Becoming Global Conference at SMBC

Today I attended the "Becoming Global Conference" at my old Bible College, SMBC. It is an annual conference which helps the local church with missions. The 3 seminars I attended were excellent with each presenter having vast amounts of experience on their topics.

First I went to Bruce Dipple's (my missions lecturer from college) seminar, "Developing a missions programme that will intentionally strengthen your church". He talked about the false dichotomy of "here" and "over there" and how the missions enthusiasts can talk about the rest of the world but not be occupied with what's happening here, and how churches can be too occupied with local church growth and the rest of the world is forgotten. I was struck when he minded me that our partnership in mission is the Gospel (Philippians 1:5) not the missionary. It is wrong to have the missionary or their family at the centre of missions. No. We should have the Gospel at the centre of mission.

Some quotes: "Mission conforms to the purpose of God. It is God's mission not our mission. Missions finds Biblical basis in not what the church wants to do but in the misison of God. God's purpose is that the whole nations will come to worship him. It is not just in the great commission, but mission's basis is the nature of God."

I left the seminar full of ideas and a longing that churches would just do some of the things suggested by Bruce in this seminar. It would so impact local churches.

Brian Stark spoke on how to make short-term mission trips worth while. He argued that the goal of the short-term missions trip is to help those who go become more Christlike. It is life change of the people going, people sending, and those they go to serve. Short-term missions can have a significant impact on the individuals, the church and the community. That is, if it is done well. For it to be done well requires 2 years. 1 year for preparation and 1 year afterward to cast the vision after you come back. This seminar was really helpful in thinking about how to organise short-term missions. There was so much good stuff in this seminar.

Lastly, I went to Helen Macnaughton's seminar on how to help missionaries re-enter their home culture. There was one slide which struck me about the factors which affects re-entry stress.

The reason for return
Physical/emotional/spiritual health at the time of return
The stage of individual and family life cycles
The degree of preparation for return
The amount of accumulated stress from on-field experiences
The number of other stresses concurrent with re-entry
The opportunity of have good closure before leaving the field.

Gosh. Many of the above factors were not ideal for us and our re-entry.

I learned so much today at the Becoming Global Conference. So much more than I expected. Local churches would benefit so much from this conference. It is such a pity that so few go and miss out on this blessing.