Greetings TOM Family!

In the next few days, our Senior Guardian and fellow TOM Member Keld will step down from that role, which he has served us faithfully in since 2015.  I know many of you will join me in thanking Keld, and Sara, and their family for the dynamic and apostolic leadership that they have brought to the role in many ways over that period, and praying for them as they take their next step of faith into what God is calling them into now.

There will be a chance to say thank you in person when the Order next meet all together for our Global Gathering in 2024 - the dates and details of which are coming out very soon.

But in my role as secretary, and on behalf of the order, I want to briefly mark this transition now by saying Thank you to Keld.

Thank you for your passion for God, your faithfulness and teaching insight into sharing the scripture, your loving shepherding of us as we have journeyed and grown together in an ever fractured world. Thank you for the apostolic challenge you bring to the church and its calling to be a missionary shaped people, your openness to the prophetic leading of the spirit, and your evangelistic zeal to keep our attentions and energies focused on those who need to hear the message of the good news, in particular in helping us identify and push into the different streams of mission.

Thank you Keld - may God bless you, and as you lay down this role of leading the Order of Mission, may he fill you afresh by the power of the Holy Spirit - the spirit which raised Jesus from the grave - as you step into your new role with Oasis in Denmark.

My role as a secretary is now to guide and steer us through a period of transition, with particular responsibility for setting out a process and timetable for the discernment and election of the next Senior Guardian, and I want to say a few things about that.

Firstly, during this interim period, the Guardians agreed when they met in January in Cambridge, in accordance with our constitution following the resignation or departure of the Senior Guardian, and which has now been confirmed following our now established safer recruitment processes, that Peter Findley, who is currently one of the UK Guardians, will become our Interim Senior Guardian from the 1st April, until such a time that a newly elected permanent Senior Guardian has been discerned, confirmed and is able to take up their office. Because this election wasn’t one that might have been planned or expected in the months running up to our next Global Gathering in the Summer of 2024, and we want to give it the time and space that we think it needs, we envisage that period could well take somewhere around 9-12 months. During that time, Peter will take responsibility for coordinating and convening the ongoing work of the order, meeting with guardians, champions and members; co-ordinating  communications through Susan and the global office, accompanying members in taking permanent vows, and helping with the initial preparations and planning of the 2024 gathering, until such time that the next Senior Guardian is able to step into that role.

Secondly, we will be guided in this process by two principles: our constitutional framework, which sets out the formal rules and timeframes of the different parts of the discernment process, and which the chapter of TOM recently agreed to revise and update, and through a shared discerning of the leading of the Holy Spirit. In order to help us to do this listening and discerning together, I have invited the Guardians to nominate upto 4 permanent members of from across the global TOM family to work with myself and Peter as an Appointments Advisory Group. This group will begin to meet from April, initially on a monthly basis. We hope to say more about this group and how we hope to involve the whole order in a period of prayerful listening and reflection after Easter and towards Pentecost.

Thirdly, and I think this is important to say at this point when we talk about discernment and transitions - there is, to my knowledge and understanding and I think I can say this for the rest of the Guardians too, not an ‘obvious candidate’ this time, there isn’t someone waiting in the wings, suddenly to be wheeled on stage (or on zoom) and announced as your next Senior Guardian.

Whilst that might feel like a vulnerable position to be in, the guardians are not worried by this. We are trusting that if we as an order posture ourselves before the Lord, it means we must put our dependence - our hopes and anxieties for TOM and all that it might and could and should be - firmly back onto God, and his leading of us - just like he led the Israelites from Egypt into the promised land, and through the leadership transition from Moses to Joshua - as a pillar of cloud by day, and pillar of fire by night. We’re looking to him to show us and lead us forward. That means we need to have an open and accountable process where we can each begin to ask ourselves and each other - is this something God is calling me to. It also means we might want to remind ourselves afresh of who we are, and who God is called us to be together - and I know that’s something which Peter Findley feels called to help us retell our story, in the months to come.

I hope this has been helpful to set out some of the things to be looking out for over the next few months, I’ll try and keep you updated as things develop. If you have anything you’d like to share with me or the Appointments Advisory Group - whether that’s a word or wisdom, of insight, of reflection, of criticisms or of challenges - please get in touch via sectretary@missionorder.org - we’re here to listen and serve you. Do pray for me, Peter and the rest of the guardians as we serve you during this season. 

God bless you.