I am accustomed to undertaking some fairly demanding walks in the Lake District, and this week while at the Keswick Convention is no different.  Yesterday, what should have been a reasonably easy walk turned into a challenging scramble up screes and rocks after I missed the turning.  On returning to the point where I had gone wrong, I realised that the principal route looked like a side turning and the ‘wrong’ and more dangerous path looked wider.  There was no signpost.  Since “the broad path leads to destruction” (Matthew 7:13) and with the lives of future fellwalkers in mind, I made an impromptu arrow to show them which way to go.

There are obvious evangelistic applications to this point, but also ones for discipleship, as we show others less experienced than we are how they can live a Christian life.  But there is also an application in mission: too often I have met the injured mission workers who got lost or had an accident along the way, because there was nobody to point them the correct way.

Syzygy is pleased to be working ever more closely with mission agencies to help them guide their mission partners effectively.  But many of the people we help have no connection to mainstream agencies.  Perhaps their church has sent them, bypassing an agency, though the church may have little understanding of how to support them in the field.  Sometimes (like me when I go hiking) they think they know what they’re doing only to find out the hard way they had no idea.  Or maybe they have just gone off and done their own thing without considering the challenges, just like the tourists I see walking up mountains like Scafell Pikes wearing sandals and taking no water with them.

This is why Syzygy seeks to work together with sending churches, and churches of those independent mission workers who are not looking to be ‘sent’, to help train them before they go.  They may not even think they need training, but our experience of picking up the pieces tells us differently.  People we have helped testify to the effectiveness of this.  One mission worker remarked later: “All that stuff you talked through with us, it was so helpful, because it was things we hadn’t even thought about that we needed to do.”

So we need your help to link us into churches who would like more information about how to support mission workers more effectively, and to alert independent mission workers to their need for preparation.  On our website we have a guide for churches and a guide for people going alone.  We want to do everything in our power to point the way effectively for those who are going.  Then, not only can they have a great experience of mission, they can help make the way clear to those who follow them.