World Mission conscience

I was reminded this past weekend through a friend that tranzsend must be the world mission conscience for New Zealand Baptists.  He was saying that someone must continually remind local Baptist churches to keep mission at the front of the purpose of their existence. 

I think he’s right, because, tranzsend IS the world mission arm of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand.  It was originally set up to send all Baptists in New Zealand with a call to cross cultural mission to the world.  While these days many Baptists serve overseas with other organisations, as the mission arm of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand we can still stand alongside and help.  We can help through guiding people to organisations, to expertise and to ministries that we can’t provide directly.  We can also help by generally raising mission awareness even if that doesn’t result in our gaining new workers.

A great New Zealand Baptist was said to have stated once that “mission is like the grain of sand in the oyster”.  It’s uncomfortable, it’s irritating,  it’s constantly there and the oyster cannot escape its presence.  Yet the more the irritant moves around the more the sand is transformed into a ‘pearl’.

What a great analogy. Well folks, I feel a new calling… I feel called to be a deliverer of grains of sand to the churches.  Yes, it might be uncomfortable, perhaps I’ll be irritating but, hopefully, I can be a constant reminder to you about our mission task to the world.