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From Luke’s Journal February 2024 | Vol.29 No.1 | Missions and Sacrificial Service

The words ‘missions’ and ‘missionaries’ usually conjure up images of moving overseas to serve a different people group. It’s often part of the motivation to embark on the journey of studying medicine, dentistry, nursing or another area of healthcare. But one of the biggest blind spots we may have as healthcare workers is the mission we become part of exactly where God has placed each of us right now.

We hope that this issue of Luke’s Journal includes stories of missions “from the ends of our toes to the ends of the earth” (one of my pastor’s favourite catch-phrases). It contains some of the best examples of what moving towards missions overseas looks like at different stages: a freshly minted medical doctor sent out to Broome in her first six months of internship; a dentist’s journey from short-term to long-term work in Cambodia; a young family preparing to move their six young children to West Asia; a young family who have recently moved to Central Asia; and a family who has been living in a parched land where their beautiful feet bring the Good News of Jesus’ grace to those who thirst to hear it.

Read about the challenges of reaching frontier groups in the mountains to journeying alongside the Yolnu people in Australia’s own Top End backyard. Learn from those who have returned from the field, as Dr Jeremy Beckett provides a theological reflection asking “Is God Faithful in our Failure?” while Dr Russell Clark reflects on unseen sacrifices for returned missionaries.

“But we hope that this issue also speaks to the calling to missional living in our own backyard, our local urban, regional, or rural neighbourhood in these lands we call Australia.”

But we hope that this issue also speaks to the calling to missional living in our own backyard, our local urban, regional, or rural neighbourhood in these lands we call Australia. Dr Sneha Kirubakaran reminds us about everyone’s call to missional living as a conversation to have with Jesus “all day, every day”, while Sarah Rizkallah invites us to reflect on where we need to sacrifice our ego in the power dynamics within the ‘healthcare hierarchies’ we work in. Could it be in considering bivocational ministry as Dr Julian Chew has done, or seeing with new eyes what sacrificial work looks like, what Kara Martin calls “Workship”?

You’ll also find two articles that analyse the medical landscape in our own backyard more closely, as Dr John Goswell shares Australia’s lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and Dr Aniello Iannuzzi offers a sobering but insightful analysis of the Australian GP crisis, as well as offering some solutions.

“Arguably the most foundational teaching on the concept of ‘sacrificial service’ comes from Jesus himself in the Gospels in revealing the true nature of the shape of His life and ministry.”

Arguably the most foundational teaching on the concept of ‘sacrificial service’ comes from Jesus himself in the Gospels in revealing the true nature of the shape of His life and ministry. In Matthew 16, we see him reaching the turning point in his ministry where he has completed his preaching and healing ministry to His Jewish people but also to some Gentile communities, and now faces the cross at Jerusalem. 

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. (Matthew 16:24-27 ESV)

Immediately before this, Peter has answered Jesus’ piercing question, “And who do you say I am?” with the ringing declaration, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” But Peter, and the other disciples and crowds continue to misunderstand the way of the Messiah – that is, through suffering and death, before being raised to glory. And such is the way for all of His followers.

Fellow workers, following Jesus in our healthcare work inevitably leads us into the suffering of stormy seas, whether externally or internally. But take heart – for we have Peter as our brother, who, just two chapters earlier, had taken up Jesus’ invitation to come to him, and stepped out of the boat in the midst of the storm. You may be facing an onslaught of wind and waves in the coming storm. You may feel battered by the storm and, like Peter, are starting to sink. Friends, Jesus “immediately” has reached out his hand to take hold of your hand, and He says to you too, “Take heart. It is I! Don’t be afraid.” (Matthew 14:27 ESV) 

The Luke’s Journal editorial team hopes that this issue will serve to stimulate your evangelical and missional imagination, and will encourage and sharpen your missional living and participation in sacrificial service, wherever you find “the ends of your toes to the ends of the earth”.

Your fellow partners in His mission,

Eleasa 
On behalf of the Luke’s Journal editorial team

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