MEM #3

Our church (CCCB) held the Missions Encouragement Meeting #3 this past Sunday evening. As previously mentioned, I missed MEM #1 but managed to attend MEM #2 a few months back, whereby a few people shared their experiences overseas with their short-term missions (yes, I did blog about this, so refer to one of the posts in February 07).

MEM #3 was a totally different experience - it was considerably more structured than the previous one. Pastor Steve & Keiyeng got everyone to split off into 3 Focus Groups:

# Missionaries & Tentmakers - basically those who are looking to be missionaries overseas, whether short-term or long-term. (This group was led by Keiyeng)
# "Workplace" Evangelists - those who are working or studying at university etc, who look to reach out to fellow workers or students. (This group was led by the Pastoral Apprentices, Steven & Steph)
# Supporters - those who support missionaries & evangelists. (This group was led by Pastor Steve).

Apparently, if I gather correctly, future MEMs will be group based, i.e. structured along the 3 Focus Groups just formed. Not that I have any issues with that!

People were asked to join the group that they currently identify themselves with, or the group which best describes them (in instances where people see themselves in more than 1 category). In my case, picking my group was a piece of cake. I joined the Supporter group, because of the 3, I see myself almost exclusively as a supporter (i.e. I'm currently neither a missionary or evangelist).

Once in our respective groups, we looked through a series of discussion questions. For the Supporters group, we talked about the reasons we support missionaries & evangelists, & the questions we looked at are outlined below (I'm just slightly paraphrasing the list of questions Keiyeng emailed me today):

Where are you in your efforts to support missionaries & evangelists?
What do CCCB missionaries & workplace evangelists most need from CCCB supporters? What 3 things can you do to increase your support - both real & perceived?
How can the Supporters group help each other support our missionaries & evangelists?
What concrete steps to this end will you take as individuals & as a group?
Pray for each other & those in the other 2 Focus Groups.

My position is (& I shared this within my group) as follows:

I provide financial support to Christian organisations (involved in missions or otherwise) & people I know (friends etc) who are involved in full-time ministry. Now, I did this missions course last year called Kairos. Among the things we learnt at Kairos was that different people have different roles to play in helping to fulfil the Great Commission (spreading the Christian faith to the world). Some "go out there" & be missionaries, some "stay back" & provide support to the missionaries (whether through prayers, financial, admin etc). Not everyone can go out there, some need to stay back to provide support. When doing Kairos, I realised that my involvement in the Great Commission is to provide support. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this is what God wants/calls me to do - to remain a supporter. That, I'm absolutely fine with - great privilege to be allowed to play this part in God's great ministry.

So yeah, financial support it is. BUT, that's basically it. Can I give more support? Yes - the other form of support I can give is prayerful support. But am I? I cannot honestly say yes. In sharing this with my group, one of the biggest issues/weakness in my spiritual life (my weak prayer life) is practically laid out in the open, revealed to everyone. I've never been particularly prayerful. And the embarassing thing is that various people in the past have thanked me for my prayers for them, when in actual fact I've hardly been praying for them.

A couple of suggestions have been given by some in my group as to how I can improve my prayer life - & consequently be more active in giving prayerful support. I'm thankful to hear the suggestions, & will look to implement them.

At the end, we merged again & representatives from the 3 groups briefly shared what their groups discussed. Then we had pizzas for dinner. I didn't stay long for the dinner. Nevertheless, I felt MEM #3 was excellent. Praise God for that, & also I'm thankful for Pastor Steve & Keiyeng & the 2 Pastoral Apprentices for their sterling contributions in the MEM & for leading the 3 Focus Groups. I think I will keep coming to future MEMs. Apparently, the next MEM will be in 3 months time. That's certainly something to look forward to.