Many years ago, a small Church on the Northern Beaches in Sydney asked me to help advise them on their mission support and programs.

After a number of meetings with the senior leaders, listening to the church's interests and explaining the various possible projects they could support, they invited me to present four options to their Elders to consider. The brief for the “pitch night” was to share three overseas projects and one option among Indigenous people in Australia.

I weighed up the best options. I determined that this small church had financial resources, being in one of the wealthiest regions of Australia. Its members held senior roles in business and government so were well travelled and had exposure to global affairs. However, I also assessed they had low physical capacity due to the average age of the congregation.

To a room of about eight seasoned leaders, I shared options for them to support Christian discipleship work in the Pacific, human trafficking initiatives in Asia and child sponsorship projects in Africa. For each of these I asked for a three-year commitment. I also put forward an Indigenous option, but I explained that to build trusting relations, this would require a longer 10-year commitment. I was sure they would select one of the shorter-term overseas options.

Of course, when they called me a week later telling me that they’d opted for the Indigenous project I was genuinely surprised.

We agreed to take a small group of the leaders to the Northern Territory and introduce them to some of our friends and ministries there. On the trip, we met with a number of Christian organisations, churches and program leaders. One of those was an Indigenous Bible college in Darwin which had plans to expand their facilities to accommodate more students and also financial resources to achieve this. By God’s providence alone, one of the church leaders in our group was a part-time architect and he sensed this was the project for them.

The Church applied themselves to a steep learning curve. They invited Indigenous Christian leaders to preach in their services, they hosted post-worship walks in their neighbouring national park to visit significant Indigenous sites and learn about the history of the area, and they read theology and Christian books written by Indigenous leaders.

Additionally, they sent a group each year to serve the Bible college in Darwin, providing volunteer labour to make repairs and improve the facilities. The part-time architect, part-time pastor, provided his professional services and helped design new dormitories and other facilities.

15 years later, that church continues to walk in partnership and provide support.

I share this story because this church demonstrated significant humility to learn about a culture and context they didn’t know much about before. They utilised their strengths (relational, financial and skills) and adopted a longstanding posture of service to the partner.

As tempting as it may have been, they didn’t accept a transactional approach (to send money and expect reports) and developed a genuine trusting friendship with the local leadership and their programs.

While the college in Darwin clearly benefited, the local church has also benefited through this engagement, providing experiences that deepen their members' relationships, discipleship and cultural learning around a shared mission and addressing a known injustice.

Hand-in-hand together, our partnerships facilitate the coming of God’s Kingdom today.

I encourage all Churches of Christ in Australia to prayerfully consider how they might partner-well with our partners, either overseas or in Australia, or both!

John Lamerton,
Chief Executive Officer