wfn.org | McClure says WMD is meeting challenge of change

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6562 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

9-June-2001
GA01005

McClure says WMD is meeting challenge of change

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE, June 9 - The Rev. Dr. Marian McClure may be staying in her old
job, but it's a job that never quite stays the same.

	That's something McClure is not shy talking about.  Just ask her, and
she'll launch right into a conversation about how major world developments
require shifting priorities and how the church isn't exactly static either.

	So when the General Assembly Council unanimously to a second term as the
director of the Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD) of the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.), it was, in effect, signing onto a visioning and planning
process that's already under way, but far from finished.

	As part of it, McClure and members of the WMD staff spent all day Friday
with ecumenical delegates to the 213th General Assembly focusing on a
changing church in a changing world full of changing needs, just listening
and talking, but mostly listening.

	"Part of this process is a retrospective, capturing narratively what it
meant to be a denomination in mission during a decade in which the world
changed a lot,"  said McClure during an interview in her corner office at
the Presbyterian Center.  "We've got stories to tell … but this is also a
chance to (make) adjustments in the courses, in our emphases."

	Of course, all of this will end up in a paper that will replace the
popular, "Mission in the 1990s."

She ticks off the questions WMD is exploring:  Does the average church-goer
understand vocation to include the idea that through baptism a person is
connected to the universal church, the Body of Christ?  Do Presbyterians
comprehend that this church does mission in partnership?  What changes are
occurring in the global church that need to be taken into account?  In what
non-traditional fields do missionaries need to be sent?  Is there enough
money to do that?  What changes in the PC(USA) affect how mission is or is
not done?

 "We have to help this denomination think of itself as a denomination in
global mission.  We have a story to tell," she said referring to the 168
years that the PC(USA) has been witnessing through ties to global partners. 
"But we are in the midst of a learning process."

	Much of that learning has to do with how to strengthen PC(USA) mission,
including weighing, for the first time, whether to create a funds
development campaign to raise money to pay mission workers.

	"Funding is a problem," says McClure, adding that the crunch won't come
until 2004.  There isn't enough money now to sustain the current 346
salaried mission personnel working in 66 countries around the world. 
Increasing the number of missionaries isn't an option with current
resources.

	McClure said the mandatory spend-downs that the denomination implemented
several years ago created the financial strain.  "There is a substantial
need for funds, particularly for international mission personnel," she says,
noting that she'd like to see WMD increase its presence in Central and
Southeast Asia, as well as in Eastern Europe.

	The General Assembly Council(GAC) will vote on whether to authorize a
funding campaign during its winter meeting in Louisville.

	What has already changed in WMD?

	The International Health Office is deeply tied into what the World Health
Organization calls its "massive effort" to end AIDS, tuberculosis and
malaria.  Joint work between the office and Presbyterian Women has produced
thousands of malaria nets for use in Asia and Africa and the drive is
expanding ecumenically.  The Interfaith Office has been reinforced; a second
staffer is being hired there.

	What's more, an area coordinator, Les Sauer, has been hired as a liaison to
South and Southeast Asia alone, to intensify WMD's work there.  This is a
first. The division has also implemented a security policy for personnel
working in parts of the world where kidnapping is not unusual.

	Missionary personnel are called nowadays into traditional roles within
partner churches, roles such as doctors and, particularly in the PC(USA),
teachers, who compose about 40 percent of personnel.

The church has moved more visibly into what McClure calls "frontier
mission," where partner churches don't exist.  More mission workers are
serving as consultants in health, evangelism or even in accounting, while an
increasing number are working as hosts in other countries to coordinate the
growing number of Presbyterians who travel abroad in mission.

	McClure says such change is rooted in the PC(USA)'s strong history of
holistic and incarnational approaches to global ministry.

	Such history helps partners weather the storms that cause turmoil in the
PC(USA), most notably, the ongoing conflicts about sexual expression. Many
watched the fights about the ordination of women as well.  The outcome was
creative, in part because this denomination sent women clergy abroad that,
in turn, influenced partner churches.

	To push the point even further, McClure is the first woman to relate to
international churches as the PC(USA)'s director of Worldwide Ministries.

On the ordination of gays and lesbians, McClure says that responses from
partners run the whole spectrum.  "Some don't understand why we talk about
it or why we talk about it so much.  Some dislike it.  Some are fine with
it," says McClure, who added that partners familiar with the PC(USA)
understand that it is a church that struggles with issues.

	She said that new partnerships are more affected by the conflict, and some
simply shy away.  Others are attracted by the dynamism of the debate.  "The
biggest effect," she says, "is on the relationships we don't have, but for
now, the division is working hard on current relationships.

	"We have to take major developments in the world into account … the growing
gap between rich and poor.   And there are changes in the global church that
we have to take into account.  Twenty-five percent of Christians now are
Pentecostal, up from zero percent one century ago," says McClure.

McClure also said that while partner churches want the presence of full-time
mission personnel, they also appreciate opportunities to work with
Presbyterian congregations.  Presbyteries also are increasingly doing
hands-on work abroad.

	She smiles, and says,  "This is going to be occupying a lot of our time the
next two years."

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