A different voice

Phil Jenkins | 22:08, 29 Nov 2014 

Certainly I enjoy having access 24/7 to UK and world news and to help maintain balance I often tune in to Al Jazeera News to see how the same issues are perceived and interpreted from a different cultural perspective. We don't always appreciate that the same principle applies to our experience of the Christian faith and the great privilege of being involved in world mission is that we can be enriched by the contribution of brothers and sisters from different cultures in the global church. That's why I particularly enjoyed having Peter Oyugi with us as our speaker last weekend for our termly missions focus. It was so good to hear a different voice from the worldwide family of God saying things we in the UK might never say but that need to be said! Peter is Kenyan born and bred. His father is Luo and his mother is Finnish! He himself is married to a Kikuyu and now they are living in the south of England working with AIM International!

Our theme for the weekend was The Unfinished Task and we profiled our major thrusts in mission as a church – Unreached People Groups and Bible Translation ministry. In the morning Peter reminded us of the challenge of the 7,000+ people groups in the world who have no access to the gospel message. In the evening we thought about the need to reach out in friendship to our world, whether that's to the neighbour on our street, a colleague at work, or the millions in the 10/40 window.

Peter reminded us that mission as modelled by Jesus and summarised by him in the synagogue sermon in Luke 4 is integral with concern for soul and body. Gospel proclamation is foundational but a transforming Christian presence in society is also essential. There is something very compelling when the plea for justice comes from a brother who has experienced injustice and oppression first hand.

This week at Centrepoint we heard from the Logos Hope Team how Operation Mobilisation seeks to bring these two strands of mission together in their ship ministry. And we will finish off the week of global mission focus with the OM team speaking at our service in Pontprennau on Sunday morning. The team itself illustrates the cultural diversity of the church as Switzerland, Brazil, Mexico and UK are represented!

With all the information available to us today through TV channels, the internet and mission literature, there is no excuse for us to be uninformed about world issues. And with the clear mandate of Jesus to continue the mission of God – "as the Father has sent me so I am sending you" – there is no excuse for us not to be world Christians. That is, people who have a global mission awareness, praying, giving and going, playing our part in finishing the task Jesus gave us to do.