We have so much to be grateful to God for as we celebrate the 30-year partnership between St Mary’s and Cath and Tim Morris in worldwide mission. Their work has always been pioneering and inventive as they have reached out to groups of people who have never heard the gospel and their impact has been remarkable.
They have been involved in social projects in education and health care, and also planted churches, and mission movements that have seen thousands come to Christ. This has been life changing and world changing,
Having worked overseas for much of their lives, working with indigenous teams on the ground, in more recent years they have been based in the UK overseeing the work of World Horizons, supporting, and managing the work of the organisation. In 2019, further to their roles changing at World Horizons, they were recommissioned by St Mary’s to go to the Basque country where they hope to be able to continue in mission for the next 8 years. Once again, God is calling them to work with a people group who have little understanding of the Gospel as yet and they are bringing their lifetime of experience to pioneer once again in a completely new context.
Tim and Cath have been one of our longest standing mission partners and so it is a significant thing for us to bring our formal partnership to an end at the end of this year. As a church we are seeking God about the mission needs of the next decade and the ‘St Mary’s Global Team’ has been prayerfully forming a new vision and strategy to lead us forward. Just as Tim and Cath’s focus of work has changed, so we want to refocus our mission partnerships in new ways, using our resources and gifts in ways which express our vision to see God change lives, families, and churches, here and overseas. We will be sharing more on this in our services on October 17th.
Although our formal partnership with Cath and Tim is changing, we are determined that our relationship continues to grow and that we remain connected in mission together. As ‘Friends in Mission’ (or ‘Mission Friends’) we will continue to offer our support, our encouragement, our prayer, and our love as they establish their new lives in the Basque country in southern France. They have many exciting plans and dreams and are as passionate as ever about seeing the gospel take root once again in this ‘post-Christian’ context. They are thinking of various new creative ways of connecting including pilgrimage weekends, language and cooking weeks, arts and music visits as well as the Festivals Initiative.
And in all this, we want to journey with them, sharing in it all and learning from them, even at a distance. I know how much they would love to welcome any of us to their home in France at any time.
Tim and Cath do also need to find some new financial supporters. If you would like to support them in this way, you can give via the following Stewardship link
www.stewardship.org.uk/partners/20024675 or get in touch with them directly or through Philippa and Vaughan.
Phillipa and Vaughan Parry will continue to be a point of contact with Tim and Cath, but all of us will also be able to connect through small groups and zoom, as we have learned through the past year. Let them know if you would like more some occasional or maybe more detailed news for your prayers.
My prayer for Cath and Tim echoes that of St Paul to the community of Philippi.
Philippians 1:3-6
3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. May they know God’s love and power working in them and through them every day, as they seek his will and follow his lead on the next stage of their incredible li
