In a marriage of the old and the new, CMS NSW & ACT this month began the CMS Summer School Vintage Series.

Distributed on Facebook, the Vintage Series will see talks from Summer Schools of years past uploaded every two months.

The first ‘online mission conference’ is Don Carson’s series of talks from 1994 on Revelation: The Triumph of the Lamb – Studies in the Apocalypse.

“CMS Summer School Vintage Series is one of the ways we hope to engage, challenge and encourage Christians as they continue to serve the Lord throughout the year,” said CMS NSW & ACT communications co-ordinator, Joshua Castle. “And hopefully through people’s networks of friends many more people will be encouraged to be a part of world mission through CMS.”

Over the next 10 months at facebook.com/cmsnsw talks from the likes of John Stott, Mike Raiter and Alan Cole will be made available for download, to “equip churches and their members with resources to help them grow in their Christian walk and especially in global mission and cross-cultural ministry”, Mr Castle said.

Even though the talks will be solely distributed via the organisation’s Facebook page, it is not necessary to be a Facebook member to access the content.

“We want to encourage, educate and inspire people about the work God is doing around the world building his church and enable people to be involved in that work through CMS,” Mr Castle said.

CMS NSW & ACT hopes the Vintage Series will encourage churches and their members to make use of other CMS resources, including videos from missionaries as well as using Facebook to communicate directly with missionaries.