10 years. It can be like forever for some, but relatively short for the others. The question is – what will you be in 10 years time? Have you planned your next decade recently? Will you still trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection? Where will you move to? Which church will you partner with? What ministry will you serve in? Are you still going to be around?
I first joined FOCUS in February 1995. Like many others, I found FOCUS (or was it the other way around) during the university orientation week, left the booth with my contact details, went to the new comers dinner, met lots of people, joined the Bible study, and started going to church. However, unlike many others I have acquainted over the years, I did little to plan my next moves. Default position is what I took, so I continued staying in FOCUS after graduation, then got married and recently became a father. There goes 10 years.
Where will I be in the next 10 years? I might still be here, blogging about doing Bible studies with overseas students that are half my age. Maybe, if Vivian and I still haven’t worked out a plan.
Where will Mandarin Bible Fellowship be in 10 years? That is the real question that I would like to ask. I believe all other fellowship groups in FOCUS have got their future sorted out, so I’ll target this enquiry only at MBF.
Let’s look at the past first. Economists and meteorologists can always predict the future from the patterns in the past.
- 1999 – MBF started with LW as catechist.
- 2000 – AC started her MTS, partly working wit MBF.
- 2001 – DZ from TBT came and helped MBF for one year.
- 2002 – Vivian started part-time MTS. BYS ministered us as catechist for one year.
- 2003 – TH from CCC joined MBF for his two years “trial”.
- 2004 – LC from EFC started full-time MTS with MBF.
- 2005 – AC is back as full-time staff worker, part-time with MBF. TH will start full-time MTS in session 2.
The history looks like a relief to me. I was a bit worried (actually, I worried about it all the time) whether there will be enough hands when LC and TH finished with their MTS apprenticeship this year and next year. There is no one on my radar (I didn’t check Josh’s) that will come and fulfil the role in 2007. But if the future is as predictable as the past (and if Lord is generous), maybe the exercise of “finding the one” will be much more trivial.
However, being a software developer who like to catch all exceptions, maybe I’ll play with certain possible situations. What about there is no one turning up? What about CBS fund cannot afford him? And what else will happen in 2 years? In 5 years? In 10 years? What about Australia government stopped granting visa to students from China so there are no more overseas students to supply MBF?
Besides people’s continuous rejection in the last days and His future coming of judgement, there ain’t much certainty, especially in a volatile environment like an overseas students oriented church. Sometimes the future possibility of running short of workers really scares the daylights out of me (Who is going to preach this Friday? Who’s writing Bible study this Sunday? Who is going to call those new comers this week? Arrgh!!!)
Training the students. Maybe they will look after themselves. Maybe by the time they become graduates, they will be capable enough to serve in leadership and train the other students.
But then we might need to keep the graduates.
It is meant to be a follow up to my previous post. Instead of looking at financial burden of a student church, there is also a possibility getting hit by the plague of leadership exhaustion, as the nature of ministry is high demanding and high turn over.
“Keeping the grads” seems to be Josh’s new strategy. But utilising fresh grads does not equal to reforming the church to be workers-friendly. More will be discussed later.
I believe all other fellowship groups in FOCUS have got their future sorted out
Not quite. I think Pelita is still trying to plan as well. I don’t know who’s going to fill in the vacancy when CL and SF finish this year.
I guess that was sarcastically speaking.
At least Pelita has a large number of graduates/long termers, though I am not sure whether all are willing or ready to partake in student ministry. ESF would hardly have enough bible study leaders without continuous supply of catechists from Moore. UCC has only few long termeers, and might not have an MTS nor a catechist next year – but students have been trained to look after each other.
And MBF is only a tip of the iceberg.
The challenge you face is giving your graduates a reason to stay, they need to feel that they are welcome and they need to feel cared for. At the same time the church’s mission needs to be clear. This is a difficult juggling act.
At TCM there was some misunderstanding and distrust between various people about whether others in the church, leadership and congregation, cared about ministry to graduates or ministry to students. There were other problems but these didn’t help.
The other challenge you face is understanding that a large proportion of your congregation is going to leave to bless other churches every year. This means you might want to think about concentrating on training them for the roles they will take up when they join another congregation as well as connecting them with those congregations so that they don’t fall away. Identifying those who will stay is your other challenge.
Sorry to spout like this, I spent a number of years thinking about this stuff with 3 years at St Barnabas and 6 years at TCM so I guess I have a lot to say. I’m now more involved in singles ministry which is a whole different challenge.
Peter,
Thanks for your contribution. Initially I wrote these to try to raise some discussions from others who are also part of my church, but participation from someone from other church that is more experienced was not expected :)
You are talking about two possible outcomes for students here – staying or going elsewhere. We want to provide incentive for people to stay and provide feedback to the ministry, but at the same time we also want these people to go elsewhere to build up other churches. FOCUS @ UNSW is special as we are expecting *majority* of students to head home after 3-4 years – that’s what overseas students do, as Sydney is truly not their home. Student ministry, and student-only ministry has been the strategy here for the last 20+ years, and it seems to work out well recruiting more and more overseas students each year.
At the same time, we do have students who decided to migrate (or are already migrants), stayed back, and subsequently increased our base. Some stayed for the sake of training up students, but others because it is the only church they know in Australia. As the ministry diversified, needs increased, and FOCUS is no longer that ‘focused’. I am not sure whether that is a good or bad thing, which I will discuss in my new blog entries.