CMS Summer School is over for another year. I am excited to hear my children discussing where they will serve as missionaries one day - although their descriptions of the mission field do sound more like Club Med than Africa!

Here are some closing thoughts as I look back on this year's Summer School.

Rallying points
If any Christian community is to continue to exist, it needs its members to rally together. But if such a group is not careful, they may come to rally over things incidental to the group's existence - or, worse still, over issues that cause divisions and factions.

Through Hugh Palmer's expositions of 1 Corinthians at this year's Summer School, we saw how this very thing happened among God's people at Corinth. Praise God that the rallying points at Summer School were clearly God's word, global mission, and Christian service! It seems to me that it would be hard to find better things to gather around together.

Growing in mission support
Gatherings and rallying points can serve to maintain the momentum of the group - or even to propel the group forward. Since we gather for CMS Summer School only once a year, I hope it helps us to increase our missionary zeal. 

This year CMS launched an initiative called 'The Mustard Seed Effect' at Summer School. The Mustard Seed Effect suggests six simple ways to be more involved in world mission - small acts of service that, by God's grace, have massive and lasting effects. Just undertaking a few of these suggestions will propel us all further (you can check out the CMS NSW webpage for more info).

Generational change
Over the years it seems to me that the average age of attendees at the morning Bible studies keeps dropping slightly (although this could just be because I am aging!). There is no doubt though that there is an increasing number of young people in the Summer School youth and children's program, and a swelling number of young leaders and young adults in the Gen:Mission program.

I think there is no better way to recruit for missionary service than to have young people exposed to gospel service from the time they are at their mothers' knees. So I expect to see many more people supporting and applying for the mission field in the years to come!

In fact, it was a real delight to hear parents talking about their children this year at Summer School. Rather than being horrified at the prospect of their kids becoming missionaries, many parents shared that they are praying that their children will go out into the world to serve Jesus and share the gospel.