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The global mission advisor writes..
Much will have taken place in the life of the GMO between me writing this piece in late July and you reading it in early October. Two months is a long time, especially when working internationally.
One task we will have achieved will be the welcoming of our special guests to the General Assembly. Representatives from the Church of North India will be present to help us celebrate 100 years of mission to the Punjab. I prefer to write it as “100 years” because for me it makes the impact far more real than using the word “centenary”. One hundred years. Wow! We should get a letter from the Queen. One hundred years is 600 two-month periods. If you want to understand what can fill two months in the Punjab, read chapter six in Stan Murray’s book One Small Finger. Or spend some time reading Doug Riddle’s autobiography Life and Light. Or feast on the black and white images in the book 50 Years in the Punjab 1909 – 1959 collated by Doreen Riddell. Or perhaps you could buy a copy of the new book Light and Love – 100 years in North India that has been published by Doreen Riddell and the GMO to mark this wonderful milestone in our mission history.
However, the real question for me is what will we do in the future? In early August we hosted a GMO Summit. This was a gathering of 20 people for two days to discern and discuss what it is that we should be doing as a church. My greatest urgency is around the fact that we have let our vision become cloudy. We have lost shape and focus. We think too small. We have become divided in our endeavours. What has happened to us? Listen to the echoes of big faith in our past captured in Doreen’s book:
All this came to a climax in the General Assembly of 1907 when Mr Hewitson moved “that the Committee be instructed to arrange for the opening of our work in India, and that with that end in view, Dr Porteous be directed to visit India to select a suitable sphere”. Deeply moved by the appeal, the Assembly agreed to this new development and sealed it with the singing of the Doxology
Oh, that the doxology might be sung again at this Assembly with the same fire and commitment to global mission burning in the hearts of all the commissioners. Of this we can be sure, the challenges we will face – even during the next two months – will be huge. What of the next 100 years?
Andrew