Balancing Life In Hard Times
BALANCING LIFE IN HARD TIMES
Chelsea Thorne, Sydney; Michelle Cameron, Perth, Australia
On May 30th, 2020, the ICOC Women’s Service Team hosted a webinar with special guest Chelsea Thorne, a women’s ministry leader in the Sydney, Australia Church of Christ.
Chelsea grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA. Her sister became a disciple and introduced Chelsea to the church at that time. In 2002, when Chelsea was thirteen, she studied the Bible and became a Christian in the Hampton Roads teen ministry. Her parents also became disciples and her brother followed along a few years later.
Chelsea went to Virginia Tech University and studied Human Development. After graduation, in 2013, she took up a One-Year Challenge and travelled to Sydney, Australia, to serve the church there. She married William Thorne and together they went into the full-time ministry in Sydney, where they have excelled in growing Teen and Marrieds’ ministries. They now serve as Evangelist and Women's Ministry Leader in Sydney and have two beautiful boys Denton (two and a half years old) and Louie (one year old).
In March of this year, Will and Chelsea were exposed to the Coronavirus at a church service and were both diagnosed with Covid-19. They battled through quarantining with two young boys while they both were ill with serious symptoms. During this difficult time, they continued to serve in the ministry as they could. Chelsea is known as a bubbly, giving, and empathetic person who is dearly loved, and serves people with extreme kindness. She has strong convictions driving her love for God and people and works extremely hard even while caring for her children and battling sickness.
Jesus’ Terrible Day
Chelsea begins her lesson with the story in Mark 6 – a terrible day in Jesus’s life, when he learns that his cousin, John the Baptist, has been murdered, and his planned time of retreat with his disciples in order to mourn this event is taken over by the pressing needs of crowds of people intruding upon him. Chelsea notes that the word “balance” is found only four times in the NIV; only in the Old Testament, and only having to do with weights and scales. Perhaps this tells us that the balance in our lives needs to be weighted towards wholeheartedly following Jesus?
She encourages us to learn to put an eternal perspective on our suffering, without diminishing or minimizing the pain which we and those we care about endure.
The Mission Never Stops
She points out several lessons we can learn from Jesus, even as he suffered: he was still seizing opportunities to love others; he continued to train his chosen apostles. He was able to be flexible in his plans; and he included other people in his process of loving, serving, and meeting needs.
Be the Dream Team
What can hold us back from including others in our plans, Chelsea asks? Perhaps thinking that we will do better without anyone else’s help, as it seems the disciples did in Matthew 6:35-36. Perhaps the fear that others will not do as good a job as we think we would on our own. She encourages us to think about learning from Jesus how to make everyone around us successful, as he did; to intentionally partner with someone and go out and do something great for God.
She closes with Jeremiah 32:17, a reminder that God is able to do the impossible. “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” (NIV)
It’s encouraging to learn that the Sydney church has had seventeen baptisms during March, April, and May 2020, during the Covid-19 sheltering-in-place restrictions. Several women in the church have begun studying the bible virtually with their mothers, some of whom live a long way away from nearby churches. Our sister Tiana overcame many obstacles and was able to baptize her mother on June 1st, even though she lives a fifteen-hour drive away.