Want to see your church experience a deepened understanding of Christ and His call on our lives? Ready to be invigorated as you learn from others’ journeys, and seek to give without expecting anything in return? By Rob Lutton

UnitingWorld is on this every journey: discovering how genuine partnerships that are connecting communities in Australia with those overseas, is genuinely transforming lives and entire churches. It’s as simple – and profound – as focusing on others, learning new ways of doing church and seeking to give expression to the Kingdom of God in places near and far.

1. Being Other-Centred

A key longing of any Minister or church leader is to instill within the people of faith a focus upon those outside the Church and to equip them for this task. This is of course Christ’s calling on us: to love as he loved… to give as he gave… to go to others as he came to us. In the last 15 years, some leaders have viewed global mission as a distraction from the local task.

But, refreshingly, mission in local and global forms is again being celebrated as one of the primary core values of the church. Indeed, new leaders are actively looking for an integration of the local and the global as they engage the biblical framework afresh. When an Australian community has a deep, mutually enriching partnership with an international partner church, it has the potential to breathe into their culture a wonderful other-centredness.

There is a commitment to the partner church and the issues they face, with no view to a “return on investment”. We love as Christ loves.

2. Exposure to New Ways of Being

Related to this other-centredness is the change in us that comes from close connection. Some years ago as a Pastor, I led a shortterm team to Papua New Guinea.

We found that even though the Papuans lived in a context of great simplicity and poverty, they were fi lled with amazing happiness. As a team, we grappled with the need to be more relational in our approach to life and witness and considered whether our thankfulness for the gospel was diminished due to our materialism.

We took these challenges back to our church in Australia and saw many lives, and indeed the culture of the church, signifi cantly impacted. Australian culture has become so diverse that a one-size-fi ts-all approach to mission can no longer cut it.

As Australian churches, we have the opportunity to learn from our partner churches overseas: to discover and integrate their creative approaches to witnessing and bringing justice and peace.

3. Intentionally Living the Acts 1:8 Vision

Most Australian churches embrace the Acts 1:8 call to do mission to those in our own culture (Jerusalem), those somewhat different in culture and social standing (Judea) and to people of very different cultural expressions (Samaria). We sink a lot of time, money and energy into this call.

But it’s the ‘ends of the earth’ bit that can get us stuck. We’re happy to give to a bit here and there, but if a mission worker from our church is fi nishing their time in a particular country, then our giving and praying for that cultural group often ends with them. I wonder that if we were to truly embrace a particular country and church partner, as per the Acts 1:8 vision, our commitment to continuing that focus would not waiver with the transition of staff.

What an opportunity we have: to look beyond our own backyard and connect intentionally on a global scale. By giving sacrifi cially of ourselves and learning from our overseas partners, we allow Christ to shape our own lives, to reveal to us how our consumer-cum-celebrity culture is stifl ing His mission. Thankfully, our lives will never be the same.