mgpcpastor's blog

Last weekend mgpc hosted Damien and Kelly Carson (and Harry) for a visit.
As leaders, we sat and found out more about Damien’s life and heart for ministry. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner at a local restaurant. Damien preached on Sunday morning and a great shared lunch gave more time for us to enjoy fellowship together.
Damien pastors Para Hills Presbyterian, a church in Adelaide which mgpc is seeking to encourage and empower for their mission and ministry.
The biggest part of that is turning out to be prayer, visiting, and targeted financial support which seeks to enable Para Hills to undertake projects which they otherwise wouldn’t be able to pursue.
As leaders, we sat and found out more about Damien’s life and heart for ministry. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner at a local restaurant. Damien preached on Sunday morning and a great shared lunch gave more time for us to enjoy fellowship together.
For a provincial church to be relating in this manner to a city church 450 kilometers away is unusual.
And not without its challenges.
Not the least because the outcome we’re seeking is for Para Hills to be empowered, not dependent, which is also a lesson we have to keep applying to our relationships in East Timor and Zimbabwe.
As usual, we don’t have any precise idea what we’re doing, but we’re learning as we go along.
We don’t generally articulate these as formal ‘partnership agreements’ which state what both parties can expect of one another.
Instead, we walk together as friends. MGPC listens, and we learn. Then, as we can, we provide support to enable mission and ministry.
And what are we seeking?
What does mgpc get out of these arrangements?
Well, what we get out of it is that we get do what healthy churches do.
All healthy churches should have relationships through which they seek to support and empower other local churches.
We shouldn’t simply rely on a denomination to do that for them.
In addition to denominations we should do that ourselves.
We haven’t waited to be a healthy church before doing this.
We’re doing it because it’s what a healthy church does.