Love challenges church to reconsider concept of being global
Oct. 20, 2006
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By Ciona Rouse*
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - The United Methodist Church is not a truly global church because its primary membership base is in the United States, according to the leader of the denomination's Women's Division.
Jan Love, chief executive of the Women's Division of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, reflected on United Methodism in a world context during the 2006 Willson Lecture at the beginning of the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry's Oct. 12-14 meeting.
Love, who has specialized in international politics for most of her professional career and has traveled to more than 40 countries, said the denomination has the vast majority of its membership in the United States, a substantial minority in Africa, and a small presence in other regions of the world.
"As a church, we clearly have a vision of a global presence and worldwide impact," Love said. "This is as it should be. We are Wesleyan, after all, and the world is our parish. But based on membership, geographically we are not a global church and are not likely to become one in decades to come."
Love, who becomes the first woman dean in the history of Candler School of Theology, Atlanta, on Jan. 1 said the denomination spends a lot of time talking about and aspiring to be a global church, placing such verbiage in the mission and vision statements of denominational organizations. She said she wishes the church would frame the discussion differently.
"I believe we could productively spend a great deal more time conferencing about a vision of being a church determined to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed across the whole world, as our denominational mission statement charges us to do, rather than literally striving to become, from an organizational perspective, a global church," Love said.
She encouraged the board members to consider the implications of being a historically U.S.-based church and consider the influence the United States has on other nations. She reflected on how United Methodist members from the United States treat non-English-speaking United Methodists in formal meetings - which are mostly held in the United States. Often those from the United States forget to organize meetings so that members or delegates from other countries can fully participate if they are not fluent in English, she said.
Genuinely global institutions, such as the World Council of Churches, pay all necessary expenses for translation of documents, plenary presentations or drafts of reports, and they provide simultaneous translation by professional interpreters, she said. These institutions, she said, also have people presiding who deliberately maintain a slower pace during the meeting so interpreters can keep up.
"This makes a global gathering function more appropriately as a meeting of hearts and minds across differences of language and culture," Love said.
"If we from the United States really want to know how United Methodists from outside the United States deliberate on important matters of faith in church meetings, we should treat them as partners, not decorative guests who receive badly organized, half-hearted consideration in deliberations about the serious business at hand," Love said.
Branches around the world
Two board members responded to Love's lecture on globalization: the Rev. Almeida Leurba of Angola and the Rev.Wilfriend Nausuer of Austria.
"I agree, that the United Methodist Church is not a global church. It is somehow a mainstream American church with a number of branches all over the globe," Nausuer said. "But -- and this is an interesting fact -- these branches are not American. They are quite far from being American, but they did receive ideas and core values that have formed the United States of America and modern societies, and they live these ideas within their own countries and areas."
Leurba said that since the leadership in the denomination's central conferences - regional units in Africa, Europe and Asia - are local with few American missionaries, people do not feel they belong to an American church. "The people there feel they are Methodists, just like you feel here in America."
*Rouse is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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