Mission Matters 2020 Coordinating COVID-compliant Conferences!

The planning for ‘Mission Matters’, which is Mission Interlink’s cross-cultural mission conference for South-East Queenland, was turned on its head in March when COVID sparked the shut-down of gatherings of any size all over Australia. However, the committee felt that we should wait until June to decide whether to cancel, postpone, go online, or run as planned. With Queensland relaxing restrictions, it went ahead as an in-person event under approved COVID plans at Mt Tamborine 25-27 September, with 253 people and 19 mission agencies attending — similar to previous years!

COVID compliance added a whole host of additional considerations:

• Distancing limited the numbers in the auditorium — yes we hit that limit!
• COVID-compliant food service — all food, tea and coffee being served. Two meal sittings to limit dining room numbers.
• Eliminating ‘multi-touch’ mission stand displays — fewer brochures, QR codes for ‘sign ups’.
• Hand sanitiser EVERYWHERE!

Wycliffe personnel significantly helped pull off this event — the first big in-person mission event from when the pandemic hit Australia. Four of the thirteen organising committee members were Wycliffe, and then ten other Wycliffe members from South-East Queensland, some of whom were ‘stranded’ back in Australia, came to help out with logistics and service — data projection, cook helper, ‘house parents’, food and drink servers.

The weekend proved to be a great encouragement and blessing, as reflected in participant feedback:

• Being reminded that I just need to be faithful with what God has given me in order to fulfil the Great Commission, no matter how much it is. (27-year old male)
• I thought that the Q&A session was really good and answered a lot of questions for me, personally. (Simon, teenager)
• Hearing all the mission speakers, and meeting all the amazing people, and hearing their testimonies of God’s goodness, in their lives. (Michelle, 27-year-old)
• Spending time with God, getting to hear testimonies from missionaries about how they do missions with kids. (Alana, 32-year-old)

Full Report (PDF)