Overseas Gospel Partners

The vision and purpose of the Tron Church

We see the Risen Lord Jesus crowded by people from our city and every nation, ransomed by his blood and raised by his Spirit through the gospel, reigning for eternity with him to the glory of God the Father. And so, our purpose as a church is that we worship together to make and grow mature disciples of Jesus Christ in ever greater numbers who with us will glorify God and enjoy him forever.

A key aspect of our WORSHIP together is our Witness. We Witness together to the gospel of Jesus Christ, evangelising our community (both local and global) so that we see an enlarging church, both in terms of drawing in and sending out through Partnership with others.

What sort of gospel work (‘mission’) do we support?

There is much good work that can be done(!), but we must focus on the work that must be done and the work that we are best placed to do. We have a strong history of Word ministry and in particular, training others in Word ministry. We believe our priority should be, therefore, to effectively partner with those engaged in this work. 

That will not necessarily require sending folk overseas for the long term. Already effective partnerships with Delhi Bible Institute (DBI) and Proclamation Institute Zambia (PIZ) exist whereby they send young men and women to Glasgow to study for a year or two and then return to their sending country and share the fruit of their learning. This is work we would seek to build on and enhance.

Here at The Tron, those who are set aside for full time ministry are committed to Word ministry or facilitating Word ministry. And so, in the same way, if we are to send people overseas then it will be, primarily, in order to do, or to facilitate, the work of Word ministry and also train others in Word ministry. This builds on existing partnerships that are already well developed: DBI and PIZ for example.

This not only plays to our strengths, but it is an ‘efficient’ use of resource. If we, for example, send someone to establish a Cornhill Timbuktu and they are able to train 10-20 men a year for 10 years. That will be something in the region of 200 churches with a trained pastor.

Given that we have limited resources (time, people and money) we do need to carefully clarify and define what we are prepared to support, in prayer and with finance. Potentially, for every person we support overseas, we could support 2 or 3 team members here at home, because the costs of supporting people abroad are so high.

For the avoidance of doubt we recognise that medical and aid work is worthwhile activity and we would not dissuade people from doing it. We will happily provide prayer support and encouragement but, unfortunately, we are not in a position to provide financial support.

What do we mean by support?

Not all our gospel partners will receive identical support and the leadership will consider levels of support across these key areas:

Prayer support

The church commits to pray regularly for all of those with whom we have close partnership. Prayer news would be shared on at least a monthly basis with those who are members of the church. We also ask our gospel partners to provide prayer updates once per month.

Oversight support

We do recognise that meaningful oversight at a distance is difficult and so we see the importance of partnering with a mission agency (such as Crosslinks who support those in Word ministry all across the world) but, where we can, we would seek to support those we partner with in terms of pastoral care and also hold them to account for the gospel work they are undertaking. This takes place informally on an ongoing basis, but also in a more formal capacity with regular reviews which will, amongst other things, seek to ask searching questions and assess the ongoing viability of the work.

Financial support

Resources are limited, not least financial resources. We will need to consider very carefully the degree to which we financially support our gospel partners. Clearly, if the church feels that a particular task needs to be done then we will need to prioritise it and back it accordingly. There will be other projects which are clearly good to do, but which aren’t a ‘must do’. Financial backing for these things will not be to an extensive degree. We strongly encourage gospel partners to build relationships and seek support from a range of churches and individuals.

Considering full time Word ministry here or further afield?

Get in touch with paul.brennan@tron.church and he would be delighted to meet with you.