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Listen to excerpts from the address by using one of the media players below.
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State of the MIssion
Richard Showalter, president of Eastern Mennonite Missions, shared his annual “State of the Mission” address with EMM staff in a January 17 chapel. He noted four causes for celebration, four major challenges, and three key questions for 2006 and beyond. The following is an excerpt.
As we stand at the beginning of 2006, I’d like to celebrate four special things.
1. The development of relational sending: EMM has pioneered in the development of missionary support teams (MSTs) to assist missionaries in prayer, encouragement, and fund-raising. This use of committed teams of volunteers focused on the needs of specific missionaries is significantly different from both the traditional sending pattern and the faith missions approach.
2. The commitment to prayer: Prayer has undergirded missions through EMM from the beginning, but EMM workers and office staff have seen an increased emphasis. We now have annual staff days of prayer and fasting, prayer teams, prayer walks, and a staff facilitator for prayer.
3. Focus on the fringes: EMM has always had a special focus on those peoples and places where the church is weak or nonexistent. That focus has strengthened during the past decade. In the last dozen years, we have entered Uzbekistan, Tibet, Cambodia, Thailand, North India, Afghanistan, Morocco, Albania, and Kosovo, to name a few.
4. Continued financial provision: Though we know that missions are not dollar-driven, we are deeply grateful for the sacrificial generosity of many. Several years ago the pastor of a large Lancaster Mennonite Conference congregation challenged us to believe God together for a seven million dollar annual budget. I was moved and blessed by his challenge then – and now, God has led us far beyond that.
And what special challenges do we face in this new year? I would like to share four.
1. Flexibility in the face of rising costs: Missionaries from the U.S. are more costly to sustain than are those from many other nations, yet it is often more feasible for North American missionaries to go. We must constantly look for ways to send missionaries flexibly and efficiently.
2. Contextualization: The wealthier we have become in comparison to most of the rest of the world, the more difficult it becomes for us to identify with those to whom we go. Our wealth increases the cross-cultural differential.
3. Organization versus Holy Spirit: In general, the mission movement of the churches of Asia, Africa, and Latin America has a much stronger orientation to the work of the Holy Spirit than does the mission movement of North America. We know more about organization but less about dependence on the Spirit; we are learning from our brothers and sisters in networks around the world.
4. Our history: In the West, we have a long and now venerable history in missions – but this history can also easily burden us. I believe we are on the threshold of a renewal in the Western churches that will surprise us and build new life on old foundations of faith and obedience.
What key questions will shape and direct our work this year? I would like to suggest three.
1. How can we effectively use, renew, and embrace the relational sending patterns God has led us to? We have already seen how tremendously effective the MST can be, but we are still in a season of embracing and fine-tuning it.
2. How can EMM most fruitfully connect with the global mission movement of the southern churches? For a decade we have been celebrating and encouraging the emergence of this movement, yet we have only barely begun to learn how to walk shoulder to shoulder with these dynamic new movements in the global South.
3. How can we best adapt to and serve the mission impulses of the emerging mission movement in our own constituencies? During the past twelve months, we have seen the Holy Spirit moving powerfully through and beyond our existing structures and plans. We’ve been particularly surprised by God in Indonesia, The Gambia, and Pakistan.
-Richard Showalter |
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