May is coming up quickly and the May Mission Month theme this year is Mending!
We live in a broken, troubled world with challenges all around us, whether across the street, the nation or the world. God graciously allows us to join him in offering healing and shalom to our neighbours and to creation
No matter where we are, or what our situation, we can join God in mending his beautiful, broken world. We don’t bring healing in our strength—we are invited to be co-menders with God in Jesus Christ, our Healer and Saviour.
Being a co-mender means joining God in renewing creation and communities, developing meaningful and authentic relationships, restoring people and the planet through God’s healing and love, and making ourselves available to be used by God. God is mending his beautiful, broken world in Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus calls us to be co-menders with God, joining with God wherever he brings healing, shalom, reconciliation, and renewal.
Being a co-mender means sharing God’s love and Gospel in compassionate, authentic, and relevant ways. It means partnering together with each other and God, being willing to allow God to use us according to the gifts he has given to us – sending and being sent, giving and receiving, serving together as partners in God’s mission.
On the Baptist Mission Australia website you will find a wealth of resources to use in your church, youth group and home groups. The resources follow along the four key Mending! themes:
- Renewing: It starts with us (Galatians 5:16–17, 22–26)
- Relating: It’s always about relationships (Matthew 4:18–22)
- Restoring: It’s about the whole Gospel for the whole world (Luke 4:14–21)
- Responding: It’s about being available (John 1:35–42)
As co-menders in God’s family I encourage you to join with Baptist Mission Australia throughout May and beyond, as we pray and find ways to co-mend creatively and distinctively in our communities and with those serving around the world. Let’s partner together as God guides his people forward to his opportunities of service.
