In Ecclesiastes 3:1 we read that ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens’. And so, it is with a heavy heart that I write on behalf of the MST & ECA Boards of our acceptance of Rev Tim Meyers’ resignation that has been communicated to many of you by Tim over these past few days. Tim has prayerfully indicated to us that his season as MST-ECA Executive Principal has drawn to a close. He will remain a dear friend of MST-ECA, a ministry to which he has unstintingly dedicated himself to over many years.

We are grateful to God for His call upon Tim’s life to be one of our many appointed Principals over the combined 135 years of MST-ECA’s history. Tim commenced as Principal of MST nearly fourteen years ago at about the same time I began serving as Board Chair. The Board has been blessed and enriched by our relationship with Tim and together under God we have sought to press into missional strategies that most align with the heart of God for all peoples.

Tim oversaw by the grace of God, the vital integration of MST-Chinese with MST, honouring the legacy of the Chinese Theological Education Foundation in birthing MST-Chinese 30 years ago. In 2018, Tim brought to us the exciting opportunity of broadening our missional scope to Christian higher education through Eastern College Australia. At a time when enrolments for pure theological education have been declining in Australia and much of the western world, Tim perceived the critical need to transform society through vocational discipleship such as the training and equipping of God’s people to be teachers and counsellors with a Biblical worldview, the latter made possible through the long-established reputation of MST’s unwavering commitment to Biblical truth. Our two schools-one community College that also embeds centres of excellence in the Arthur Jeffrey Centre and the Centre for the Study of Theology and Psychology remains unique in Victoria, and we are grateful to God for Tim’s visionary leadership in forging this new model of Christian education. At all times, Tim has maintained a clear-eyed strategic focus on honouring the missional DNA of our college, and upholding the conservative, evangelical, inter-denominational and multi-ethnic underpinnings of our College. We have deeply appreciated his strengths as an ardent advocate for MST-ECA, a charismatic communicator, teacher and preacher, his natural gifting for developing meaningful partnership networks, and his sharp intellectual clarity in approaching complex decisions.

We are delighted that Tim will be spending some of these next weeks working on a book of the history of MST-ECA that we hope, God willing, to launch later in the year. Even as Tim steps away from his role at MST-ECA, we are confident that the Lord has more work for him to do in His Kingdom, and we pray for God’s blessing and guidance in the new season that the Lord is bringing to him.

We now have in place at MST-ECA, acting Executive Co-Principals, Rev Dr Michael Bräutigam and Mr Andrew Pham, both of whom have worked closely alongside Tim, and who are well known to most of you, and who will be in regular communication with the Board. Please unite behind them, encourage and pray for them as we remain committed to expressing our missional roots that began at MBI-BCV: seeking to equip God’s people with transformational theology, Biblical depth, and a missional heart, to effectively communicate the Gospel of Christ to a diverse and changing world.

To all our dearly loved students, faculty, staff, friends, supporters, churches, schools and missions’ teams, we thank you for being a part of the story of God at MST-ECA and we sincerely ask that you will continue to partner with us to carry on the invaluable and godly legacy of so many who have sacrificed so much for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We wholeheartedly invite you to look forward with us with much faith, hope and joy at how the Lord through His Holy Spirit will continue to shape and use MST-ECA to bring God’s eternal Word into our churches, neighbourhoods, mission fields, classrooms, counselling rooms, offices, hospitals and into all the world.

Later in the year, we look forward to a more formal occasion to celebrate Tim’s long tenure as Executive Principal. We value your prayers for Tim and for MST-ECA during this period of changing seasons, but always, as we have done for over 100 years, our eyes are fixed steadfastly upon our faithful, unchanging God, our Rock of Ages, cleft for us.

Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you. Psalm 33:22 ■