Some of you have been following this blog since its beginnings way back in 2003 when it was www.backyardmissionaries.blogspot.com, (see the pic above from the wayback machine) where I was deeply engaged in the ’emerging missional church’ conversation. This was where it initially gained traction and found its niche. From there it moved to Typepad, before I finally got my very own shiny domain name!

Over the years the missional / emerging church conversation waned, but my personal commitment to the ‘backyard missionary’ sense of identity never did.  Mission in Oz was the undergirding motivation for all of my musings and provocations.

I have considered numerous times buying www.andrewghamilton.com, re-inventing myself and being more discrete about my vocation, but I also feel like that would be saying the days of ‘backyard mission’ have passed. I have ‘moved on’ so to speak.

But I haven’t. In fact if anything I feel clearer and more passionate about that sense of identity than ever before.

It is so deeply formed in me that to lose that particular sense of vocation and purpose would (I imagine) see me completely adrift and lost. I’m not really a retic bloke… I’m not really even a pastor…I’m definitely not a Phys Ed Teacher any more…  I do those jobs and fill those roles usually with a sense of joy and fulfillment, but at core I sense God has put me here to communicate the message of Jesus to ordinary Australian people (those outside the church) in ways they can understand.

I remember saying that exact sentence when I was 29 years old when trying to explain to a friend what my job as a youth pastor involved. And those words and that precise way of expressing my vocation has stayed with me.

I want to communicate the message of Jesus to ordinary Australian people in ways they can understand.

That’s what I do. Its who I am. It aint ‘grand’ or ‘visionary’ as such, but it gives clarity and form to my everyday identity and purpose. It gives shape and focus to how I live my life

As I unpack that in my own mind it has a 3 significant elements:

• Communication – I want to make sense of a message that may be unfamiliar and even odd to people outside the church who are often indifferent or hostile. The Christian message has definitely gone out of vogue, so its going to take some skill and capacity as a communicator to articulate deep and often confronting concepts in ways that make sense and that can get a hearing. I feel God has gifted me to communicate both with writing and speech and to connect particularly with the earthy, unpretentious and sometimes vulgar, larrikin types who may well otherwise dismiss faith.

• The message of Jesus – its not rocket science. But it is a message of both love, grace and forgiveness as well as one of surrender and bowing the knee. Its both a beautiful message but one that calls for a complete re-orientation of life, so it has a ‘pointy end’.. I want to be faithful to both aspects of the message as well as speaking it in language that gets a hearing. If people reject it I want it to be because they ‘got’ exactly what I said.

• Ordinary Australian people – I can speak to people who are dyed in the wool Christians – I do that a lot – but I think the far bigger challenge and the task that really lights a fire in me is to communicate what we are on about to average garden variety Aussies with no religious background – to use clear language, stories and metaphors that resonate. And yeah – the ‘Australian’ part is very deliberate. For several years I considered overseas missionary work, but what formed deep in my gut was an awareness of Australia as a dark and difficult place for the gospel to take root. I began to see the need for ‘stay at home missionaries’ very clearly and I sensed that was what I had been called to. And I love doing it…

As I consider those elements it helps me understand why I come alive in everyday conversations with ordinary people about life, spirituality and meaning.

It helps me understand why I gain energy when I’m doing a ‘big brekkie’ conversation on 98.5FM, because in my mind’s eye are a bunch of Aussie tradies driving to work and hearing me speak about some aspect of faith. I want their ears to prick up and for them to turn the volume up and tune in.

And recently as I started to put together a book of stories and reflections based on this blog I stumbled and stuttered for months, for some reason unable to get a start, but then as I pictured my ‘audience’ – ordinary Australian people who are outside the church – it was like someone pulled a starter cord in me and suddenly I had fuel in the tank to burn!

So while I stumbled on the term ‘backyard missionary’ way back in 2003 as I was trying to find a name for a blog I get the sense it was fortuitous as I really can’t think of a clearer or more appropriate description of who God has made me to be.

So here’s a question (for all 5 of my remaining readers) – if you had to choose a domain name that most clearly articulated your sense of vocation what would it be?

(I just asked Danelle what she would choose and she said ‘www.loveGodloveothers-anddon’t beadickhead.com She asked me to let you know that apparently she was joking about ‘don’t be a dickhead…’ Yeah right…