short - God provided $200,000!

“ ... we don’t have a zero-sum God. ...”This is like 2 Corinthians 8-9. God’s abundant grace and generosity stimulated poor Macedonians and better-off Corinthians to help the poor Jerusalem mother-church from whom they’d received much.

Local and overseas mission is not a zero-sum game, because we don’t have a zero-sum God.

Rev Gordon Preece is an international leader in workplace theology. He is a prolific writer, as author/editor of 11 books—most recently editing Bonhoeffer Down Under (with Ian Packer) and is currently writing a book on money and possessions.

He is chief editor of Zadok Perspectives, as well as minister at Yarraville Anglican Parish.

2015 has been enormously significant in CMS Tasmania’s history. The question of merging with CMS Victoria has been on the agenda for some time. However, in May CMS Tasmania’s members voted unequivocally not to merge but to remain as CMS Tasmania.

Under the new leadership of Rev Rob Stanley, the Branch Council will be seeking a new State Director after Sam Chidamber leaves to take up a church pastoral role in Queensland.

CMS Victoria staff will continue to provide administrative services to our colleagues in Tasmania.

Meet two new members of the team who will bring you Summer Under The Son 2016.

New Faces at SUTS

Sam Sinclair has joined the staff team to assist Will Thiel with directing the SUTS Youth Camp. Sam has been involved with

Tasmania Remains a Separate CMS Branch

Shamilla Thiruganaselvam is the new SUTS Kids Ministry Director. She moved from Hong Kong to Australia three years

RAFT youth group for six years and has a senior position on their team under Stu Asquith. Sam is currently studying a communications degree at Deakin.

ago with her husband Lawrence and their four children. Originally they are from Malaysia. She has a corporate background but has a passion for kids ministry. She is involved at Clayton Church of Christ.

Mission

Cross-Cultural Mission on the DoorstepService to Others

The beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya in February sharply awoke us to the reality of

what it means for so many in this world to answer Jesus’ call to take up their cross and follow him (Matt 16:24).

Faced with such opposition it is easy to be tempted to give up; however, we do not lose heart. In the midst of hostility God remains in control, drawing people to himself. That was the clear message shared by CMS workers at the Young Adult Winter Dinner in August.

They challenged all who were present to be willing to invest in long-term ministry in dangerous places. We must go to dangerous places, for there live the gospel poor, where access to the good news of Jesus is lowest; and we must make the long-term investment in people who are willing to learn the language and culture and build deep relationships.

What are the signs of hope? New media technologies are opening doors in places otherwise closed to the gospel. “Each month over 70,000 people visit our partner’s evangelistic website, from all over the Middle East,” they told us.

One man went to great lengths, flying internationally, in search of a Bible and someone to explain it to him; while another – a high profile Muslim television personality – is using the evangelistic website to find out more about what Christians believe in order to advocate for the minority Christian communities in his country.

“It was encouraging to celebrate the work that God is doing, despite it being hard,” remarked one guest.

Young adults are key to CMS Victoria’s vision of raising up more workers for cross-cultural missionary service. Events like the Winter Dinner bring young adults together allowing them to connect with CMS missionaries and engage with world mission.

If you would like more information about future events, please contact Iain Payne (ipayne@cms.org.au)

Go Where it’s Hard

Our region has many people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds including migrants, refugees and backpackers. I had contact socially and through church with people from different cultures but wanted to know how to take that further, how to be more purposeful in mission locally.

“ ... the world was coming to our area, I didn’t have to leave home to mix with people from different nations ...”The world was coming to our area, I didn’t have to leave home to mix with people from different nations, but how to connect and share Jesus’ story and his love in appropriate and respectful ways? How to encourage our church to be involved?

“ ... I joined the MentAC program ...”CMS has the skills, knowledge and experience in cross-cultural ministry and I wanted to see how we could tap into that and apply it in the local church. So I joined the MentAC program. Participating in the Living Faiths subject at Ridley and the In Culture class at St Andrew’s Hall has provided a vast amount of background information and new ways of thinking about culture.

For eight weeks in summer, with support from L, we started an English Conversation Group for backpackers, sharing a meal, English activities and a Bible story. Because of their experience hosting previous English Class students many people from the church became involved in the Conversation Group.

MentAC has helped me to know what questions to ask, of myself and others, in order to understand more about our different world views and to share God’s amazing gift of life and love. I am eager to see where God will take us next with local cross-cultural ministry.

Our local church in Mooroopna has a long connection with CMS, particularly through Inpa

and Vana Eliezer, our link missionaries.

In 2009 my husband Andrew and I finally got to our first Bendigo CMS Autumn Weekend. Listening to talks by David Williams over the weekend we wondered if we could do short-term mission work - some time in the distant future. To our surprise, just five months later we found ourselves flying into Phnom Penh, Cambodia to take on a team leader role and to train carers for children with disabilities.

When we returned home after three months, we felt we needed to learn more about the Bible, theology, mission and other cultures.

But it was not until we attended our first Summer Under The Son in 2011 and heard L describe his work with MentAC and the English class at St Paul’s Cathedral that our way ahead became clearer.

“ ... bringing several groups of students to be hosted for a weekend by our church ...”Discussion with L resulted in him and I bringing several groups of students to be hosted for a weekend by our church.

Through these visits people within our church have become more understanding about other cultures and more open to people different from themselves.

Andrew and Faye Guyatt are long-term CMS supporters. Faye is an occupational therapist working in paediatrics, while Andrew is skilled in business management.

They are deeply involved in cross-cultural mission right where they live in rural Victoria. Faye writes:

A country weekend

Missionary Care Fellowship At Holy Trinity Church, 106 Church Road (corner Doncaster Road), Doncaster. Wednesday 9 September.

Guest speaker: tba

Come at 10 am for morning tea before the meeting. Contact: Lynn Pryor

The back page

Giving Electronically

Three easy ways to give to CMS:

Direct Credit: Westpac BSB 033-112 Account 280677 Put the name of the fund or missionary in the transaction description field - and don’t forget to put your name in as well so that we can thank you!

Direct Debit: Go to www.cms.org.au/vic/give/directdebit, download the form, complete and send it to the office.

Credit Card: go to give.cms.org.au and follow the prompts. We pay a fee on each transaction with this option.

Year to date Actual Budget Difference

(as at 31 July) $000s $000s $000s

Donations 131 119 12

Other Income* 13 6 7

Total 144 125 19 *Bequests, grants, investment income and net income from events

1MPG (First Monday Prayer Group) At the CMS Office, 630 Mitcham Rd, Mitcham. Monday 7 September, 12:30pm Contact: Hugh Prentice 9014 0968.

Monthly Financial Update - July 2015

Here are the figures from the end of July which show how CMS Victoria is travelling financially.

Please pray for all aspects of the mission of which you are part, for God’s provision through his people and for lasting rewards in Gospel ministry.

Note - figures are provisional.

Annual General Meeting 2pm Saturday 7 NovemberAt All Saints’ Church, 18 Edward Street, Mitcham. A great opportunity for all members of CMS to hear a full report on mission and ministry and enjoy afternoon tea.

Spring Dinner is on 12 September, 2015 starting at 6:30pm at Mitcham Baptist ChurchYou are invited to join and celebrate God’s goodness to CMS and hear about what God is doing through women in the Muslim world. Our guest is a CMS worker, St Andrew’s Hall teacher, co-founder of MentAC and Co-Senior Associate for Islam with the Lausanne Movement.

$35 per person or $250 per table of eight for three Course Buffet Meal

For more information go to cms.org.au/vic/springdinner or contact the office: vic@cms.org.au | (03) 9894 4722

Tickets are limited and close Wednesday 9 September

Summer Under The Son 2016 Wednesday 13 to Saturday 16 January

SUTS Super Early Bird is open on 1 September

Bible studies with Glenn Davies, Archbishop of Sydney and special guest, Greg Anderson, Bishop of Northern Territory. Missionary presentations from Andrew & Dom Gifford, Andrew & Claire Livingstone and others.

SUTS Youth Camp 2016 @ CYC, Phillip Island: Monday 10 - Saturday 16 January

www.summerundertheson.org