CMS Mission Update Online

Samaritan Appeal

"It is not enough to preach about spiritual things. I want all my pastors to show our people that God cares for all their needs."

Rt Rev Joseph Kanuku, Bishop of Machakos, Kenya

Some complain that Christianity in Africa is "a mile wide and an inch deep".

But many churches in Africa are discovering a way to be effective in their communities - by using the resources they already have.

CMS Africa is using the Samaritan Strategy to train church leaders

• to see the gospel as also about meeting day to day needs
• to recognise everyone can do something because no one is helpless
• to develop a new vision, and action plan with a mentor to help them

And they're ambitious to spread this fantastic training programme to even more churches and countries across Africa.

Just £44 mean one more church leader can attend.

In Machakos, Kenya, local churches got people together to build anaerobic biodigesters - they take manure and produce biogas and fertiliser. It means the people can cook with clean fuel - not inhaling vast quantities of woodsmoke. Plus the fertiliser helps increase the yield on their farms.

The Samaritan Strategy is all about churches discovering the power they already have to change things - and being an incredible witness in their communities as a result.

Go to the CMS website for more info, or consider a donation now:

Give now to help spread the Samaritan Strategy training further

Give regularly: set up a Direct Debit online to help African leaders discover a new vision

New book: Cave Refectory Road

Congrats to Ian Adams, CMS small missional communities adviser, who has a new book out this week.

Cave Refectory Road mines the Christian monastic tradition for long-neglected threads of wisdom.

It's available from Amazon and from the publisher Canterbury Press.

People are saying good things about it....

"If you know someone (perhaps yourself) who is spiritual but not religious I strongly suggest giving them this book. Ian Adams has beautifully and unabashedly mined the Christian monastic tradition and found gold for our spiritually impoverished time. You can find no better guide."
Nadia Bolz-Weber, founding pastor of House for all Sinners and Saints, a Lutheran mission church in Denver Colorado and author of Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television (Seabury 2008).

"This book is a gem. For those seeking to follow in the way of Christ today, Ian opens up the gifts and insights of religious communities in a very imaginative fashion. He manages the difficult art of writing in a way that has real depth but is still accessible and easy to grasp. It's heartfelt and inspired."
Jonny Baker, author of Curating Worship, blogger, CMS pioneer mission leadership team leader

"In Cave Refectory Road, Ian Adams has produced a book that can be guaranteed to open up new vistas for anyone searching for an authentic spirituality that will make sense in the context of today’s 24/7 world. By combining threads of wisdom long forgotten or overlooked and showing how they can be interwoven so as to offer fresh insights into our everyday challenges, Ian has crafted a rich tapestry of scriptural and historic patterns for living that will be both empowering and sustaining."
John & Olive Drane, authors, Visiting Fellows of St John's College, University of Durham

God doesn’t do waste

Out today is a new book that really sounds like it’s one for our times.

Dave Bookless, a CMS mission partner who runs the UK arm of environmental charity A Rocha, is proclaiming the message that “God doesn’t do waste.”

Whether it’s physical rubbish or ‘senseless’ suffering, God’s ways are often very different from ours, says Dave.

The book tells the story of Dave and his family’s attempts to ‘go green’ – but is so much more. It’s a searingly honest account of their own pain and suffering and wondering what’s happening when God doesn’t seem to answer prayer.

It’s not just the story of how God can redeem a beaten-up environment – as in A Rocha’s amazing project in Southall, London – but of how God can redeem all the rubbish of life – even the things that seem like pointless waste.

God Doesn’t Do Waste will be available soon from the CMS shop. In the meantime (if you’re not already buying it off Amazon) you can listen to Dave Bookless here and put some tips for caring for creation into action on the new interactive site from CMS, We Are Saying Yes.