wfn.org | Groundwork begins for new Cambodian mission

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Feb. 28, 2000 News media contact: Linda Green·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-33-71B{100} 

By Kathy Gilbert*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - Methodists in the United States, Korea and
Singapore are uniting to develop curriculum for educating and credentialing
pastors in Cambodia.

The United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry, the Korean
Methodist Church, and the Methodist Church in Singapore will be sharing
their resources through the newly formed Cambodian Christian Methodist
Alliance, according to Robert Kohler, a director of the board's churchwide
section on elders and local pastors. He visited Cambodia and Vietnam in
early February and met with representatives from those countries as well as
from Korea and Singapore.

The United Methodist Church in the United States is contributing resources
for the pastors' school, Korean Methodists are working on the development of
a Bible school, and Trinity Seminary in Singapore will help with the
advanced training of future leaders for the Cambodian Methodist Church.

The story of the United Methodist Church in Cambodia began with Cambodian
pastors living in the United States. Those included Joseph Chan, a pastor in
Stockton, Calif., who later became a missionary to Cambodia.

Chan and other Cambodian pastors were convinced they could develop a mission
to their native country. He and his friends had come to the United States
and gathered groups of Cambodians into congregations that often shared
facilities with majority churches in California, Texas, North Carolina and
Ohio. While succeeding in their mission in America, they dreamed of a day
when they could return to Cambodia and build the United Methodist Church.

During the February meeting, church representatives discussed the
development of a coordinated curriculum, and a committee was assigned to
work on the coordination of an educational strategy.

Kohler met with the leadership of the United Methodist Church, including
Warren Harbert, director of the Cambodian Mission; David Wu, assistant
general secretary of the Congregational Mission Initiative for the United
Methodist Board of Global Ministries; and Patrick Streiff, mission
coordinator for the United Methodist Church in Switzerland. 

"I was overwhelmed by the fact that more than 100 local pastors had come
together from all over Cambodia to sing together, pray together and receive
some basic training in pastoral ministry," Kohler said.

"With three different Methodist churches and three different polities,
considerable discussion is needed to come to common agreement on the
appropriate credentials for ministry, which would allow for a coordinated
approach to licensing and ordination of pastors in Cambodia," Kohler said.
"As the issues of education, credentialing, and governance are addressed,
the vision of Joseph Chan and other local pastors in America will be
realized through this new approach to mission in Cambodia."

# # #

*Gilbert is a staff member in the Office of Interpretation at the United
Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

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United Methodist News Service
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