Ministry Monday: “Send” – Paul Williams on sending out gospel workers
Paul Williams, Vicar of Christ Church Fulwood, challenged us to be ministers who send people out from our churches to minster elsewhere, be they ordinands, cross-cultural missionaries, or other gospel workers. Instead of neglecting this task due to busyness and the priority of reaching and building (made harder when our leading people leave), we ought to prioritise it as Paul models in 2 Timothy 2:2. We were shown the dangers of allowing a church to fill up and get lazy, and shown that sending people out helps people see the need to reach out and equip new converts to replenish the local church. And just as we thought this could only happen in large churches, we were challenged to at least identify and train one person to send.
This talk was a useful reminder of how the local church can be used to advance the gospel in other places rather than just our own parish locality.