Baptist Churches of Tasmania

young family - father, mother and child

Cross Shaped Mission

Garry Billing

Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, who died in 1998, was widely known and loved as a missionary leader and statesman. In recent years his writings have become somewhat germinal to a fresh flush of contextualised missionary thinking around the world. In foreseeing some of the challenges ahead for the church, Newbigin put his finger on two imperatives I believe we should reaffirm as Tasmanian Baptists today.

1. The cross of Jesus Christ is central to Christian proclamation.

I had a memorable personal reminder of this on a visit to Parliament House, Canberra, a few years ago. I was part of a small group of state Baptist leaders meeting federal politicians.

Former deputy prime-minister John Anderson left a lasting impression..............

To view the complete article written by General Superintendent, Rev. Garry Billing, and presented as the opening devotion to the Mid-year Assembly held on July 4, 2009 please click here to download.

Cross-shaped Mission