Doing Our Best

Reconciliation – Responding to Hate with Love

Reconciliation - Responding to Hate with Love

Baptist Advocacy Update | May 2026

Romans 12, particularly verses 9 onwards, are wonderful guides to those seeking to be advocates for their neighbours. “Be devoted to one another”, “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need”, “practice hospitality”, “rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn”, “overcome evil with good”. The words of Scripture provide comfort and direction for how we should tackle the great challenges of our day.

So it is no surprise that I was filled with deep sadness over the booing and heckling directed at Aboriginal elders during the ANZAC Day ceremonies in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. For many First Nations peoples this is a painful reminder of the racism that can be a regular feature in regular life. I found myself mourning with those who mourned, and saddened by the disrespect shown towards the Welcomes and Acknowledgements – sincere acts of hospitality that greatly enrich public ceremonies in Australia.

For those of us connected to the wider Australian church, many of us would be familiar with Sydney’s speaker, Uncle Pastor Ray Minniecon and the significant impact his family has had on the church, from advocating for disadvantaged peoples at home and abroad, and for his long-term sustained support for stolen generations survivors. I was heartened to hear that at the dawn services, the applause and support from the crowd was far louder than the individuals who booed. Applause and support are far more appropriate responses to Uncle Ray’s faithful ministry.

So how can we, as The Church, show support for First Nations peoples, including fellow Christians who find themselves targets of racism and disrespect in both public and private life?

The response of RSL WA chief executive Stephen Barton provides a strong example of what we can do – standing alongside Noongar Elder Di Ryder, as he immediately condemned the disrespect during the ceremony. It is a lesson the church can take, both leaders and congregants, to be responsive and compassionate when our First Nations brothers and sisters come under attack. But in order to do so, first must come listening and learning.

As National Reconciliation Week approaches in May (27 May – 3 June), and NAIDOC week later in July (5 July – 12 July), churches have a unique role to show solidarity, compassion, dignity and grace just like Uncle Pastor Ray Minniecon, and the generations of faithful First Nations Christian leaders who showed bravery in the face of persecution.

For leaders, congregants and churches who are similarly troubled by the events of last weekend, but are motivated to do something about it, I would strongly encourage using National Reconciliation Week to have loving, gracious and justice-focused conversations with your church. This can be up the front in sermons, or in more private conversations including bible studies, youth groups and young-adult groups, and within dedicated prayer nights.

Being informed

In order to have authentic conversations to support First Nations peoples, it is essential that we centre Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices, and not our own – for this reason I would strongly recommend looking at Common Grace’s resources on Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Justice as a starting point. For 10 years, they have collaborated with many First Nations Christians – including Uncle Ray – to faithfully equip churches to engage in the meaningful ministry of reconciliation.

For Christian resources on Acknowledgements of Country, please refer to Common Grace’s resources for direction and responses to FAQs. This resource helps guide speakers to speak an authentic, personal Acknowledgement, and addresses potential theological concerns that might arise. Check their Acknowledgement of Country guide here – https://www.commongrace.org.au/acknowledgement_of_country

For those who want to go further and recognise National Reconciliation Week in their churches, Common Grace also compile prayers, service guides, and Bible readings that compliment this year’s theme – “All In” – https://www.commongrace.org.au/national_reconciliation_week_2026

Giving

For those who wish to give, in addition to reaching out to our local indigenous churches and projects (including Bible Society’s Noongar Bible translation project), I would like to direct people to Scarred Tree Indigenous Ministries, where Uncle Ray Minniecon and his wife Sharon are co-founders and leaders- please consider a donation to this vital, community-led ministry work. https://indigenousgivingcircle.raiselysite.com/

I, like many, was outraged on ANZAC Day morning. However, as the link above states, “outrage alone does not create change. This is our chance to respond with respect, solidarity, and action.”. I can’t help but be reminded, once again, of Romans 12.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Author Theo Doraisamy is a member of the Baptist Advocacy Roundtable (Australian Baptist Ministries) and the Pacific Australian Emerging Leaders Network, a joint initiative between Micah Australia and the Pacific Conference of Churches. He is also the Advocacy Support Volunteer for Baptist World Aid, and is a secondary teacher in his day job.

Follow Micah Australia here.

How Wide is Your Net?

“And I always make sure I invite some people who I’m fairly sure will say no.” I heard this little off-the-cuff sentence from Melinda Dwight (former Director of Alpha Australia) two years ago, and it’s stayed with me ever since.

Inviting is an important part of being a sacred agent. We all have our different gifts, ministries and settings, but at the end of the day – in fact all day – we represent the One who is inviting people everywhere into his kingdom. The gospel is news – and it’s also an invitation.

As representatives of Jesus, we want to be as inviting as he is, whether that be inviting others to lunch, to youth group, home group, Alpha or a church service. Is our invitation as genuine, warm, strong, and gentle as his? And importantly, is it as wide?

When we think about inviting, or are encouraging others to invite, so often our thought process goes like this: Can I think of one person among my contacts, who may be likely to be interested? And our minds are drawn to those most Christ-adjacent.

But Jesus’ kingdom doesn’t work like that. Surely we know that he doesn’t only invite those already closest to him. Saul of Tarsus certainly wasn’t. The kingdom is full of unlikelies. And even those who do indeed say no, No, or NO need to know that they are invited. The invitation itself plants a seed.

Imagine how things would change if we shifted the norm from ‘thinking of one person to invite’ to ‘putting the word out to all our contacts’:

We’d be almost certain to see a lot more people joining us
A great many Australians would be receiving multiple invitations, and what would they make of that?

We know that a lot Australians are interested in Jesus. Where their blockage is a sense that they don’t qualify or wouldn’t be welcome, what’s needed is an invitation. It needn’t be high-pressure, it could be as simple as a text message like this:

Hello everyone I know within cooee: Our church at West Beach is starting a new series through John’s gospel this week. Also an Alpha Course starting Aug 21. Let me know if you’d like to come along – or surprise me there! Just know you’re definitely invited.

In Jesus’ teaching, the Sower spreads the seed very broadly, and the fisher casts a wide net, not just a single line. How wide is the net you’re casting?

Author: Andrew Turner is the Director of Crossover for Australian Baptist Ministries.

Photo by Cassiano Psomas on Unsplash

The Remarkable Florence Young

Recently at a gathering of Baptist leaders from around the Pacific, I was privileged to meet Eric Maefonea and Thomas Weape, leaders of the Baptist movement in the Solomon Islands (the South Seas Evangelical Church). They spoke of their movement of over 600 churches, and 100,000 members. One in seven Solomon Islanders is a SSEC member. ‘But did you know how we got started?’ asked Eric.

In 1882, Florence Young was 25 years old and still a relatively new Christian. Invited to visit her brothers, who’d bought a sugarcane plantation in Bundaberg, she was ready to set off from Sydney when a couple of friends offered to pray for her. They all knelt together, and after her friends had prayed, she went to stand up. ‘Why don’t you pray, too?’ they asked.

This was not something she was confident to do. In fact, quite the opposite. She desperately tried to put words together, but nothing would come out, and after a couple of agonisingly awkward minutes, one friend finished for her. She journeyed north feeling acutely embarrassed, but also unable to shake off of one her friend’s prayers – asking God to make her a blessing to everyone she saw on the plantation.

On arriving, she saw a housekeeper with four young children and decided they must be her mission field. She offered to teach them Bible stories – and even managed to pray in front of them! But she realised that she also saw 80 indentured Melanesian labourers, rough, uneducated, without English, and most of all, without the gospel. Should she offer to help them too?

To her surprise, ten showed up to her first lesson, where she used a chrysalis as an object lesson to describe the transformation God brings. It took weeks to get beyond ‘God – so – loved’ in her Bible lesson. But already more and more workers were attending, some returning to learn every evening. Gradually friends and connections joined in the work, which spread to other plantations and towns.

When the Federal Government eventually outlawed such overseas labour schemes, over 2,000 workers had been baptised and taught the Bible essentials! But would they keep their faith upon returning to the Solomons? To find out, she bought a boat, didn’t she? And to her delight she found that the faith was not merely being kept, but shared. Churches and mission stations multiplied – 179 by her last visit – despite the very serious dangers of disease, ship-wreck and cannibalism.

It’s a great story, worth reading in more detail. I’ve not even mentioned Ms Young’s two stints in China and one nervous breakdown. But I love how powerfully God works through even the weak and shy – especially through them – when they pay attention to the sacred agent’s assignment to be a blessing to all they see. And to really seeing!

Who do you see?

Author: Andrew Turner is the Director of Crossover for Australian Baptist Ministries.
Image: missiology.org.uk

Thanks so much to all who have supported Crossover in Helping Australian Baptists Share Jesus. To give to Crossover see crossover.org.au/offering

Turning One Talent into Two

Sacred agents have a strong sense of responsibility – or at least we should have. I’m sure you’ve noticed how many of Jesus’ stories are about whether agents will be found faithful when an absent master returns. So we have an eye on that day as we go about doing what we can with what’s been entrusted to us.

But there may be times and seasons where we feel we’re not kicking goals or making much of a difference. It may simply be that the Spirit is giving us a season of rest between assignments – in that case resting is the assignment we’re to be faithful with! But still there are times when we feel we’re just spinning our wheels, and not bearing much fruit (like some bogged and barren motorised citrus tree).

What to do with our talent in such a season? The bottom line, says Jesus, is to put it in the bank and at least make some interest. Better than burying it, anyway. But if you’re looking to do a bit better, here’s an idea:

Find someone who is bearing ministry fruit, and help them out.

One of Jesus’ lesser-known sayings is this: ‘Whoever receives a prophet because they are a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous person because they are a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because they are my disciple, truly I tell you, they will never lose their reward.’ ^{Matthew 10}

It makes simple sense. If you do something practical to enable someone with a fruitful ministry to produce even more fruit, then that extra fruit happens because of your action. If Billy Graham came to town and was planning to do a day of laundry, wouldn’t it be a no-brainer to do it for him, to enable him one extra speaking event? You might bring dozens of people into the kingdom just by standing in front of a washing machine.

But it takes some humility, doesn’t it? It might be tempting to look at Billy and think, ‘When was the last time you hung out washing, Bill? This will be good for you. And give me some platform time for a change.’ It’s only when we realise that it’s not about us, that all the talents belong to the Master, and all that matters is that his ministry bears fruit, that we’ll open our eyes to see the creative opportunities we have – even when it feels like nothing’s happening.

What ministries are flourishing in your neck of the woods? And how might you get a piece of their reward?

Author: Andrew Turner is the Director of Crossover for Australian Baptist Ministries.

Image: Scottsdale Mint (Unsplash)

Thanks so much to all who have supported Crossover in Helping Australian Baptists Share Jesus. To give to Crossover see crossover.org.au/offering

But Who Are You Really

We all have some fear of exposure, of being really seen. (I accidentally drank some invisible ink the other day. I went straight to the hospital, but it was 12 hours before they saw me…) Many have the occasional nightmare along the lines of going to church and realising they’re wearing no pants.

But doesn’t that raise the question of Who are you at the deepest level?

Whilst you may fear being revealed as a fraud due to your incomplete discipleship, this is not actually your deepest level. If absolutely everything was to be told about you, the main headline would be this: You’re a precious child of God, dearer to him than life itself.

This should not only comfort, but also embolden us. I’ve long been convinced that the #1 key to missional effectiveness is neither tools nor technique. They’re both important, and why at Crossover we invest in resources and training. But more transformative by far is identity.

Do we really believe that we are representatives of God’s kingdom? The name Sacred Agents came from a conversation I had with a group of 10-year-old boys who thought that being a pastor must be the most boring job ever. “No, it’s much more like being a secret agent!” I said.
Do we think of ourselves as ‘bringing’ the kingdom of God into every room we enter, every conversation we join, every new day we wake to? It sounds astonishingly arrogant even as I type it, except for two things: Christ himself said that he sends us even as the Father sent him (John 20:21), and the kingdom we bring is not arrogant at all – and so neither is the way we are to bring it.

Now except for very rare cases, there’s no need to be a secret as well as a sacred agent. We should be seen – and such self-disclosure can readily be navigated without arrogance. The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed (Romans 8:19) – and that is not merely future-us, but here-and-now-us too by the grace of God!

So next time at a party someone asks ‘And what do you do?’ let’s face it, you’re not going to say ‘I’m a spy for Jesus.’ No, you’re still going to say you’re an architect (which is strange, because you’re a hairdresser). No, no, remember in true fact you’re a precious child of God. And not a baby, simply to be carried, but an heir, with responsibilities in the family business.

These responsibilities may include designing hotels or hairstyles, but if you’re consciously a temple of the Holy Spirit in every meeting room, classroom and chatroom, they’ll never be the same again.

Author: Andrew Turner is Director of Crossover for Australian Baptist Ministries.

Image: Marten Newhall (Unsplash)

Thanks so much to all who have supported Crossover through the Australian Baptist Easter Offering. Later-in-the-year contributions from churches and individuals are very welcome as an investment in Helping Australian Baptists Share Jesus. See crossover.org.au/offering

A Particular Kind of Boldness

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. Acts 4:31

It takes courage on multiple levels to live as a representative of Jesus Christ. Courage before Christ himself, to have the nerve to say Yes, Lord, I’ll be your person in this place as opposed to Master, I know you are a hard man … so I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.

But courage also, of course, in the face of the world, because when we endeavour out in Jesus’ name, we’re likely to receive the same full gamut of different responses that Jesus himself received – welcomed and honoured through to mocked, despised and rejected.

Now this is nothing to do with success or failure. If you board a ship and share Christ, all 100 passengers may receive you happily. Or they may hate you and throw you overboard. Neither outcome necessarily means you’ve represented Jesus well or badly. Each could be a beautiful worship and service to Jesus.

The point is, it’s out of your control. There is no way to program the mission of God so that an outcome is guaranteed. God refuses to simply reprogram the robots, but instead makes himself vulnerable to rejection. (Paradoxically, wonderfully, he wins our hearts through having his broken.)
So the boldness we need, and the boldness the first disciples sought and received from God, is not an imperviousness to rejection, like a coat of armour so strong we can simply crash through and feel no pain. On the contrary, it is the courage to feel that pain.

It’s interesting that the word gallantry has two main definitions: ‘Great bravery in battle’ and ‘polite and respectful attention in courtship’. Do you see how these are linked? Both involve the willingness to be shot down. The boldness that sacred agents need by the Spirit is this Christlike form of boldness. It steps out from behind safe cover. It takes the first steps forward toward the other because they have God’s attention and God’s respect. It is prepared to suffer pain, but it takes pains not to inflict it.

The more we can take that posture and those steps in all the places God sends us, the more likely we are to in fact receive a very positive response. So let’s spend less time calculating our chances and more time asking God for his kind of boldness. If you’re thinking of inviting someone to church, or Alpha etc – worry less about whether they might say no, than about how their life may be if no one invites them at all.

Author: Andrew Turner is Director of Crossover for Australian Baptist Ministries.

Photo by Manfred Richter (CC)

Thanks so much to all who have supported the Australian Baptist Easter Offering – which funds Crossover to Help Australian Baptists Share Jesus. It’s not too late to contribute if you haven’t.

So That’s What a Bushel Is

So That's What a Bushel Is

October 1st 2023

There’s an art to inviting without inviting: ‘We must have you over for a meal sometime.’ Just look at the sheer beauty of that sentence. It has all you want in warmth and friendliness, without, you know, ever having to actually eat with the person.

Australian Baptists are generally a warm and happy bunch. According to the NCLS¹ results, Baptist churches are the place to be: 88% of us have a strong sense of belonging, 89% agree that our church is inclusive of different kinds of people, and 78% found it easy to make friends in our local church. Considering the epidemic of loneliness in Australia, our communities are some sort of dream land. But are we really as inclusive as we say?

There’s another, more troubling figure in our survey results. Those of us who ‘invited to a church service here any friends/relatives who don’t currently attend a church’ has fallen significantly – from 41% in 2006 to 27% now. For the first time, the inclination of Baptists to invite an outsider has fallen below the inclination of outsiders to accept such an invitation! 29% of non-church Australians say they are ‘Extremely likely’ or ‘Very likely’ to attend a church service if invited by a friend or family member.²

Friends, this raises serious questions that go deeper than our choices of outreach resources and evangelistic technique. Let us search our hearts with the question, ‘Do we really want people to be included, like God wants them to be included?’ I know there’s more to mission than inviting people to church, but there’s not less to mission than that.

If we still believe that well-worn myth that ‘nobody’s interested’ in church, we’re wrong! And if we lower a bowl (that’s what a bushel is) over our lamp ^{Mt 5:15} as though to keep the light and warmth to ourselves, we’re very wrong! It doesn’t just hide the flame, it smothers it.

Let’s arrest the slide of Sunday gatherings becoming weekly quiet times, when we withdraw from the world. (We need those daily.) No, when we gather, it should be our time to shine. What better way to show people Christ, than to show them the body of Christ?

Author: Andrew Turner is Director of Crossover for Australian Baptist Ministries.

Crossover exists to Help Australian Baptists Share Jesus.