What’s on SU’s Heart & Mind?
By our State DIrector, Dave Tolputt
In the five years I’ve been State Director with SU Vic, there have been huge changes. We’ve relocated the ministries to Northcote, met the challenges of strengthening the financial position, increased our staff by nearly 50% with significant growth in all major ministry areas, reset the priority of schools camping, developed real innovation in schools ministry, and re-valued both Theos and Family Missions.
However, some of the most significant changes have been in our thinking. Prayer, reflection and application of insights gained are helping us to reframe the next generation of our work. Here are four things we believe that God has been speaking to us about.
1. Revelation precedes planning
Strategic Planning has become the buzz phrase for organisations. The challenge for Christian organisations is how to set plans that allow the Holy Spirit to continually speak. The temptation is to allow planning to squeeze out revelation. We are discovering that revelation precedes planning. Planning is about how things get done; revelation is about where God is at work. Planning enables us to move from revelation to action. We are convinced that the Holy Spirit is in a dynamic relationship with His people, and that ‘when the Spirit says go, we must go’. We are learning to hold our plans loosely so that God can lead us. This is enabling us to respond to what God places before us – rather like Paul and the Macedonian man. (Acts 16)
2. A recovery of evangelism
For a while, it seemed that evangelism became a dirty word because of the cringe factor of outdated methods. However, without proclamation the Gospel can become simple humanism. In recent years, God has laid on our hearts afresh the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ – His life, death and resurrection – to effect total transformation in individuals and communities. Nothing else can do what the Gospel does. We are convinced about God’s ultimate objectives for the Gospel: the healing and restoration of all brokenness as people come under the Lordship of Christ. This has given us renewed passion, confidence and courage to make Jesus known through both Word and Deed, to ‘shine like stars in the universe as we hold forth the word of life’. (Philippians 2:16)
3. What it means to partner with churches
SU is committed to extending the mission of the church; to facilitate mission which the churches would not otherwise be able to do; to mobilise teams to connect with people where they are and share the Good News on their patch, in their culture. These mission teams are being equipped as leaders, experienced in mission with a wide variety of people, and willing to build up the churches that have sent them and received them as missionaries. We are not so interested in populating our programs, as we are in how our volunteers might extend the influence and impact of their local church through their training and experiences in SU programs.
4. The role of SU in the wider Christian community
The Body of Christ is made up of many parts (1 Cor 12:14) – and many communities. We asked God what role He has given SU for the building up of the Body. Our conviction is that He has called us to fulfil the role of Apostle / Evangelist. The Apostolic role in the New Testament is leading and equipping God’s people into places and spaces beyond where they currently are. The evangelistic role in the New Testament points to making the Good News of Jesus Christ known, and helping people to respond in faith to Him. This excites us, and we can’t stop talking about and acting on this sacred charge.
This is just a small insight into how God has been shaping our thinking. We’d welcome your feedback. Will you pray with us as we continue to listen for what God might be saying to us?
