One of the most exciting parts of mission at Gymea has been the opportunity to tangibly express Christian unity. This is has not just been between Gymea Anglican and Moore Theological College, as you would expect, but other ministries as well. Last Sunday several college students had the opportunity to join the morning congregations at Padstow Anglican. Yesterday, Simon, Liz, and Kathryn were able to spend the day with the Campus Bible Ministries team at UWS Bankstown. According to Liz (3rd year),
Yesterday was one of those days that leave you just itching to get out of college and get into more ministry, and it’s not often that walk-up has that effect on me! We had the great joy of spending the day learning from the CBM team at UWS Bankstown, and got a bit of an exciting taste of the day to day ministry on campus.
Below you will find Simon’s (4th year) reflections on this wonderful moment to express gospel partnership between Gymea, Padstow, CMB Bankstown, and Moore Theological College:
A Muslim, an Atheist and a Seventh-Day Adventist walk on to a campus. It’s no joke; it’s the everyday experience at UWS Bankstown, where the study body reflects the cultural and ethnic diversity of south-western Sydney. Fatima, Jack and Eva are all students who we chatted to about Jesus yesterday. Please pray for Jack in particular – over 40 minutes he went from disinterest in anything religious to intrigue that Jesus could claim to be God in the flesh. Ask God that Jack would follow up on his curiosity, read the Bible with one of the UWS students, and that God would be bringing him from death to life.
On a campus of only 6000 students, relationships become really important in evangelism – you don’t need to get someone’s number to follow them up; you’ll see them around within a week. We were really encouraged to see the desire of the Christian students to present Jesus to their classmates and friends, and it was a great day of doing walk-up with them, chatting to leaders of the Muslim Students’ Association and thinking through how to utilise our relational networks to share Jesus with our friends. Please pray for Tim, Kate and the members of the Christian Bible Ministries as they seek to love and serve Jesus at UWS. For us, it was a day that made us miss full-time pastoral ministry!