Editor’s Note: This is the final article in a three-part series presented at the New Wilmington Missionary Conference in July 2006.
In the first segment, we started to look at how The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman might have implications for our new patterns of missional involvement. The second part described some key events that have “flattened” our world and, in the process, should change our missiology.
I will conclude by giving three types of gentle pointers for future discussions and decisions. First, I suggest some “needs” we have. Then I will illustrate what some other mainline churches have done. Finally, I will suggest some questions that need to be answered.
Priorities for missional discussion: What does the missional endeavor need?
Need for innovation in vision and structures. Harold Kurtz, founding director of the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship is right in that there must be specific sodalities (mission organizations) working with the umbrella modality (church) for mission to flourish. Kurtz quotes another great Presbyterian pioneer, Ralph Winter.
Cody Watson (in his D.Min. thesis), David Dawson (in his article on mission finances) and Harold Kurtz have all said it well: we were better at the sodality idea until the 1920s when we became corporate and modernist in our approach. Before then we cooperated better with other missions (ABCFM, China Inland Mission, etc.), and we even had our own women’s mission societies with women running the whole program. Innovation in mission structures will require some humble and sanctified memory, along with forward looking, flat, and creative new ideas.
Need for trust among various actors. True partnerships and cooperation, as Friedman noted, require that the various players trust and encourage each other. It is necessary that we build this trust not on human assessment, but on the spirituality spoken of in the Philippians account of the emptying of Christ. I have no need to control or receive credit for the great work that is going to be done, for it is the Lord’s work from start to finish. Therefore I can trust and encourage others (while praying my knees raw) that both they and I will “bear in our bodies the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might be revealed” to the world.
One note about trust: Trust is built on a commonly held culture of values and goals. We build trust as we do our theology well and as we keep the cross of Jesus Christ in the center.
Need to share all results, new ideas, and new needs we discover. Major breakthroughs in communication and business result from collaborative and open sharing. The same will be necessary in our new “missional web” structure. For too long “authorities” have protected information and insights. They generally get worked to death. It will now be possible and necessary for anyone who has the time and motivation to become an “authority” on missionary activity in Ethiopia or Indonesia. This will not happen however, unless there is an open sharing of ideas.
Need for creative new endeavors and partnerships to be developed. The new partnerships will involve a “hub and spokes” model. Many different partnerships will continue to develop, but these direct partnerships and creative linkages will be built around the denominational center. The new GAC missional structure should be the hub, not a “mission central,” or “headquarters” idea. A hub keeps things centered, but its function is limited. The spokes actually hold the wheel together and go out from the center and touch the rim. Remember the model of “Apache” and IBM (Friedman, pp. 93ff)! IBM was not threatened by the success of Apache and neither should the GAC be threatened or jealous of the good work of direct presbytery involvement in mission, or new mission societies. All will benefit from staying connected, sharing information, and finding out what they can do best to contribute to what is “true, noble, right, pure,” et cetera. The spokes need to stay connected and this will help in keeping a balance and centeredness to our missionary work.
Examples from other churches.
The Roman Catholic Church does mission both with great plurality and strong centeredness. Some missions have particular charisms for work with education or for work with the poor, or to care for children. Some societies were founded to battle heresies and to extend the preaching to new areas (Dominicans). All of the societies, however, were started by prophets, missionaries, and evangelists with specific charisms to guide their work. Rome also started its own missionary society, but it is one of many.
The Mission Society for United Methodists was founded in 1984 to supplement the work of the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. Their work tends to be more evangelical in outlook, but their ministries are quite varied. More than anything else the founding of the “Mission Society” has meant that Methodist mission has turned around the decline in global participation. There are now about 180 missionaries serving with this mission society. By the way, this group has a great mission Web site and they have hired Darrell L. Whiteman as their vice-president and resident missiologist: www.msum.org
The Episcopal Church Mission Community was founded in 1974 and has recently changed its name to “New Wineskins Missionary Network.” The change in name is significant: it signals that this is a new structure and they are moving beyond being a “single alternative” mission. They are a new type of Episcopal mission hub. As the NWMN Web site summarizes, “God has given ECMC the privilege of assisting with the founding of the South American Missionary Society, Anglican Frontier Missions, the Stanway Institute for World Mission and Evangelism, and Anglican Global Mission Partners, as well as Yavatmal College for Leadership Training in India and the India Graduate School of Missiology.” Thus, the “Network” includes both mission societies and education for mission. Working at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with our World Mission Initiative, I am very attracted to this idea!
The Association of Lutheran Mission Agencies was founded with ten agencies. “From its beginning in 1996 with less than 10 mission agencies, ALMA now includes approximately 75 different mission groups representing a variety of specialties, people groups and geographic focuses. For example, there are groups that focus on outreach and ministry to children and agricultural services. There are groups that focus on outreach to Jewish people, Muslim people in Central Asia and American Indian people. Some groups concentrate their efforts in Latin America and others in Africa or Asia,” says the ALMA Web site. They even post on their Web site a page titled, “How to start a new mission society” www.alma-online.org Once again, the Lutherans have started many new societies, and encourage more to do so.
My point is not that we have to do what others have done. We’d better not. These were all started before the world became flat, and my point is that we have to make revolutionary changes (not careful restructurings) built upon the real flat world, not our old pre-flat reality. We have the advantage of seeing how others have made advances and some mistakes, and we can now talk to their leaders. I think we can do better than they have done.
In all of these new designs there is one overwhelming concern for many of us: finances. Money matters, but it is wrong to start with the wrong assumption about money. I have heard many people say that there is only a finite amount of money, and therefore, if one person or organization gets a certain amount, then other individuals will get less. Money is like a pie, it is said; we all are fighting to get the biggest piece.
In fact, it works quite differently. Money follows needs, ideas, and trust. When all are of a high quality, the money will follow. When any are weak, mission becomes much more a matter of squeezing money out of people rather than about creatively moving into God’s missional future. We have seen this with the start of the World Mission Initiative at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. More people have been giving to the seminary and we have had more students come with a more focused sense of calling to mission. We have also seen this with recent hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Money follows ideas, needs, and trust.
Finally, I leave you with some questions to guide our future in Presbyterian mission. This is a time of great opportunity for Presbyterians committed to God’s mission, thanks to our great history and our creative missional opportunities today.
Questions for Reflection:
1. Is it possible to harness the flattening agents to develop a more “flat” mission: a missional capability that shares openly, cooperates globally, and fosters dynamic and ongoing creativity?
2. How do we now promote Presbyterian mission recognizing the flat (mostly) non-western mission of God in the world?
3. Can we follow other mainline churches in multiple sending agencies, but do better in building mutual trust and coordination that allows for ongoing adjustments as with “work-flow software?”
4. How do we develop a new missional direction that reflects more a meritocracy than a bureaucracy, more open sharing than central planning, and more cooperation and trust than competition?
5. When so many of our Presbyterian friends are disillusioned and tired, how do we help to unleash the energy, confidence, and creativity in our young people, our church leaders and our lay people to “come on board” God’s global mission?
I believe the answers to these questions are not that complex. As Friedman observes about computer software, the future is about collaboration, communities, and blended models. As Mao Zedong said in a 1958 speech, “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let one hundred schools of thought contend.” But, Mao used this as a trap to encourage others to come up with ideas so that he could identify them and then take them out. Mao didn’t like the new flowers, so he cut them down. We need many flowers and the job of leaders is not to plant them and build greenhouses, but to till the soil and provide an environment for growth to the glory of the Triune God.
Scott W. Sunquist is the W. Don McClure Associate Professor of World Mission and Evangelism at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. From 1987-1995 he taught Asian Church History at Trinity Theological College in Singapore, as a missionary of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
