General News
14 September, 2025
In good faith
Have you ever had the experience of wanting to go on a holiday or a trip away, only to find that once there, you just can’t wait to get home again?
I dare say that most of us, at one time or another; have known what that is like. That includes me. It will be school holidays here in the NT in a couple of weeks and I will be able to get back home for the first time since the year started, and yes – I can’t wait.
This is certainly not a new phenomenon. People have been having this experience probably since time began.
I am certainly not the first person who has had to leave home to work, and without doubt I will
not be the last.
Both within the church, as missionaries, evangelists and other workers, and in every other walk of life, people have often needed to move away from their homes to serve their communities and to make their livings.
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges some Christians face is the question of leaving home to serve in Christian work, either within their own countries or abroad.
As a youth, I personally had a great deal of exposure to cross-cultural missionaries who had served in many lands, but particularly in the South Pacific region.
I took great interest in hearing them whenever the opportunity presented itself.
At the time I had no idea that I would myself eventually be working with aboriginal people cross-culturally.
When Jesus first called his disciples to follow Him, they would have had no idea that they would eventually be leaving their homes to take to Gospel of Jesus to the gentile world.
One must wonder what went through the minds of the first disciples, Simon and Andrew, and then James and John, all fishermen from the Galilee region of Northern Israel, when Jesus said to them, “Come, follow me and I will show you how to fish for people”.
While we don’t know what they were thinking at the time, we do know that they obeyed the call and followed Him.
From that time on they would be leading itinerant lives, first as disciples learning about the new faith, and then as apostles, that would take them across the entire of Israel and then into Europe, Africa, Persia, Russia, India and many other nations as they went forth sowing the seed of the Gospel into the early churches.
To the best of our knowledge, they never returned to their homes and all of them ended their lives in foreign lands.
In Matthew 8, we read of how someone said to Jesus, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go”.
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head”.
Following Jesus has a cost.
It may be that we are called to serve at home, or it may be that we are called to serve away.
The question is, how will we respond?
Jesus also said in Matthew 19, “And whoever leaves houses or brothers or sisters … for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life”.
As Christians, we are all called to serve, just as the disciples did.
And yes - sometimes that service involves sacrifice.
The apostle Peter wrote “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of Gods grace”.
Contributed by DAVID YOUNG