ASK The Catholic Leader columnist Terry Lees who he’s targeting in his ministry of evangelisation and you’ll have no doubt about his ambition.
“Exactly what Jesus said, ‘Go out and proclaim my Kingdom to the whole world …’,” was his answer to that question, and he laughed loudly as he replied.
“That was the call, mate … It was really that. That actually became my purpose.”
Mr Lees has channelled that purpose into his one-man ministry Lost and Found: Ministry of the Good Shepherd.
His eldest grandson Brendan Lees has helped him create a website to be the vehicle of the ministry.
It offers spiritual reflections, resources and prayers to spread the message of Jesus.
The latest addition to the website is Silver Linings: Spirituality in Life podcast series taken from a daily radio segment Mr Lees presents on MOB FM in Mount Isa.
Silver Linings presents “inspirational stories, shared life experiences or nuggets of motivating, practical and insightful wisdom with focus on action principles” to encourage decisions that affect life positively.
Mr Lees’ idea was to offer “a daily spiritualityin- life session”.
He said many of the reflections he posted on the website were often drawn from what he had written for The Catholic Leader in his fortnightly column Gold in the Dawning Sun.
MOB FM broadcasts Silver Linings each day at 8am and repeats it at 2.30pm, Sunday to Friday, and Mr Lees said the response had been “magnificent”.
He’s a school chaplain in Mount Isa, and parents have stopped him to tell him that they listen to his segments on the school pick-up drive or on their way to work.
Explaining how he came to be evangelising, Mr Lees said he’d “always had in my life a vision, a mission and a purpose, and it used to be all about business”.
“I was one of those driven guys that was driven in business and success, and all that sort of stuff – sales and marketing and things like that,” he said.
“I’d done a lot in that area and a lot of training of people and goal-setting and effective use of time and so on, and writing business-planning for corporations and all that sort of stuff.
“… I’d turned my back on God for donkeys’ years ago, (and I thought) I didn’t need Him in my life …, but something happened and I came back.
“So my vision and mission and purpose became spiritual, and the vision is just simply ‘Jesus, yesterday, today and tomorrow’.
“It’s that St Paul thing, keeping your eye on the prize, and the prize is Jesus.” Mr Lees said his mission “is simply one word these days – it used to be a big paragraph, but it’s just simply one word (now), ‘Others’”.
“And my purpose in life is ‘I must proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God, for that I’ve been called …,” he said.
“That’s become my purpose, and that’s how my life is now totally devoted.
“So that’s why I started with doing stuff with the Leader, doing little articles for the Leader.
“So it’s all just developed from there.”
Mr Lees continues to give much of his time and energy to developing Lost and Found: Ministry of the Good Shepherd so he can spread God’s Word.
“My hope is to reach as many people as I possibly can, within the call of what I’ve been called to,” he said.
“It’s that stage of my life when I’m just wanting to give.” Mr Lees’ ministry podcast and website is at https://ministryoftheshepherd.com.au/
