wfn.org | 'Organic mission system' new model

[BethAH@mbm.org]

November 1, 2000
Beth Hawn
Communications Coordinator
Mennonite Board of Missions
phone (219) 294-7523
fax (219) 294-8669
<www.MBM.org>

November 1, 2000

‘Organic mission system’ will equip congregations for mission

EXCELSIOR SPRINGS, Mo. – Envisioning every Mennonite congregation
and the entire denomination “fully engaged in God’s mission,
reaching from across the street to around the world,” the
Mennonite mission boards and commissions unanimously adopted
plans Oct. 27 for a new reality.

The current mission structures serving the Mennonite Church in
Canada and the USA will seek to undergo a metamorphosis by
February 2002.  Instead of being the primary initiator of mission
supported by congregations, a new “organic mission system” will
exist primarily to equip and resource congregations in mission.
The Mennonite Church, as a denomination, would become a church in
mission at every level.  The mission agencies will “lead,
mobilize and resource the church to participate in holistic
witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world.”

“There is a growing understanding that missions is not just one
among many activities of the church, alongside Christian
education, leadership training, mutual aid and others.
Increasingly, mission is seen as embedded within the very
character of the church,” according to a report on the vision,
strategy and organization of the mission agencies.

With a standing ovation, the joint boards/commissions, staff and
friends of the Commission on Home Ministries, the Commission on
Overseas Mission, Mennonite Board of Missions and the Mennonite
Church Canada Ministries Commission celebrated the adoption of
the plan.  The decision resulted from more than 18 months of
study, consultation and regular feedback from many parts of the
church.  The three-day meetings of the joint mission boards at
the Lake Doniphan Retreat Center marked the beginning of a
detailed transition and implementation phase that will continue
over the next 18 months.

“There has been a tremendous openness to the moving of God’s
Spirit among us on this journey,” said Kay Nussbaum, chair of the
Mission Transformation Steering Committee and vice chair of the
MBM Board of Directors.  “The possibilities around our future are
only limited by our imagination.”

The proposed model for the first time will view all levels of the
church as part of one mission system, including autonomous
regional mission agencies, such as Eastern Mennonite Missions and
Virginia Mennonite Board of Missions.  New national mission
centers in Canada and the USA would play a primary role in
developing and articulating vision, creating a national mission
strategy and leading the system.  At the same time, the national
centers would develop a virtual system through the Internet that
would make resources available to congregations, conferences and
mission associations, and foster conversation within the
worldwide Anabaptist fellowship.  An intentional training process
will support congregations and other groups in their efforts “to
proclaim and be a sign of God’s reign.”

National mission centers would administer existing mission
programs shared in partnership between the countries.  Mission
centers, embedded in conferences and even congregations, would
develop program on behalf of the whole Mennonite Church and
support certain shared services at the national centers.  “We
dreamed about this kind of seamlessness years ago,” said Walter
Franz, native ministries director for the MC Canada Ministries
Commission.

In the USA, a 13-member board will include seven members elected
by Mennonite Church USA delegates and six appointed or confirmed
by the MCUSA Executive Board (a number that will include
representatives of regional mission centers, such as EMM and
VMBM).  In Canada, the board will consist of area conference
representatives.

In addition to active participation in the new mission system by
EMM and VMBM, the national mission centers will seek increased
collaboration with other groups in mission.  The centers in
Canada and the USA also will lead strategic work groups, or
“roundtables,” which would act as hubs for coordination and
networking.  Whether for consultation or program oversight, the
groups would organize around specific ministry areas.  These
national, bi-national or international groups could incorporate:
? Mission associations – groups (including clusters of
congregations, ethnic/racial associate groups or mission
districts) that rally around a common vision.
? Other church agencies, including inter-Mennonite agencies like
Mennonite Central Committee, Mennonite Economic Development
Associates and Mennonite World Conference.
? International church partners or mission agencies.

“We’re quite interested in trying to think of a future that has
more collaboration and working together with folks involved in
Mennonite mission in a broader sense,” said Ron Flaming, COM
executive secretary, who completed 18 months work as leader of
the project team of executive staff from the mission agencies.

The current mission agency executives worked collaboratively on a
project team that developed the proposal after input from the
Mennonite Church congregational study, four board/staff study
groups and consultations in Harrisonburg, Va., and Guatemala
City.  Working with two teams of consultants, the executives
described how, through the power of God’s Spirit, they overcame
personal differences as they formed an intimate “community of
discernment” in which they experienced personal transformation.
In addition to Flaming, team members included CHM’s Lois Barrett,
EMM’s Richard Showalter, MBM’s Stanley Green and James Krabill,
MC Canada’s Jack Suderman and VMBM’s David Yoder.  Rather than
“horse-trading” one entrenched stance for another or a negotiated
consensus, they came to a common conclusion based on a shared
vision.

“It is for us a sign of God’s working in the world, the fact that
such divergent groups and people could come together in this kind
of way,” said Susan Ortman Goering, CHM member.  “If we can come
together in such a way as this, what could God do in our church
as a whole?”

“This is a symbol of what transformation of the Mennonite Church
in North America is all about – unity in Christ,” said Herman
Bontrager, MBM Board member from Akron, Pa.  “It focuses on being
in mission in everywhere and everyplace.  It does not focus on
institutional perpetuation.”

Jim Amstutz, CHM chair, was part of the first Mission Integration
Task Force, which met twice in 1996, focused immediately on
structural plans and soon ended its work in stalemate.  “People
on the same mission board staff couldn’t agree,” Amstutz said.
“It’s memorable how we are sitting here as four mission boards in
agreement, and we have been transformed.  They [the mission
executives] have put their own agendas aside to put God’s mission
future and the mission future of the new Mennonite Church in
front of us.”

The plan adopted by the mission boards/commissions will move to
the national Transformation Teams and executive boards before
coming to churchwide assemblies next summer in Abbotsford,
British Columbia, and Nashville, Tenn., for final adoption.

Already national church leaders have “embraced the language in
the document,” Green said, acknowledging common agreement for a
collaborative process that will extend to other entities of the
church, especially congregations.  “We hope they will begin to
see missions not as the thing they add on, but as the very
driving energy to the congregation’s life,” Green said.

* * *

Tom Price        PHOTOS AVAILABLE