Grace, the undeserved reward
Posted on: 6th December 2021
CMS missionaries Sam and Shan-Shan Chrisp serve in Taiwan. They share their surprise at the practice of rewarding good behaviour in many areas of Taiwanese culture. One thing we’re learning about in Taiwan is what we call the ‘reward’ culture. Elijah often comes home from preschool with new small toys or food snacks. When we ask him […]
Checkpoint Summer 2021: Communicating grace
Posted on: 15th November 2021
CMS worker B serves in the Middle East, teaching English and learning about her adopted culture. Here she speaks of the challenges in communicating grace to Muslims. My lecturer drew her chair closer to mine. It was the last class for my course in formal Arabic at university, and she was conducting a conversational review […]
Checkpoint Summer 2021: From reciprocity to reconciliation
Posted on: 13th November 2021
How does ‘grace’ work in a place where the rule for maintaining good relations is not grace but reciprocity? CMS missionary Joel Atwood, working with students in Vanuatu, explains. Vanuatu is an intensely relational country. Even though it’s a little unfair to treat over 115 language groups across 96 islands as a single entity, a […]
Checkpoint Summer 2021: Grace that frees
Posted on: 13th November 2021
CMS missionaries Chris and Karen Webb serve at Broome Peoples Church in the Anglican Diocese of North West Australia. In this article Chris shares how grace lifts the burden of self-condemnation. Over a cuppa, Jenny*, an Aboriginal woman from the East Kimberley, tells us that one of her nieces is now a Christian. “How long […]
Checkpoint Summer 2021: With God all things are possible
Posted on: 11th November 2021
CMS missionaries Peter and Terry Blowes have been ministering in Argentina for many years. Frequently in their university work they encounter the challenge of students who believe in God’s sternness and judgement, but not in his mercy and grace. Terry gives a recent example. I was sitting in the loft area of the Economics Faculty […]
Checkpoint Summer 2021: What Jesus has done for me
Posted on: 11th November 2021
CMS missionaries Simon and Jess Cowell are serving in Bari, Italy, discipling university students. Simon and Jess reflect on witnessing to the revolutionary truth of what Jesus has done in meeting both religious and secular thinking with the gospel of grace. The threat of legalism Italy is steeped in spiritual legalism. Almost all Italians, even […]
Checkpoint Summer 2021: Knowing God
Posted on: 9th November 2021
CMS missionaries Dave and Leoni Painter serve in Cambodia, where the dominant Buddhist religion values ‘acquiring knowledge’ as a good work. How to help students of the gospel understand grace? The lesson was proceeding well. I followed the Khmer language textbook on this subject that I had been developing over the last few years. The […]
Checkpoint Summer 2021: Grace – from beginning to end
Posted on: 7th November 2021
CMS missionaries Howard and Michelle Newby have had a long-term connection with the Philippines and notice that the role of ‘obedience’ can often cause confusion in relation to grace. Howard speaks of how he is learning to teach God’s grace to people with long-held animist beliefs. When we first arrived in the Philippines, we were confronted with teaching that promoted obedience as […]
Checkpoint Summer 2021: Grace: the heart of mission
Posted on: 6th November 2021
Can you remember when God first opened your eyes to grace? CMS QNNSW Branch Director Mark Fairhurst describes such a moment, explains it from the Bible, and explores why this insight matters in the vision for a world that knows Jesus. Can you remember when God first opened your eyes to his saving grace in the Lord Jesus Christ? For me, I was 18 years […]
Checkpoint Summer 2021: Too good to be true?
Posted on: 4th November 2021
CMS missionaries Chris and Grace Adams serve in Timor-Leste, a country where following rules is deeply ingrained and the reality of grace is almost too shocking to comprehend. Chris shares how is helping people understand grace. Religious context “People of Timor Leste I see that in every way you are very religious.” I can imagine the Apostle Paul saying this if he walked around in 21st century Timor Leste, just as he spoke […]
