Church Mission Society (CMS)

130 year partnership

A visitor to CMS this morning was the Rev Dr AS Sugiyama, chancellor of Poole Gakuin University based in Osaka, Japan (seen below with Canon Tim Dakin, CMS general secretary).

Founded as a school by CMS missionaries in 1879 it’s named after Arthur William Poole, the first Anglican Bishop of Japan.

In 1995 it was granted university status. It has a strategic role in credible gospel presentation to Japanese students and academics.

He told CMS, “Without your support we would not exist.”

2009 marks the 130th anniversary of Poole Gakuin. Cross-cultural mission work in Japan involves being there for the long haul. It’s brilliantly exemplified by soon-to-retire Pam Cooper who has served in Japan for 42 years.

Dr Sugiyama hopes CMS will be able to send more people in mission to Poole Gakuin and that it might soon send Japanese people to do mission here in Britain.

A Sweet Notion

It's quite a week at CMS for new initiatives by inspiring people. Next up is Shannon Hopkins, a CMS mission associate who is, as she says of herself, "always up to something".

Shannon is an entrepreneur in mission with incredible energy. After being involved with campaigns like The Truth Isn't Sexy, her latest venture is a recycled fashion accessories business called Sweet Notions. She and a friend are collecting thousands of chic treats and selling them in unique boutique events. It's been set up as a "social enterprise". Shannon explains:

"I don't want to just generate income to enable mission work. Instead, I want the way we carry out Sweet Notions to be fully integrated with the Kingdom as a missional act, living out the Gospel through the social enterprise itself."

You can read more on Shannon's new site.

And if you're inspired by what she's about, you can support her here.

2009: a mission odyssey

What a fun morning at work on Monday... getting to meet the extraordinary Jones family who are setting off on a mission journey round Europe, living out of an equally extraordinary truck.

Here are the Joneses - Andrew and Debbie and their five children - with their new home. There are a few windows in the living area / trailer section still to be added, but already includes a few hidden extras - like a potter's wheel and kiln under the floor.

"I love making pottery," says Debbie. "God's a potter - and I get so many chances to share about my spirituality as I'm making pottery, so why not take it on the road?"

"It's also a part of the way to become self-sustainable - setting up little micro-enterprises - and the pottery is one of those ways to raise a little bit of money," says Andrew.

The truck is an Overlander, which still has quite a bit of conversion work to be done - including a rooftop stage. But we won't give too much away now as the interview will likely feature in the May edition of our Audiomission podcast.

The Joneses don't know how long their open-ended odyssey will last, but they're on a mission to network with, support and encourage mission leaders across Europe, including bringing many of them together at "roundtable" events.

You can follow Andrew's blog - tallskinnykiwi - and keep your eye on the CMS website where hopefully we'll soon have some video of the truck, and be able to share some more video footage of the journey as it progresses.

Clergy beard loss shock at Oxford college

Losing his decades-old beard felt like losing a friend for the Rev Dr Mark Chapman - but it was all in a good cause - or more precisely two.

Mark is vice-prinicipal of Ripon College Cuddesdon and was challenged by his students to shave off his beard for charity.

Having sported a beard for over 20 years, Mark responded that he would only shave it off if more than £1,000 was raised - in the hope that this amount could not be achieved!

However Mark was to be disappointed - with the students raising £600 for CMS and £1,000 for Comic Relief – so the beard had to be shaved.

Mark said "It's like losing an old friend - but people tell me I look much younger, which is now a good thing."

The money given to CMS is supporting theological training in Sudan. We're beginning a photo library of great fundraising ideas on our Flickr page. If you've raised money for mission and have a great picture of it, please leave a comment and we can add you to the bigger picture and inspire others.

Photo montage courtesy Ripon College. 

'Follow me' on Twitter

Another phrase for the "What would Jesus say..." category ;)

Well, you can now finally follow CMS on Twitter. We had a little experiment a few months back and now we're rolling.

So if Twitter is your way to stay in touch, look for "cmsmission" and follow us. You'll get a daily prayer point (tying in with our publication Prayerlines - so the online and 'offliine' people in the CMS community can unite in prayer on the same subject), an extra tweet or two about CMS community events happening up and down the country, and what's new on our website.

So, hope to see you soon:

http://twitter.com/cmsmission

Only 823 baptisms in a week in Bihar state

Well, February wasn't a cool month for Christians in Bihar, India. In just one week they baptised 823 people.

Here are some of them queueing up:

Thirteen of the 70 indigenous mission that form BORN (Bihar Out-Reach Network) were involved a celebratory week that also saw 85 lay leaders graduate from bible school and two whole villages respond to the gospel en masse.

Bihar has been called India's most lawless state and the "graveyard of missions". However, by working together these missions have begun to see an incredible response to the gospel.

You can find out more about BORN, which CMS supports in a small way, at their website