Where Have You Seen Good News? ~ Matt Way
Last Sunday it was an absolute pleasure to welcome Rachel Lindley from Five Talents to St Luke’s.
If you missed her talk, I’d strongly encourage you to listen back. Rachel shared stories and statistics from Five Talents’ work across East Africa, and the impact is truly remarkable.
She showed us that since 1998, Five Talents has helped more than 330,000 people trapped in poverty to build sustainable livelihoods across ten countries. That’s 330,000 stories of transformation. She told us that in one of the poorest regions of Uganda, where 59% of adults have never attended school, 100% of the children of Five Talents members are now in education. Or in Burundi, where women have traditionally been unable to own assets, more than half of programme members have purchased land and 99% report increased self-esteem.
And these are just a few of a whole tranche of astonishing figures. But what struck me most wasn’t actually the statistics. As I listened, one thought kept returning to me: Missional partnerships are good news!
Now that might sound obvious. Of course we support charities because they do good things. But I was struck that there is something deeper going on.
A few weeks ago on a Sunday morning I reminded us that the word gospel, for all its bluster and connotation, simply means good news. And as such, the gospel of Jesus Christ cannot only be something we think about or believe. It ought to be recognisably, pragmatically, obviously good news in our world and lives.
Five Talents has helped hundreds of thousands of people increase their income and improve their livelihoods. But underlying their work is a conviction that more money, by itself, is not the good news. Rachel explained that, at its heart, poverty is often about broken relationships: with God, with ourselves, with one another, and with the created world around us. Their work seeks to restore those relationships through literacy, enterprise, savings groups, reconciliation, and community.
This is the gospel in action. This is the Word taking on flesh. This is truly good news. And through missional partnership we are given the opportunity to join in.
In a few weeks’ time our series in Philippians will introduce us to one of Paul’s favourite phrases: partners in the gospel. Partners in this good news.
The truth is that St Luke’s could never do this work on our own. We do not have the expertise, experience, or reach to transform hundreds of thousands of lives across East Africa. But also, we don’t have to. We’re not called to… We are called to partnership.
Through prayer, encouragement, relationship, and financial support, we become participants in work that stretches far beyond our parish boundaries. We discover that our lives are bound together with people we may never meet. We find ourselves caught up in God’s work across the world.
I’m telling you, as obvious as it may seem: Missional partnerships are good news!
Which is why we are spending this time hearing from our partners, investing in relationship, and deepening partnership. And it is also why we are looking for others.
As Jamie and I shared a few weeks ago, St Luke’s will continue to support six long-term missional partners, but we are also exploring opportunities to support additional organisations for a single year at a time.
So here’s the question: Where have you seen good news?
Is there a charity whose work has inspired you? An organisation you already support? A project that is bringing restoration, hope, justice, reconciliation, or flourishing to the world? Is there an organisation we could support together as the community of St Luke’s?
If there is, we would love to hear about it. We will be reviewing nominations over the next few months and are excited to hear what your heart is stirred towards. Nomination forms are available from the church office, or you can complete the online form here.
Missional partnerships are one of the ways we declare who we want to be as a church. They are our opportunity to recognise good news taking root in the world, to celebrate it, and to become partners in it. Perhaps there is a partnership for St Luke’s that we have not yet discovered. And I can’t wait to hear about it.