People attending CMS Summer School in Katoomba are used to being taught from the podium about matters of faith and obedience, but on Monday the director of Summer School and associate general secretary of CMS NSW, Malcolm Reid, put this challenge in a new light with the 2010 Summer School Appeal.
"We have never had an appeal like this before," he said. "But we have been praying for God to raise up missionaries, and because of the growth in people offering [for missionary service] we need to find the support for them " so we need to up the ante."
Talking to sydneyanglicans.net after he launched the appeal, Mr Reid said there were many faithful CMS members who had been supporting the society financially for a number of years, "but we really need to find more members, more supporters, in order to continue to do what we're doing".
The 2010 Summer School Appeal is seeking to find 2010 new or existing society members who can commit to giving regularly, or give a little more, to the ongoing support of missionaries in the field.
These supporters are being asked to commit to $15 a month.
Mr Reid said the NSW branch of the society, which supports 60 per cent of the missionaries sent out by CMS Australia, has run at a loss for two years. This has depleted the branch's financial reserves, and last year other state branches needed to subsidise the missionaries sent out from NSW.
"I think there's still a thought in people's mind that if CMS doesn't raise the support for our missionaries that it just comes from somewhere," he said. "We don't have a stump we pull money out of, and we don't get funding from [any] diocese. Missionaries can only go out because of the generosity of churches and individuals.
"In order to get through this financial year we're not paying, at the moment, all of the allowances to our missionaries. Now, we don't want to do that " it's not fair, it's not appropriate" that's why we're making this really big push. Because we've got to support the people who are going out."
Mr Reid said the 18 new missionaries being sent out by the society this year to Northern Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America were "going to areas in the world where gospel ministry is sorely needed" The gospel changes lives. We've seen it with our present missionaries and we'll see it in the future. God's raised up these workers for the harvest. We've trusted him and he's answered our prayers" so we need to support that."
