Greetings to all friends of SOMA,
It has been over a year since you last heard from us — and for that, I want to begin simply by saying thank you. Thank you for your patience, your continued prayer, and your faithful partnership with SOMA even during a season when our newsletter went quiet. That silence had a very ordinary cause: I relocated from Southlakes Anglican Church in the Diocese of Newcastle, NSW where I served as Rector for six years, to take up the role of Vicar at St Matthew’s Anglican Church in Endeavour Hills, in the Diocese of Melbourne, VIC. Relocation — as many of you know from your own experience — has a way of consuming every spare hour. But SOMA has not stopped, our missioners have not stopped, and neither has the Lord of the Harvest. I’m delighted to be back in touch.
I want to share with you where this newsletter’s theme comes from, because it has followed me — almost providentially — from one diocese to another.
On my final Sunday at Southlakes, I preached a message titled “The Harvest is Plentiful,” drawn from Matthew 9:35–10:8. It was written on the back of two weeks on mission in Northern Ireland, where I’d also attended the Alpha Leadership Conference in London. That message asked a simple question: when you picture your street, your neighbours, your workmates — what do you assume about their openness to God? So often, without realising it, we assume the harvest around us is thin. We assume people aren’t interested, that faith is private, that someone else will get to it eventually.
But that isn’t what Jesus saw. Matthew tells us Jesus moved through the towns and villages — present, close, listening — and “when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt 9:36). Not indifferent. Not closed. Harassed and helpless — spiritually exhausted and searching, whether they’d name it that way or not. And so, Jesus says the words that have shaped this newsletter’s title: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (v.37).
Three assumptions quietly hold us back from that harvest: that the people around us aren’t really hungry; that we’re not qualified to be workers; and that someone else – the minister, the more “spiritual” one will get to it instead. Jesus answers all three. He chose fishermen, a tax collector, and a political radical as his first workers, and only then gave them authority (10:1). The calling always comes before the equipping. And the sending is urgent — the same word used elsewhere for casting out demons. This is not a gentle suggestion. It is everyone’s calling, starting now, with what we already carry: “Freely you have received; freely give” (10:8)
Here is why I share all this with you now. On my second week in the Diocese of Melbourne, I attended the Diocese Clergy Conference and heard Archbishop Ric Thorpe preach a message that felt almost identical to the one I had preached weeks earlier at Southlakes. He introduced the diocese’s new strategic vision — For the Harvest — calling every disciple, leader, church and ministry to take its next faithful step for the sake of the harvest God has already prepared. On the final night, we gathered in the Cathedral for the most participative prayer meeting I have ever experienced — prayer stations around the perimeter, vibrant contemporary worship, and even a firepit where we could light our written prayers. It marked, unmistakably, the beginning of a new season for the diocese.
We prayed this prayer together, and I want to share it with you:
Lord of the Harvest,
The harvest belongs to God. The Church belongs to God.
The Spirit gives life. We are called to pray and to act.
Confident in Christ, we are called for the harvest:
to pray for workers, to grow as disciples,
to raise up leaders, to renew the Church,
so that every disciple, leader, church and ministry may take its next faithful step for the glory of God and the benefit of the communities we serve.
Perhaps this could be SOMA’s prayer too — but I want to add something to it, because of who we are. SOMA exists to care for the nervous system of the body of Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And if the harvest is truly plentiful, then it is not enough for us simply to notice it, or even to pray for workers in general terms. As missioners who have seen firsthand what happens when ordinary Anglicans step into the power of the Spirit — when the sick are prayed for, when prophetic words bring clarity, when the Spirit moves in evangelism as naturally as in worship — we carry a particular responsibility. We cannot proclaim the good news of the kingdom while leaving behind the works that accompanied it in Matthew 9:35: teaching, proclaiming, and healing every disease and sickness. The gospel Jesus modelled was never word alone. It was word and Spirit, together, wherever people were harassed and helpless.
So as we relaunch this newsletter, that is our renewed conviction: the harvest is plentiful, the Spirit is present and willing, and SOMA’s calling is to equip and send workers who will not shy away from ministering in the Spirit’s power as they share the good news of Jesus — whether in Endeavour Hills, in Melbourne, or anywhere else in Australia or on the mission fields you’ll read about in this newsletter.
One further note before I close this greeting. Many of you will have noticed that we did not hold an Anglicans Ablaze Conference this year. Between the transition to St Matthew’s and the many demands of this season, we discerned it was wiser to pause and revisit the conference in 2027 rather than run it without the capacity to do it well. I would ask you to continue holding this in prayer — for wisdom in timing, for the right team to gather around it, and for the conference, when it returns, to be a genuine catalyst for renewal across our churches.
Thank you, as ever, for standing with SOMA in prayer and support. Read on to hear about two mission opportunities the Lord has placed before us this coming season — one already underway with the Diocese of Central Melanesia, and one new invitation from soon-to-be-birthed SOMA Uganda.
The harvest is plentiful. Let’s go together.
Yours in Christ’s service Rev Mel