Bush Church Aid
Brian Roberts, National Director of the Bush Church Aid Society of Australia. (Photo BCA)
Looking back, looking forward
The Bush Church Aid Society faces many challenges as it seeks to make Christ known in the 21st Century.
A global financial crisis, climate change, and a severe drought have made the future uncertain for many. Yet, thanks to the strong shoulders BCA stands on, we will continue to take the Good News of Jesus to rural, regional and remote Australians.
This year the Society celebrates its 90th birthday.
As we move forward, we aim to innovate and change. But we don’t plan to reinvent the wheel. Our past will shape our future.
For much of the 19th century the Colonial and Continental Church Society in Britain had been placing evangelical missionaries in the Australian outback.
At the turn of the century however, a spirit of change was in the air. On a wet night in 1919, a bishop, some clergy and a few prominent laymen from Melbourne and Sydney met to discuss their vision to send gospel workers beyond the end of the railway line. BCA was born.
The early years of the Society were marked by great enthusiasm.
The Rev SJ Kirkby, BCA’s first Organising Missioner, began sending men and women as laypeople to rural Australia to test their suitability for ministry there. Following their placement they were encouraged to study at Bible College. This allowed Kirkby to gather leaders who not only had a heart for rural ministry, but had refined their skills in that context.
Fast forward 90 years and our methods are similar.
Recently the Society partnered with Ridley College to deliver eRidley. The online course allows students to study the first year of a Bachelor of Theology degree from home. To date 80 individuals have utilised eRidley. Around 40 percent of them hail from a regional setting where there is no Bible College close by.
Kirkby wisely valued every donation, regardless of its size. Thousands of supporters around Australia have kept the Society stable, even during the depression of the 1930’s. From 2008 to 2009 giving to the Society has increased, even with the worst financial conditions since the Great Depression.
Kirkby wrote in 1930 in his book These Ten Years,
'A multitude of Christian work in the far outback exists. Novel, unconventional, daring enterprises are called for. Sweating, toilsome, heart-breaking endurance is involved in them. In the name of God the Bush Church Aid Society wants to do them.
Will the reader of this book pray that ‘power from on high’ be granted for the right doing of the work for God and His Church in Australia?'
Mission in the back-blocks of Australia is as hard as it ever has been. Faithful Field Staff suffer much for the sake of Christ. But in God’s strength, and continuing in the wisdom of those who have gone before us, the Society will continue to stand firm.
Brian Roberts is the National Director of the Bush Church Aid Society of Australia.