Recommended Reading: Jean Claude Maleka on mission theology

United Methodist New Service published an article by Rev. Dr. Jean Claude Masuka Maleka last week entitled "Mission can revitalize United Methodism." While revitalization is part of Rev. Dr. Maleka's concern, the article extends beyond its headline's focus to present a Methodist/Wesleyan theology of mission. Rev. Dr. Maleka draws connections between mission and such important Methodist/Wesleyan theological concepts as sanctification, social justice and social service, the importance of the laity, spirituality, and the worldwide nature of the church. The article is an excellent brief discussion of mission theology from a United Methodist perspective. Rev. Dr. Maleka has made an important conversation to denominational conversations around mission theology, and it is encouraging to see UMNews publishing a variety of pieces on mission theology.

Philip Wingeier-Rayo Interview of Ruth Duck on Mission

Well-known hymnwriter Rev. Dr. Ruth Duck passed away on Dec. 26, 2024. Among other hymns, Duck was known for her missiological hymn, “As Fire Is Meant for Burning.” Below is an interview of Duck by Dr. Philip Wingeier-Rayo about that hymn. The interview is from 2008. It has been edited for clarity and length.

PWR: What inspired you to write the hymn, “As Fire Is Meant for Burning”? What are the origins of this hymn?

RD: The Lutheran Church of America sponsored a hymn competition, and I think I entered it because I was on the UCC mission Board of Directors. It was the only time I ever entered a hymn competition in my life. It didn’t win the competition, by the way.

I was on the Middle East committee of the Board, and so I went to Turkey. They were trying to transition the mission to local control. The UCC had social works across the country. They had schools and hospitals in Istanbul, Izmir and Cappadocia. This hymn was really written about how I saw them in mission.

PWR: How much did you read of Emil Brunner of Niles?

RD: Not much at all.

PWR: What connection did you have when you were writing this hymn between early Christian missionaries and apologetics and modern missionaries?

RD: [The UCC missions in Turkey] were trying to make a connection with people. The interesting thing is that this is the first or second most popular hymn of mine. And I received some letters from Catholics who complain that I am against creeds. It’s not that I am necessarily against creeds.

I like much more the idea of witnessing in an interfaith situation where people have different faiths. It’s okay to witness to your faith and to share your faith. Ideally, in a dialogue both might be changed, at least to break down the prejudices that they have against each other.

PWR: Turkey is 99% Muslim. As you reflect on the plight of Christians there, to what degree should missionaries witness and seek converts?

RD: I’m ambivalent about that because I know there are people in the world who would be glad that Christians came to them. I think that I feel much more comfortable having people in the country themselves carrying out the mission. So, it’s not that I’m against evangelism, but my way of evangelism would never be coercive or judgmental. It doesn’t have to come in and harm culture and alienate people from their family. Well, you’re asking the question, so I guess this is what you are looking for.

PWR: I ask the question because I know that this question will be asked. If you’re going to have a Christian mission and a Christian presence in a country that is 99% Muslim, should the mission be on outreach and church growth and not just be satisfied with 1% of the population?

RD: Well, that’s somebody else’s decision, not mine. I grew up knowing people who started a fundamentalist student movement. The daughter of this evangelist who was a leader of the movement was a friend of mine, and she went to Turkey. I got these letters from her, and she was risking her life almost to try to convert people. That’s her interpretation of the Gospel.

I know I sound wishy-washy. I think that whatever is done should be done with respect. I suppose that we should believe enough in our faith that we would want to share it. It might be a little like in Timothy that we should be ready to give an answer when asked. We see something in your life—What makes you tick? What is the hope? What are you looking for?

Everybody should go to Turkey because it would disarm all their prejudices against Muslims. We probably have a lot more to learn. Or we have to learn as well as teach. “We are pilgrims on the way.” This is a UCC reference because they were pilgrims. We seek, and we give.

PWR: Another way to interpret pilgrims, at least how I read the hymn, is that we are on a pilgrimage, and there is not a set destination. We are companions together on a journey as teachers and learners. We are going to learn from you, and you’re going to learn from us.

RD: I’m trying to remember exactly what I meant. We can come into [mission] feeling like God has the answers and we want to live up to the best of each of our faiths. But hopefully we are trying to go together to a world of better understanding.

So, if you think of yourself as a pilgrim on the way, you definitely don’t have all the answers. You don’t know what’s going to happen to you on the way. You don’t know who you’re going to meet. You don’t know what ends are going to be closed. You don’t know if your means of transportation are going to break down or somebody will steal your horse or deflates your tires. The pilgrim is also a medieval definition of pilgrim as spiritual meaning of pilgrim and not a sightseer.

“By our gentle, loving actions, we would show that Christ is light. In a humble, list’ning spirit, we would live to God’s delight.” Because they [Christians in Turkey] couldn’t say it in words, they needed to show it with their actions. And it seemed to me that they were. It is dedicated to them.

One of my favorite passages is II Corinthians 4:7: “that it is not ourselves who we preach but Christ.” We become like Christ. Chapter 3 talks about the reflective glory of Christ. We reflect the glory of Christ. So, we are not preaching ourselves.

PWR: Is this passage your main scriptural reference as far as inspiring this stanza? Or was it for the whole hymn?

RD: Yes. I think that this is the theology of preaching and missions. Paul says, “Be what we preach.” That would seem to be contradicted here. The point here is not the preaching, it is preaching Christ, but even more in this preaching context you’re showing Christ, not preaching him. You’re not preaching yourself; you’re preaching Christ. I don’t know if Mother Teresa converted many people. But she showed Christ to many, many people. And they were Christ to her.

The other passage that is important is Mathew 4:14-16: that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

PWR: Yes, like adding flavor to the dish, not by taking over, but by adding flavor to the whole plate. Is this what you meant by the salt of the earth?

RD: In that period of my life, I don’t know if I would call it dating, but I was in an interesting, complicated relationship with a man who was Bahai, and he was really pressing me on my faith, so I was having to answer these questions.

Even at the age of 37, I was a little idealistic. I know that at that stage a person may see part of the truth that they didn’t see before. And you don’t see all the things, as when you know better. But there is a spirit that I really like.

This is the hope of what mission could do—signs of oneness. This is what people can see: we are signs.

PWR: Meaning unity?

RD: And we might want to express it differently. Here it is in the next line: “‘mid earth’s peoples, many hued.”

PWR: What does hued mean?

RD: I was thinking of a rainbow. You know it rhymes. I have always been interested in racial reconciliation. “As a rainbow lights the heavens when a storm is past and gone, may our lives reflect the radiance of God’s new and glorious dawn.”

This also answers the question of where we are going as pilgrims. In the Hebrew Bible, God wanted everyone to get along. So that’s also probably behind there, you know—Noah, the rainbow, and the storm is over. It’s a sense of a new beginning. A new way of being.

PWR: Do you have any sense of how this hymn might affect the way that the singers and hearers of this hymn carry out and see their mission work?

RD: Again, I might be a little naïve, but I would expect that most people involved in mission work would look at it at lot this way. Some of them might be offended like a few Catholics are offended, but I hope that this is what a lot of them would aspire to. Don’t you think? I do, but there is also a lot of variety.

This hymn was written in the context of Turkey where open proselytism by Christians is not legal, though it doesn’t mean that some people can’t do it. I know that won’t be where everyone is, perhaps, but I also hope that you are going with the idea of respecting and listening to the people that you are working with. I believe that whatever your theology of mission, you have to do a lot of listening and a lot respecting, and at that point you are going to be more able to have people hear your message.

I hope also that the hymn would remind you of the side of missions that is more than speaking and doing but also being. Because I think that we do more to draw people to Christ by who we are sometimes than by what we say or what we do.

It is really a tribute to those missionaries who I saw those two weeks in Turkey. I saw this in them, and I’m sure that you want to exemplify that. I’m not opposed to preaching, but we should preach Christ and not ourselves.

PWR: I was just playing the devil’s advocate about church growth, and not seeking converts, but do you think there is a connection between mission and evangelism?

RD: I think there really is. Life in Christ is not easy, of course, but it is a great thing, and I think that we should want to share it. I don’t think people learn very much by coercion anyhow.

PWR: Thank you for reflecting on the context and the meaning of your hymn “For Fire is Meant for Burning.” I learned so much that I would not have known by simply reading or singing the hymn.

RD: Thank you for asking. I hope the hymn inspires people to reflect on how they understand mission.

2024 Publications on Methodist Mission and Evangelism

As the year winds down, we are taking a moment to review scholarship on Methodist mission and evangelism from 2024. The following is a list of books and articles published since the beginning of the year by scholars in the Association of Methodist Professors of Mission, friends of the blog, and other scholars about topics related to Methodist mission and evangelism. Readers are encouraged to consult these sources for the latest in scholarship about Methodist mission and evangelism.

Peter J. Bellini, “John Wesley, the Almost Charismatic,” in Heirs of Pietism in World Christianity: The 19th to the 21st Centuries, edited by Wendy J. Deichmann & Scott T. Kisker (Wilmore, KY: First Fruits Press, 2024).

Brian J. Chalmers, Methodist Revivalism and Social Reform in the Paradise of Dissent 1838-1939 (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2024).

Paul W. Chilcote, “Charles Wesley and the “Peaceable Reign” of Christ,” Holiness 9 (2024).

Paul W. Chilcote, Cultivating Christlikeness: Loving as Jesus Loved (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Paul W. Chilcote, The Fullest Possible Love: Living in Harmony with God and Neighbor (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Paul W. Chilcote, The Quest for Love Divine: Select Essays in Wesleyan Thought and Practice (Cambridge: Lutterworth, 2024).

Paul W. Chilcote, “Songs of renewal: The language of renewal in the hymns of Charles Wesley,” The Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture 10:2 (2024).

Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, An Historiography of Twentieth-century Women's Missionary Nursing through the Lives of Two Sisters: Doing the Lord's Work in Kenya and South India (New York: Routledge, 2024).

Taylor Denyer, “Ecclesiastic Empires: American Conflict and the UMC in Africa,” in Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church, ed. by David W. Scott and Filipe Maia (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Norma Dollaga, “The Diaconal Spirituality of Activism in the Philippines,” in Diaconal Studies: Lived Theology for the Church in North America, edited by Craig L. Nessan and Darryl W. Stephens (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2024).

David N. Field, “Engagements with Non-British Cultures,” in The Routledge Companion to John Wesley, ed. by Clive Murray Norris and Joseph W. Cunningham (London: Routledge, 2024).

Benjamin L. Hartley, “John R. Mott amidst the students: Historical and missiological gleanings for today,” Missiology: An International Review (2024).

Benjamin L. Hartley, “The Problem and Promise of the Diaconate,” in Diaconal Studies: Lived Theology for the Church in North America, edited by Craig L. Nessan and Darryl W. Stephens (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2024).

Arun W. Jones, “From courtesan to King: The conversion of Farzana,” Nidān: International Journal for Indian Studies 9:1 (2024).

Filipe Maia, Decolonizing Wesleyan Theology: Theological Engagements from the Underside of Methodism (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024).

David L. McKenna, Seeing All Things Whole My Calling to Fulfill (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2024).

Martin Mujinga and Onias Chagudhuma, “Meaning beyond symbols!: A theological interpretation of the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe’s logo,” Pharos Journal of Theology 105 (2024).

Eben Kanukayi Nhiwatiwa, By the Grace of God: My Life as an African Bishop (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Joon-Sik Park, “The Worldwide Nature of The United Methodist Church: A Historical and Missiological Reflection,” in Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church, ed. by David W. Scott and Filipe Maia (Nashville, Abingdon, 2024).

Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell, “Popular Catholicism Puerto Rican Style: The Virgin of Rincón, Human Agency, and Miracles,” Religions 15 (2024).

David W. Scott, “American Power in the Global Church in Ecumenical Methodist Perspective,” in Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church, ed. by David W. Scott and Filipe Maia (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

David W. Scott and Filipe Maia, eds., Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

David W. Scott, “Review of Dana L. Robert, Allison Kach-Yawnghwe, and Morgan Crago, Creative Collaborations: Case Studies of North American Missional Practices,” Missiology, 52:1 (2024), 118-119.

Howard A. Snyder, Consider the Lilies: How Jesus Saves People and the Land: The Theology and Ecology of Salvation (Wilmore, KY: First Fruits, 2024).

Darryl W. Stephens, “Developing a Trauma-Informed Diaconal Praxis,” in Diaconal Studies: Lived Theology for the Church in North America, edited by Craig L. Nessan and Darryl W. Stephens (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2024).

Darryl W. Stephens and Craig L. Nessan, eds., Diaconal Studies: Lived Theology for the Church in North America (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2024).

Darryl W. Stephens, “A Global Ethic for a Divided Church,” in Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church, ed. by David W. Scott and Filipe Maia (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Darryl W. Stephens, Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024).

Darrell L. Whiteman, Crossing Cultures with the Gospel: Anthropological Wisdom for Effective Christian Witness (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024).

Darrell L. Whiteman, Forward to Jerusalem Burning: The Terror and Promise of the "Wrath of Love," by Robert L. Canfield (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024).

Philip Wingeier-Rayo, “The Autonomous Process of Latin American Methodism: A Critical Review,” in Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church, ed. by David W. Scott and Filipe Maia (Nashville: Abingdon, 2024).

Philip Wingeier-Rayo, “Latin America and the Caribbean,” in The Routledge Companion to John Wesley, ed. by Clive Murray Norris and Joseph W. Cunningham (London: Routledge, 2024).

Philip Wingeier-Rayo, “Review of In the Hands of God: How Evangelical Belonging Transforms Migrant Experiences in the U.S. by Johanna Bard Richlin,” Politics, Religion & Ideology 25 (2024).

Recommended Reading: Katelin Hansen on the ongoing ministry of deaconesses

Deaconess Dr. Katelin Hansen published an article on UMNews this week entitled "Deaconesses are still here - let's invest in them too!" In it, Dr. Hansen explains the ongoing mission and ministry that deaconesses and home missioners offer to the world through their service as an order of The United Methodist Church. She connects the historical roots of this mission and ministry with its present shape.

As part of that effort, Dr. Hansen offers a corrective to how some of that history was presented in Rev. Dr. Javier Viera's recent article on the mission and ministry of deacons, including its treatment of the Chicago Training School for City, Home, and Foreign Missions, one of the predecessor institutions to Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Several UM & Global readers, including Dr. Hansen, raised similar points in comments (public or private) on a previous UM & Global Recommended Reading piece calling attention to Rev. Dr. Viera's article.

Dr. Hansen's article is thus well worth reading both for its own highlighting of deaconesses and home missioners and as part of a larger conversation with Rev. Dr. Viera.

Recommended Reading: Javier Viera on Deacons

Rev. Dr. Javier A. Viera, President of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, published a recent commentary on UMNews entitled "To revitalize the church, we must invest in deacons." The piece is worth a read, as it intersects with themes from this blog in at least four ways:

1. Viera roots his reflections in the historical example of the deaconess movement and the Chicago Training School for City, Home, and Foreign Missions.

2. Viera is concerned with the missional nature of clergy, especially deacons, a topic that Ben Hartley has written about on this blog.

3. Viera is concerned with changing trends in the composition and supply of clergy. I have written several pieces in recent years on clergy supply.

4. Viera is concerned with the changing nature of theological education, which multiple authors have addressed on this site.

While many are likely to read Viera's piece in light of recent General Conference decisions on sacramental rights for deacons, as the above list makes clear, Viera's reflection on deacons connects to many and wide ranging issues in the church.

Philip Wingeier-Rayo: The Mission of the Church in the World

Today's piece is by Dr. Philip Wingeier-Rayo. Dr. Wingeier-Rayo is Professor of Missiology, World Christianity and Methodist Studies at Wesley Theological Seminary. This piece was originally published on United Methodist Insight and is republished here with the permission of the publisher.

Every other year I have the privilege of teaching a course for aspiring United Methodist elders and deacons entitled “Mission of the Church in the World.” Along with Evangelism, Old and New Testament, Church History, Theology, United Methodist History, Doctrine and Polity, this is one of nine courses that is required for ordination in our church.

I love the title of the class—in fact I love everything about the class. I have taught this course in various settings, modalities, and institutions over the last two decades. Before Covid-19 this course was taught face-to-face both in semester-long and intensive formats. Since the pandemic, I have taught it online and hybrid (some in-person and some online). One of my favorite ways to teach the class is experiential. I have taught the class at Brooks Howell Home in Asheville, North Carolina, and students interviewed retired United Methodist missionaries and deaconesses, as part of the course requirements.

We have combined reading and writing assignments with experiential learning and field trips to ministries that prioritize those who are overlooked by society. We have invited guest speakers participating in God’s mission around the world, and used tools like “Mission Insite” to understand mission opportunities in one’s local community. During these days of reorganizing and refocusing the mission of the church considering our colonial history, it is helpful to reflect on the mission of the church in the world.

The title of the course reflects a change in the way that mission has traditionally been understood. Historically mission has been a one-way street from the center to the periphery. The western Church inherited the traditional mission model from Christendom when the Church and the State were fused together in Western Europe. Following Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the West Indies and the subsequent “Doctrine of Discovery,” the missionaries accompanied colonial expansion to newly settled territories to teach native peoples western civilization. Mission became centered within Christendom and went out to the margins. Mission was an overseas task from “us to them.” Mission started in the Church and went out to the unchurched. This was still the missiological view at the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland with the goal to spread Christianity from Christendom to non-Christian lands.

This traditional understanding of mission started to change midway through the 20th century following World War II. Following Edinburgh a continuation committee formed and the international missionary community gathered every ten years or so to reflect on the mission of the church. There was an inherent imbalance of power between mission-sending and mission-receiving churches that gradually began to change. The self-determination movement and independence movement of formally colonized nations awakened a new understanding of mission.

Six years prior to the 1938 Tambaram (India) Conference, Karl Barth read a paper at the Brandenburgh Missionary Conference where he described missions as an activity of God. A couple years later Karl Hartenstein articulated a similar understanding and coined the term “Missio Dei” to emphasize that it is God’s mission and not the mission of the church (“missio ecclesiae”).[1] The Church also shifted its understanding of mission to be God’s mission. Karl Barth was one of the first theologians to state that mission was God’s activity.[2] About the same time frame Emil Brunner wrote: “The Church exists by mission, just as a fire exists by burning. Where there is no mission there is no Church; and where there is neither Church nor mission, there is no faith.”[3]

The next meeting of the International Missionary Council in 1952 was held in Willingen, Germany in the aftermath of World War II. The conference built on the concept prevalent at Tambaram that mission is derived from the very heart of God, especially within the Trinity. The conference findings viewed God as the source of missions. Hartenstein’s concept of the “Missio Dei” or a missionary God influenced the conversations. David Bosch summarized the image of mission developed at Willingen as “…participating in the sending of God.”[4] In other words, God is the source of mission, not the church. This theme continued the movement away from an ecclesio-centric understanding of mission to a mission-centered church.[5] Instead of the church being the one who sends, the church itself is sent.[6]

One of the unexpected twists of missions in the 20th century was that the so-called “younger” or “receiving” churches grew stronger meanwhile secularism weakened the “sending” churches in the West. After the Great Depression, two world wars, and colonial wars, the West was not in an economic or moral position to claim that they had the exclusive right to do mission. In 1961 the International Missionary Committee was dissolved, and the World Council of Churches formed with younger and established churches having equal representation. A Scottish theologian and missionary, Leslie Newbigin, was the General Secretary of the International Missionary Committee and stewarded the transition into the World Council of Churches, where he became Associate General Secretary. He returned to his home country of Scotland in 1974, after serving as a missionary in India for more than three decades and was astounded the decline of Christianity and the secularization in the United Kingdom. He had left Scotland during an era of Christendom, but upon his return found a society that was post-Christian or even anti-Christian.[7] He realized that the West is a mission field. This broke down the traditional paradigm of mission “from the West to the rest.”

In 1983 Newbigin published "The Other Side of 1984: Questions for the Churches" in which he built upon the theological consensus of the “missio Dei.” Newbigin’s work that emerged in the late 20th century with a focus on moving beyond Christendom, seeing the West as a mission field, and the Missio Dei. This is the historical background of the shift to seeing the Church as an instrument of God’s mission in the world.

As we reflect on the mission of The United Methodist Church in the aftermath of schism and division, it is important to go back to our mission “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” I treasure the opportunity to reflect with aspiring United Methodist clergy about the mission of the church in the world.

^[1] Hartenstein, Karl (1934). "Wozu nötigt die Finanzlage der Mission". Evangelisches Missions-Magazin. 79: 217–229.

^[2] David Bosch, Transforming Mission, Orbis Press, 1991, 389.

^[3] Emil Brunner, The Word and the World, 1931.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Bosch, 370.

^[6] Ibid.

^[7] Darrell Guder, ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998, 3.

Tammy Kuntz: Response to Mission Bound: Short-Term Mission as Pilgrimage

Today’s post is by Rev. Dr. Tammy Kuntz. Rev. Dr. Kuntz is Coordinator of United Methodist Volunteers in Mission (UMVIM), North Central Jurisdiction. 

Mission Bound: Short-Term Mission as Pilgrimage by Rodney Aist offers a consideration of the short-term mission volunteer as a pilgrim on the journey. He defines pilgrimage as “the experience of God, self, and the Other through time, place, journey, and people and the thoughts, images, and reflections thereof.” (chap. 2) He writes, “[Short-term mission] as pilgrimage is a paradoxical journey of give-and-take, in which we help ourselves by serving others …” (chap. 16)

In making the connection between short-term mission and pilgrimage, Aist emphasizes the importance of the “individual pilgrim who must interpret personal experience and situational context as she navigates her spiritual journey.” (chap. 3) He shares many good concepts for the individual who moves in the world seeking enlightenment. He cites Walter Brueggemann defining “transformation as a movement from orientation to disorientation to new orientation.” (chap. 13)

However, in Aist’s focus on the pilgrim as hero, the focus of service is lost. Aist provides little room for accompaniment, partnering, or the concept of risk-taking mission and service. Examples are offered of pilgrims who dictate the task that will be done and how it will be accomplished to the detriment and disappointment of the homeowner.

There is no hero when we serve with our neighbors in the world, and United Methodist Volunteers in Mission are much more than individual pilgrims. Volunteers in Mission move into the world not as individuals, but as a connected group of people serving as the hands and feet of Christ. They know that their presence in God’s mission is an opportunity to live in mutuality as they serve in new places and in new ways, knowing that the experience may change the way they see the world. 

Unlike a pilgrimage, where the individual expects a transformational experience, an effective mission journey is an experience with a team, living in a new culture and context, engaging in God’s mission. Regardless of location or the way people serve – as a medical team, disaster response team, education team, etc. - the connection with mission partners provides opportunities for learning, engaging, reflecting, and serving in mutuality. The opportunity for transformation is great, yet it may never be understood or may be experienced much later, after the story is shared and the extent of the experience is embraced.

Ultimately, this experience is not about us and our enlightenment as Aist suggests in a pilgrimage. It is about God and the ways we are called to share together in God’s world as we live out the Great Commission. As Rev. Jeremy Bassett said, “Therefore, it is not so much that the church has a mission, but that God’s mission has a church.” (A Mission Journey: A Handbook for Volunteers, p. 5.) God calls us to mission not just as individuals but as a church.

A Volunteer in Mission should not enter the mission field alone without effective conversation and prior experience with a team. Connectional support is critical in order to engage effectively. Volunteers in Mission provides opportunities for volunteers to engage in God’s mission safely and effectively while serving in accompaniment with the people of the community - as part of a team, contextualizing the work as they honor one another’s spiritual journey. They realize that many facets of the mission journey are shared in the context of the relationships that are established.

Aist states, “Our theological task is to hold things together, to immunize complexity, to create the pathways for ‘both and’ approaches.” (chap. 5) This presents a challenge to the work of Volunteers in Mission as they engage in God’s world. Part of the job is to not hold on to conflict and challenges. Teams are reminded to remain flexible in planning and engaging. Complexities and alternative approaches create opportunities for cultural competency and engagement with our host partners and allow space for the Holy Spirit to be part of the community.

There is no acknowledgement in Aist’s book of the United Methodist Volunteer in Mission program as a resource for connections with project sites and missionaries and training for all aspects of the mission experience for teams and team leaders and individual volunteers. Training for missionaries of all types provides opportunities for reflection, discussion, and understanding prior to engaging with their project hosts. Volunteer in Mission team leaders are trained to facilitate conversations around mission theology and serving in accompaniment.

It is unfortunate that the Volunteer in Mission movement was ignored in this discussion. Something will always be missed; however, excluding this key resource that is available to everyone at God’s table of grace, for volunteers of all denominations, faiths, and secular groups, leaves the conversation lacking an avenue to engage in deeper conversation around how to serve safely and effectively.

Recommended Viewing: Methodists in Climate Mission Videos

The UMC in Switzerland (Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche [EMK] Schweiz) has been producing a series of videos about Methodist (and broader Christian) involvement in climate-related work. These #MethodistInClimateMission videos are part of a larger #MethodistInMission series produced by the EMK Schweiz. The three videos released thus far are in a mix of German and English, sharing stories of Methodists around the world engaged in climate-related mission. They are a useful resource for those looking to expand the conversation on climate mission across cultural and national borders.

Part 1 is primarily interviews in German of four EMK-Schweiz members (Michael Hari, Rev. Sarah Bach, Christian Rolli, and Thomas Oczipka) but features an English-language interview at around the 12:45 mark with Frances Namoumou of the Ecological Stewardship & Climate Justice Program of the Pacific Council of Churches.

Part 2 is primarily in English with interviews of three European Methodist leaders: Daniel Steinvig of the United Methodist Church in Denmark, Filipa Teixeira of the Methodist Church of Portugal, and Hamish Leese of the Methodist Church of Great Britain.

Part 3 is primarily an extended interview in English with Dr. Carmody Grey, a Catholic theologian at the University of Durham in England.

David W. Scott: On International Mission and Cosmopolitanism

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

International mission, by its nature as international, involves crossing national boundaries and, by its nature as mission, involves Christian practices of love and caring. Thus, international mission necessarily involves caring for and about others who are from a different nationality than oneself.

Put another way, international mission involves an extension of what Geert Hofstede and others have called the "moral circle" - the group of people who are within one's sphere of moral concern - those whom one sees as having the same moral rights as oneself - to life, health, happiness, love, etc. International mission is not the only way such an expansion happens - migration or contact with immigrants is another significant means - but it is an important way for Christians around the world to come into contact with people from other countries.

Granted, this extension may be imperfect and not lasting. Someone may participate in international mission and show concern for others without believing that those others are entitled to be treated by the same standard as oneself. Or, a Christian who takes a short-term mission trip may feel concern about the life conditions of those they encounter while on the trip, but three years later may largely have forgotten this new concern for people in other lands.

At the other end of the spectrum, however, international mission may be completely transformative of how one sees one's moral world. The annals of mission, especially of long-term mission, are replete with stories of Christians in mission who come to have a deep and abiding concern for the people of another country, wanting good for the people of that other country just as much as they want good for the people of their own country.

Beyond even that, there are stories of Christians in mission who come to see themselves as attached not just to another country and their own home country but attached to all countries, to see themselves as "citizens of the world." An academic term that describes this sense of connection to and concern for people all around the world is "cosmopolitan," which literally means "citizen of the world." It is clear that at least some Christians through their engagement in international mission take on a cosmopolitan outlook on life.

There is at least a little academic literature on missionary cosmopolitanism in the past two centuries of Western-led and then global Christian international mission. (See, this book for instance.) But the notion that Christians' sense of citizenship extends beyond a particular nation to encompass all goes all the way back to the roots of Christianity (as in, for instance, the Epistle to Diognetus).

Much of the academic discussion of cosmopolitanism, though, is not linked to religion but rather to secular forms of what might be called globalization - international trade, migration, international professional and cultural networks, etc. Moreover, secular cosmopolitanism is positively correlated with urban areas, wealth, and education and can carry a critique of rural provincialism.

These characteristics of secular cosmopolitanism and the existence of missionary cosmopolitanism raise for me a variety of questions, including the following:

First, to what extent is an openness to people from other countries a prerequisite for becoming involved in international mission, and to what extent is increased concern for people from other countries a result of participating in international mission? Both could be true. In a way akin to prevenient grace, perhaps a nascent openness to concern for others from other countries allows for the actual extension of moral concern to those others after participating in international mission. Yet I am left with the question of whether international mission only transforms the moral circles of those with larger than average moral circles to begin with or whether international mission has the power to potentially transform the moral outlook of anyone.

Second, if it is true that The United Methodist Church is a disproportionately rural church but secular cosmopolitanism is associated with urban living, where one is more likely to encounter people, goods, and ideas from other countries and cultures, then where does that leave the outlook for cultivating cosmopolitanism among United Methodists? Are United Methodists, because of their rural distribution, less likely to adopt cosmopolitan outlooks on the church than people in other, more urban, denominations, or does Methodists' penchant for mission increase their cosmopolitanism?

This question feels particularly important to me as the UMC looks forward to a more world-wide future. The ability to successfully live into that future seems to depend, if not on widespread cosmopolitanism, at least a sustained sense by enough people in enough parts of the church that they have a moral and religious connection to fellow denomination members throughout the world. A successful worldwide church cannot be the work of a few church bureaucrats or denominational insiders but must be rooted in the impulses of people in local congregations.

Third, where does the rising tide of nationalism over the past decade leave international mission and missionary cosmopolitanism? Nationalism emphasizes one's identity in connection to their home nation (however defined). It is thus in tension with cosmopolitanism, which views the world in a supranational way (that is, beyond one nation). Is international mission destined to decline or to become more of a niche endeavor if its association with cosmopolitanism goes against the nationalist trends of the day?

While I do believe that Christianity requires that we enlarge our moral circles, I don't think it necessitates that all Christians adopt a cosmopolitan view of the world. It is possible to live as a good Christian without much of a sense of the world community. Indeed, the vast majority of Christians across time and space have oriented their lives primarily toward local concerns. This localism often does not even rise to the level of nationalism, let alone cosmopolitanism.

Still, as someone who cares about the church as an international body, who cares about mission, including international mission, these questions about international mission and international Christian community on the one side and the idea of cosmopolitanism on the other leave me somewhat unsettled. Even if it will not be a primary concern for all Christians, how does the church keep alive the sense of the transcendent kingdom of God, which is beyond all nations or other allegiances, in the world, but not of it?

Recommended Listening/Viewing: Thursdays at the Table

For over a year, Bishop LaTrelle Miller Easterling of the Washington Episcopal Area has conducted a video podcast called "Thursdays at the Table." Bishop Easterling's conversation interview style makes for engaging and thoughtful theological material.

Two recent episodes, both embedded below, are likely to be of particular interest to United Methodists who are interested in mission and service to others. First is a conversation with Rev. Janet Wolf about shifting from charity to partnership understandings of service. Second is a conversation with Fr. Gregory Boyle, SJ, about the spiritual underpinnings of transformative work in society. Both episodes are well worth their hour-long length.

Practicing Resurrection with Janet Wolf

Going to the Margins with Gregory Boyle

2023 Publications on Methodist Mission and Evangelism

As the year winds down, we are taking a moment to review scholarship on Methodist mission and evangelism from 2023. The following is a list of books and articles published since the beginning of the year by scholars in the Association of Methodist Professors of Mission or by other scholars about topics related to Methodist mission and evangelism. Readers are encouraged to consult these sources for the latest in scholarship about Methodist mission and evangelism.

Bellini, Peter J., Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and the Image of God: Can Machines Attain Consciousness and Receive Salvation? (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2023).

Bellini, Peter J., Thunderstruck: The Deliverance Ministry of John Wesley (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2023).

Chilcote, Paul W. "Mapping Global Methodist Theology," Holiness 8 (Aug. 2023), 76, https://doi.org/10.2478/holiness-2023-0011.

Chilcote, Paul W. Multiplying Love: A Vision of United Methodist Life Together (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2023).

Dharmaraj, Glory E., "Sisterhood and 'Sistering': Restating Relationships in the Cartography of Missional Collaborations – Dallas Bethlehem Center, A Case Study," in Creative Collaborations: Case Studies of North American Missional Practices, edited by Dana L. Robert, Allison Kach-Yawnghwe, and Morgan Crago (Oxford: Regnum, 2023).

Gordon, Sarah Barringer, "Staying in Place: Southern Methodists, the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, and Postwar Battles for Control of Church Property," The Journal of the Civil War Era 13 (2023), 281, https://doi.org/10.1353/cwe.2023.a905166.

Leffel, Gregory P., Charles J. Fensham, George R. Hunsberger, Robert A. Hunt, William N. Kenney, Gregg A. Okesson, Hendrik R. Pieterse, "What We Mean by Public Missiology," Missiology 51 (July 2023), 268, https://doi.org/10.1177/00918296231176757.

Kim-Cragg, David Andrew, "'We Take Hold of the White Man’s Worship with One Hand, but with the Other Hand We Hold Fast Our Fathers’ Worship': The Beginning of Indigenous Methodist Christianity and Its Expression in the Christian Guardian, Upper Canada circa 1829," Religions 14:2 (2023), 139; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020139.

Park, Joon-Sik, "The Missional Implications of the Theology of H. Richard Niebuhr," International Bulletin of Mission Research 47 (July 2023), 380, https://doi.org/10.1177/23969393231168540.

Pedlar, James E., British Methodist Revivalism and the Eclipse of Ecclesiology (London: Routledge, 2023), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003224327.

Robert, Dana L., The Dutch Reformed Women's Missionary Movement from the Cape and the Mt. Holyoke Connection (Mzuzu, South Africa: Luviri Press, 2023).

Robert, Dana L., "Introduction," in Restoring Identities: The Contextualizing Story of Christianity in Oceania, edited by Upolu Lumā Vaai and Mark A. Lamport (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2023).

Robert, Dana L., Allison Kach-Yawnghwe, and Morgan Crago, editors, Creative Collaborations: Case Studies of North American Missional Practices (Oxford: Regnum, 2023).

Robinson, Elaine A., Leading with Love: Spiritual Disciplines for Practical Leadership (Minneapolis: 1517 Media, 2023).

Santiago-Vendrell, Angel, and Misoon (Esther) Im, "The World Was Their Parish: Evangelistic Work of the Single Female Missionaries from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to Korea, 1887-1940," Religions 14:2 (2023), 262; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020262.

Smith, Ronald E., Henry Clay Morrison: Remember the Old Paths (Wilmore, KY: Francis Asbury Institute, 2023).

Teasdale, Mark R. "A Bias for the Gospel," International Bulletin of Mission Research 47 (Jan. 2023), 69, https://doi.org/10.1177/23969393221100770.

Von Gonten, Kristen, "Emma Stone Poteet Pilley and Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Missions to Asia," Methodist History 61 (Apr. 2023), 13, https://doi.org/10.5325/methodisthist.61.1.0013.

Whiteman, Darrell L., "The Conversion of a Missionary: A Missiological Study of Acts 10," Missiology 51 (Jan. 2023), 19, https://doi.org/10.1177/00918296221117711.

Whiteman, Darrell L., "Foreword" to Laura Heikes, Finding God: Discovering the Divine in the Gritty and Unexpected (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2023).

Whiteman, Darrell L., "My Pilgrimage in Mission," International Bulletin of Mission Research 47 (July 2023), 536, https://doi.org/10.1177/23969393231173853.

Whiteman, Darrell L., "Remembering the American Society of Missiology 1973–2023: Remarks at the 50th Anniversary Banquet Celebration," Missiology 51 (Oct. 2023), 378, https://doi.org/10.1177/00918296231190918.

David W. Scott: The Challenges of Being a Rural Church in an Urbanizing World

Last week, I wrote a blog post entitled "The UMC is a rural church in an urbanizing world" in which I argued just that. I ended by asserting that there are missional, financial, cultural, and other implications of this thesis for the mission and ministry of the church. This post will expand on those implications.

But before I do that, I want to make clear that I do not think it is a bad thing to be a rural church.

There are plenty of tropes made by urban dwellers in cultures around the globe about rural areas and rural people. Biases and stereotypes flow both ways between the city and the country, but the church's mission strategy can never be driven by assumptions that "those people" are not entitled to the same things that "we" are. As someone who has lived half my life in towns under 10,000 people and the rest of it in small to medium cities, I can vouch that there are differences between those contexts, but one is not inherently a better or worse place. The church must be clear that all people are worthy of the gospel, no matter where they live.

The UMC is a rural church because it has been successful at sharing the gospel with rural people. That is a success, and we should not be ashamed of it. We should also not be content to stay with the successes of the past if they distract us from what God is calling us to do now. But I believe that rural ministry is part of God's call to Methodists in the past, present, and future.

The challenge then, as it always is, is to think critically about the context so that we can better and more faithfully answer God's missional call. I will highlight three challenges posed to rural ministry from the current context of urbanization.

Stagnant and declining populations

The flip side of growing urban populations around the world is that rural populations are often not growing. Indeed, in some settings, rural areas are facing depopulation or population aging as people, especially younger people, move from rural areas to urban areas. Rural areas with a stagnant to declining population mean that there are only so many people that the church can include as members. This number of potential members is further limited when rural areas are experiencing overall declines in religiosity, such as is common in Western countries as a whole.

Small congregations are not necessarily a problem. Most United Methodist congregations are small. But when the Methodist tradition and current denominational systems emphasize growth in membership, that creates a problem because of the gap between expectations of growth and the limited margin for growth that exists in many rural populations.

Part of the solution to the problem of this gap between expectation and reality is to develop better theologies around faithful persistence that can provide a sense of meaning and accomplishment for churches that are located in populations where dramatic evangelistic growth is just not likely.

Another missional implication is that if the church believes in continuing to bring the gospel to new people, it cannot afford to be just a rural church. It also needs to expand into urban areas. Part of the Methodist DNA can help here. Methodist geographic expansion has historically been driven primarily by migrants. Often that has included migrants from rural areas to cities. Thus, the church needs to think about how it can better support its members who move from rural to urban areas and how it can capitalize on them as potential evangelists and missionaries who can bring Methodism with them to the city.

Rural income limits

Rural areas are not necessarily poor, though rural poverty exists just as surely as urban poverty does, even if it looks different. Yet the church faces a couple challenges related to the money it can bring in from rural areas for mission and ministry.

In some rural areas, the church does face challenges in raising money because of poverty and other economic conditions. Appalachia is a rural area of the United States with extensive poverty and many United Methodist churches. Rural inhabitants there have less money, on average, to give to the church. In rural areas of developing countries, many rural residents are subsistence farmers who raise crops for their own consumption but do not earn a cash income. That may mean they have no money whatsoever to give to the church, though they may have other assets and resources to give.

In all rural areas, smaller populations mean smaller groups of donors and therefore smaller total donations than would be possible in a city-wide giving campaign. This is true regardless of whether the rural area is wealthy or poor.

God is more concerned with our generosity than the total given (as in the story of the widow's mite). Yet, when there are price tags associated with certain church-related activities (paying for a roof, supporting a missionary's salary, contributing to a pastor's retirement fund, running a tutoring program, etc.), there is the potential for mismatch between the amount that a rural area can generate and the amount necessary for these activities.

This challenge highlights the importance of connectionalism and cooperation in the church's mission and ministry in rural areas. If one church cannot run a tutoring program by itself because of limited finances or limited volunteers, can it partner with other churches to run the program? This partnership may be ecumenical with churches in the same area or partnership with other United Methodist churches that are not too far distant.

A broader answer to this challenge is that the church needs to think more deeply about how it supports agriculture as the basis of rural economies. This can range from seeing agriculture as the direct source of giving (as in programs like Growing Hope Globally) to recognizing that the better the agricultural economy is in rural areas, the better the community will do and therefore the more resources will be available for mission and ministry in the church (as in the Yambasu Agricultural Initiative).

Inefficiencies of scale

Underlying both of the above issues is a basic challenge of all facets of life in rural areas: inefficiences of scale. In many instances, it is cheaper and easier to provide good and services to larger, more concentrated populations in urban areas than it is to provide those services to small, more spread out populations in rural areas. In the secular world, this economic reality shows up in everything from the closure of rural hospitals and consolidation of rural school districts in the United States to more difficulty in buying things, especially specialized items, in rural areas everywhere to the lack of cell phone and broadband internet access in many rural areas around the world.

In the church world, the rise of megachurches are a clear expression of this same market logic. It is more efficient to provide religious services to 10,000 people who travel to one location than it is to provide religious services to 10,000 people spread out among 200 small, rural churches. More buildings, pastors, and travel are required for rural ministry.

Again, having 200 churches with an average of 50 attendees each is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. The problem for rural ministry arises when a drive toward efficiency in the church comes into conflict with the realities of rural ministry.

Part of the answer to that problem is to question the premise. Is more efficiently provided church ministry better church ministry? Not necessarily so. If the church really values rural ministry and takes seriously the missional call to engage people in rural areas, then it would just accept higher costs. Indeed, mission is rarely the most cost-effective thing to do, but God consistently calls us to missional generosity with our resources. In some instances, it may make sense for the church to think about what missional investment by urban churches in rural churches might look like, recognizing that rural churches are not just recipients of mission but potential sources of mission giving and mission personnel, as the above sections highlight.

Another response to this challenge is to think carefully about what sort of infrastructure is really necessary to carry out mission and ministry in rural areas. If there is a relatively stable congregation of 12 people, does that congregation need a building, or does it make more sense to meet as a house church? Where is it more effective to have a pastor serve a multi-point charge full time, and where does it make sense to have a bivocational pastor serve a single point charge part time?

Again, the Methodist tradition of connectionalism is highly relevant here. Methodists have never believed that each congregation should be completely autonomous and sufficient in itself. We have always believed that the church depends on gifts and assets being shared across and pooled among congregations. As I mentioned in my last post, practices like circuit riding, quarterly meetings, and revivals were a means to overcome the efficiency challenges of rural ministry, and modern-day versions of these old Methodist practices remain relevant for rural ministry today.

Conclusion

Urban (and suburban) ministry has its own challenges that I have not tried to address in this post. Certainly, as the world urbanizes, we must also think more carefully about that ministry context as well. But even as urban areas and churches there grow, the UMC will continue to have a significant rural constituency in many settings around the world. It does not benefit the church as a whole to ignore or take for granted the rural portion of itself.

Ultimately, the goal for the rural and urban ministries of the church should be the same that it is for the church as it extends itself missionally across cultures, nations, and other boundaries. The goal must be for the church in each location to reflectively engage with its local context while the church in all locations joins together in mutual sharing and partnership for the sake of advancing God's kin(g)dom. May it be so, in the city, in the country, and everywhere in between.

The UMC is a Rural Church in an Urbanizing World

The UMC is a rural church in an urbanizing world.

This is perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but it underlines important facets of the history and present of The United Methodist Church in many locations around the world, facets that have significant implications for the mission and ministry of the UMC in the present age.

In this post, I will share some historical and anecdotal evidence to support the two components of the argument: first, that the UMC is in many ways a rural church, and second, that the world is urbanizing. In a future post, I will look at the missional, financial, cultural, and other implications of this thesis.

The UMC Is a Rural Church

I know of no database that has yet been compiled that conveniently provides the percentage of UMC congregations or congregants in rural vs. urban areas. This is true both in the United States and even more so around the world. Thus, my argument will be more historical and anecdotal than statistical.

In the United States, the classic elements of Methodist history - circuit riders, class meetings, camp meetings - were all associated with Methodism's spread along the rural frontier of the new United States. Circuit riders were a successful innovation to bring religion to small, widely dispersed rural settlements. Class meetings kept the faithful going between visits from the circuit riders. And camp meetings provided a place for rural people to gather together for religious (and secular) experiences not available in scattered communities of a few dozen people. These elements combined to allow Methodism to spread well across the new republic, mostly in rural areas. While Methodism would eventually get into urban missions (at the end of the 19th century), and while there were some areas (such as New York City) that had early urban Methodist congregations, the focus for most of US Methodism's early history was on the rural hinterlands, not the cities.

The success of this rural strategy is still apparent in the distribution of UMC congregations in the United States today. Prior to disaffiliation, the UMC had more churches than the US had post offices. This was not largely the result of plentiful churches in urban and suburban areas but rather the continuation of the many rural congregations started by early Methodists, especially east of the Great Plains (where almost all the population lived prior to the Civil War and where the majority of the US population lives still today).

Indeed, if you compare a map of congregations per county in 2020 of United Methodists and Catholics, you can easily tell the more rural composition of United Methodists (on top below) and Catholics (on bottom). The Catholic map allows you to clearly identify Dayton, for instance, because of the urban nature of US Catholicism. The United Methodist map includes many congregations per county in entirely rural parts of Appalachia.

If a rural focus, rural distribution, and rural character has marked US United Methodism, this is true in many other countries around the world.

The current largest episcopal area in the entire UMC is the North Katanga Episcopal Area. The portion of that episcopal area in the DR Congo is almost entirely rural in its composition. There are, to my knowledge, no cities of over 200,000 in an area that contains almost a million United Methodists. These United Methodists, like many in the United States, live in small towns and villages.

In Zimbabwe, although there are now United Methodists throughout the country, an early comity agreement with the British Methodists meant that the British Methodists focused on the cities during the early evangelization of the country, while the predecessors of the UMC focused on the rural area. It was only after United Methodists migrated from rural areas to cities that the denomination opened churches in urban areas.

In Mozambique, there was no United Methodist congregation in the capital and largest city of the country until decades after the church was established, a testimony to the early rural focus of the church on one district of eastern Mozambique.

In Nigeria, the UMC has a strong presence in Jalingo, a state capital about the size of Des Moines, Iowa. But, like Des Moines, Jalingo is merely an anchor for Methodism that is spread throughout the rural areas of the territory as well.

Manila is a huge metropolitan area, and the UMC has always had a presence there, and one of the three Filipino episcopal areas is focused on Manila. But the Baguio Episcopal Area to the north includes mostly rural areas and small cities. Baguio itself, the urban center of the area, only has a population of about 345,000.

The UMC in Norway has congregations in the nine largest cities in Norway. But it also has congregations in three small villages north of the Arctic Circle. If the UMC there is perhaps concentrated near Oslo, it has by no means shunned rural areas.

This is not a comprehensive survey, and there are, of course, counter examples. I have already acknowledged United Methodism in metro Manila. And The United Methodist Church in Liberia, for instance, has a urban flavor to it because of its historic base among Americo-Liberian settlers, who were originally based in Monrovia and other newly formed urban areas.

Still, looked at broadly, I think it is fair to say that The United Methodist Church at very least has strong rural roots in many places throughout the globe and that these roots remain evident in the geographic distribution of the church to this day.

The World Is Urbanizing

Many of the historic, rural roots of the UMC described above were set during the 19th century. It is fair to point out that most of the world lived in rural areas in the 19th century. A rural focus for the UMC was notable but not out of line with the experiences of the majority of humanity.

But there has been a dramatic transformation of where and how humans have lived in the past century, as ever larger numbers and percentages of people congregate in urban areas, a process social scientists refer to as urbanization.

The United States became a majority urban country about a century ago, in the early 1920s. At the present, almost 80% of the US population lives in urban or suburban areas. Only 21% remain in rural areas of the country. The trend in other developed countries was similar, a steady march to the cities beginning in the late 19th century and continuing on such that the vast majority of the population lives in urban areas at present.

Yet urbanization has not only been a process in developed countries. Over the past half century, there has been a massive population shift in developing countries as well, as people flock to cities. The majority of the world's population now lives in urban areas. The World Bank predicts that by 2050, 70% of the world's population will live in cities.

This move from rural to urban areas (and the creation of many new urban areas) represents a fundamental change in human societies that has implications for all areas of human life. But religion is certainly one of the areas impacted by the shift to cities. And The United Methodist Church, as a church with rural roots that is facing a rapidly urbanizing world, would do well to be cognizant of the missional, financial, cultural, and other implications of this process of urbanization and what they mean for the mission and ministry of the church. I will explore that further in a subsequent piece.

Philip Wingeier-Rayo: Celebrating 150 Years of Methodism in Mexico: Napoleon, Cinco de Mayo, and Reform

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Philip Wingeier-Rayo. Rev. Dr. Wingeier-Rayo is Professor of Missiology, World Christianity and Methodist Studies at Wesley Theological Seminary.

What does Cinco de Mayo have to do with Methodism in Mexico? Restaurants, schools, and breweries in the U.S. have made the holiday popular—mostly for commercial gain. However, few can articulate the history or significance of the Cinco de Mayo holiday. Some people wrongly assume that it is Mexican Independence Day. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mexico launched its war on September 16, 1810, and won its independence from Spain in 1821, while the Battle of Puebla happened over 50 years later on May 5, 1862. Mexico’s victory was against the French army. 

Now what were the French doing in Mexico? This brings us to our topic of Methodists in Mexico. But first a little background.

Ever since Hernan Cortez and Spanish conquistadors conquered the Aztecs and Emperor Moctezuma in 1521, politics in Mexico have been intimately intertwined with religion. The Spanish arrived with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other. The Roman Catholic Church and clergy enjoyed broad ranging power, influence, and wealth – owning approximately 1/3 of Mexican land.

This began to change when President Benito Juarez (1806-1872) and the liberals advocated for the separation of church and state and freedom of religion. They fought for a constitutional federal state, subjugation of the army to civil authorities, public education, freedom of religion, and the equal distribution of wealth through the sale of unused church property. In 1856, the liberal government headed by Juarez passed the Ley Lerdo, which ordered the sale of church lands (monasteries, cemeteries, etc.) not used for religious purposes. The Catholic Church and clergy fought back in the War of Reform (1858-1860). The liberals won this war and recaptured Mexico City in 1860, passing the freedom of religion law, which allowed other denominations besides Catholics to legally operate in Mexico. The government carried out reforms, nationalizing Catholic properties and secularizing charitable institutions (e.g., hospitals). The liberals turned around and sold these properties to the public, which allowed for the creation of a Mexican middle class.

The Roman Catholic clergy and conservative allies were on the losing end of these reforms and encouraged French Emperor Napoleon III to intervene, which he did under the pretext of an outstanding national debt to France. The French invaded Mexico in 1862, and Napoleon named Maximiliano I to be emperor of Mexico. A sense of national pride and sovereignty rallied Mexican troops, who initially defeated the French army on May 5 at the Battle of Puebla. The victory was short-lived as the better-equipped army advanced and entered Mexico City in 1864. Maximiliano I tried to create a unified government, but he was caught between the competing claims of liberals and the coalition of conservatives and clerics. In 1867, Maximiliano was defeated by Benito Juarez and executed, marking a victory for the liberals and for the Reform. 

What does this have to do with Methodism? 

The liberal government found an ally in North American and European Protestants who believed in literacy, public education, health care, democracy, and ministry in rural areas—especially to the indigenous populations. A former Franciscan convent on Gante Street in Mexico City was one once of the properties confiscated and sold by the liberal government. It was and is a majestic site. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the lands had been used by Emperor Moctezuma as a garden before it became the first and largest Franciscan convent in New Spain. Between 1862 and 1873 after being sold during the Reforma, this building had various owners and was used for different purposes. In 1865, it was home to the Chiarini Circus, which Emperor Maximiliano once attended with his wife, Carlota. While the National Palace was under repair during 1868-9, this site became a place of legislation as temporary home to the Chamber of Deputies. It was also used as a theatre, restaurant, and cantina, among other functions. 

In 1871, the Missions Committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church approved $10,000 for missions in Mexico. The following year, William Butler, missionary and founder of the Methodist Church in India, was named secretary of the American and Foreign Christian Union and was tasked with mission work in papal lands, specifically in Latin America. Ms. Matilda Rankin, a Congregationalist based in Brownsville, Texas, invited the Butlers to go to Mexico, and so on February 1, 1873, the family sailed for Veracruz and took a train to Mexico City. The Butlers purchased the former Franciscan monastery for $16,300 to start the first Methodist Church. They began an orphanage with 37 girls, and Mrs. Butler established a support group for mothers every Tuesday night. 

Alejo Hernández became the first Mexican to be ordained by the MEC, South in December of 1871. Born in Aguascalientes, Hernández came to Brownsville, Texas, in search of a Protestant Bible and was ordained a deacon by Bishop Enoch Martin in Corpus Christi, Texas, and then he traveled back to Mexico City to assist Butler to help the new Methodist mission on Gante Street in 1873. The same year, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South sent Bishop JC Keener, and he purchased the former chapel of St. Andrew on the corner of San Andres and Callejon 57 streets in Mexico City. 

The liberal reforms and defeat of the French army created a window of opportunity for the Methodists, along with the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and other Protestants, to begin mission work in Mexico—150 years ago this year. To honor this history, the Methodist Church of Mexico will hold a celebratory conference later this year with the theme “Renovation and Future,” to be held at the Santisima Trinidad Methodist Church at Gante Street 5, November 30 – December 2.

David W. Scott: The Coming Pastoral Shortage as a Missional Concern

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

At the annual meeting of the Northern Germany Annual Conference this past June, conference leaders shared a startling statistic: the number of active pastors in the conference is expected to drop in half in the next eight years. In response, the conference is looking to promote more collaboration across congregations and to form "multi-professional teams" of pastors and skilled lay workers who can collectively provide leadership to United Methodist congregations.

United Methodists in the United States would do well to watch and learn from this experiment as it unfolds in Germany over the next several years. While the statistics might not be quite as dramatic as in the Northern Germany Annual Conference, there are indications that the United States is heading towards a growing clergy shortage as well. This is something that this blog wrote about a year and a half ago, and a Washington Post story from this summer drew similar conclusions.

Clergy decline is not a new trend. The number of ordained elders in the US UMC has been declining since 1990, according to the Lewis Center for Church Leadership. There are almost half as many ordained elders now as there was thirty years ago (21,507 in 1990 vs. 11,168 in 2022).

However, up until recently, this trend of declining elders has been masked and managed by other trends:

At the same time as the number of ordained elders has gone down, the number of licensed local pastors has increased substantially. The number of licensed local pastors rose from just under 4,000 in 1990 to over 7,500 in 2020, again according to the Lewis Center.

Moreover, as smaller churches have closed and proportionately more members have worshipped in larger congregations, the number of elders required to serve US United Methodists has decreased.

And as small, rural congregations have gotten smaller, the number of multi-point charges (groups of churches served by a shared minister) has increased, with some charges now including four or more churches.

Masked within the number of elders is another trend: an increasing reliance on clergy who have immigrated from another country. Without these immigrant clergy members, the decline in the number of elders would have been even more stark.

Yet, these various off-setting trends will likely no longer continue to provide adequate solutions to a decline in the number of ordained clergy from the United States. The number of licensed local pastors has itself been declining since 2019. Increased visa restrictions and issues of regionalization may make it harder for the United States to import pastors in the future. And while multi-point charges are certain to increase, there are limits to just how many churches can be served and how many miles can be driven by one pastor.

Thus, churches in the United States will need to look to other solutions and other models for clergy deployment in the next decade, which is why the Northern Germany story is so significant. It is an experiment, one that may yield models worth copying. There are others as well, including from the Methodist Church in Britain. But wherever the ideas come from, experiments will need to be tried.

Finally, it is important to point out that the question of finding models that will match the number of clergy and the number of churches is not just an administrative one, but a missional one.

In the 18th and 19th century, Methodism's model of itinerant clergy was a major factor in the growth of the denomination throughout the United States. Not all those clergy were ordained elders, but finding a way to develop and deploy enough leadership to where the missional needs of the community and the country are was part of what made Methodism a successful missional movement.

The systems for recruiting, training, and deploying congregational leadership are likely to look very different in the future than they did in the era of the circuit riders or in the recent eras of the ubiquitous M.Div.-trained elder or the rise of licensed local pastors.

But the need for called and trained leaders who can lead the church forth in mission will always be constant. May the church experiment successfully with new models for finding such leaders.

Darlene Marquez-Caramanzana: A Journey of Solidarity: Ruth and Naomi’s Story, Part II

Today’s post is by Deaconess Darlene Marquez-Caramanzana. Marquez-Caramanzana is an Area Liaison for Asia and the Pacific with Global Ministries. It is the second of two parts. This post was originally developed for the World Methodist Council Consultation on Migration.

In my previous post, I introduced the story of Ruth and Naomi’s relationship and named the resonances that it has for our ministry with migrants in our time and locations. I raised the question of Ruth and solidarity.

Ruth’s story is instructive of the who, the why, and the how of solidarity. Despite her own vulnerability, Ruth embarked on the unknown because of her deep love for Naomi. She did not look on her personal struggle as a vulnerable woman solely, but she grabbed the opportunity to show to Naomi, who was then desperate and surrendered to her lot, to see that it is better if they are together in the journey. It was radical love professed in this mother-in-law – daughter-in-law relationship.

Ruth’s story is instructive of our missiological task of ministering to those who need God the most, those whose only hope is God.

When we talk about mission these days, and when we talk about the plight of migrant men and women and gender minorities, are we not supposed to be talking of how deep our solidarity is with them?

With Ruth and Naomi embracing a journey together, I see two individual women charting their own future and deciding for themselves the outcome of that future rather than just waiting for others to dictate their course. It was a journey of mutual support that challenged how people and society looked at and treated them. It was a risky journey but a worthy one to undertake.

I don’t have any intention to romanticize the story of Ruth – it was truly, definitely a difficult journey.

But her story speaks to every one of us – as individuals resisting cultural impositions and anything that denies us of our full humanity. It speaks to struggling migrants and immigrants actively looking for ways out of poverty, dehumanization, and insecurity. It speaks to us as churches seeking to be in solidarity with those who are vulnerable.

And I would like us to focus on the last: Ruth’s story speaking to us as churches seeking to be in solidarity with those who are vulnerable.

Part of Global Ministries Theology of Mission Statement says:

The Church experiences and engages in God’s mission as it pours itself out for others, ready to cross every boundary to call for true human dignity among all peoples, especially among those regarded as the least of God’s children, all the while making disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world.

In solidarity we have to empty ourselves. It is in emptying ourselves that we are able to identify with our struggling and distressed brothers and sisters. We cannot claim to journey in solidarity with them when we ourselves are limited by our own impositions and claims to correct knowledge and expertise.

Our readiness to cross boundaries defines the way in which we incarnate our faith. Emptying ourselves is a pre-requisite in crossing boundaries. More than geographical boundaries, we focus ourselves on crossing the boundaries of race, class, gender, age, and others. We cross our own personal boundaries of individualism, egoism, privilege and comfort. We break down the walls that keep us apart from the suffering of others. We break down the walls that render us numb to the pulsating pain brought about by oppression, dehumanization, and marginalization.

To be in solidarity is to recognize that people are decisive in charting their course. To be in solidarity with them is to provide them support as they affirm their agencies and build their capacities. We share our resources with them – yes. But it is not the determining factor in regaining their humanity. Our roles should be to render our presence in their journey in such a way that obstructions are eliminated and they are able to regain their power. To be in solidarity is to embody the hope that they themselves are capable of rising up.

We will need to take into full account that our understanding of the plight of migrants and immigrants should be our primordial concern. Their context defines the response that we as churches or mission agencies can learn from. Their journey, their struggles, their hopes and aspirations should inform our perspectives, practice, and theology of mission.

Ruth may have undergone a lot of self-emptying so that the essence of solidarity was incarnated in her accompaniment of Naomi. Solidarity was not just a word or concept for Ruth. It was in flesh, lived out in her decision to be with Naomi until death. Her solidarity resulted in hope. A hope that assured Naomi that her battles were not just hers. A hope that enabled their community to see Ruth and Naomi on a different light.

As churches we participate in the emancipatory struggles so that we, too, become ambassadors of hope. For those who are not able to see light clearly. For those struggling to get up on their feet. Ruth became a beacon of hope for Naomi. And so must we. For the sake of the least, the last and the lost.

Our theme for the consultation is “On the move.” As the spirit, as Ruah, is with us, we must we be on our feet, on the move. We can’t just tarry in the garden. We need to move. We need to do something. Our faith compels us to serve. Our God is calling us to move. But let me also affirm that as we move, God is also in the movement or movements of people, in movements where we participate meaningfully so that life abundant becomes a lived reality for the world’s most vulnerable people. Amen.

Darlene Marquez-Caramanzana: A Journey of Solidarity: Ruth and Naomi’s Story, Part I

Today’s post is by Deaconess Darlene Marquez-Caramanzana. Marquez-Caramanzana is an Area Liaison for Asia and the Pacific with Global Ministries. It is the first of two parts. This post was originally developed for the World Methodist Council Consultation on Migration.

In 2013, Joanna Demafellis’ home in Leyte was among those torn and decimated by Typhoon Yolanda (Hayan). The raging flood stripped down the family home to its frame. In 2014, through the help of an aunt, Joanna was able to fly to Kuwait to work as a domestic helper. As a domestic helper, she was promised a monthly salary of $400. Under the kafala system, foreigners entering Kuwait need sponsorship to act as a bridge to the country. The employer got to keep her passport and confiscated her mobile phone, and she was only allowed to use it every 3 months. In 2016, her family sensed a problem when they couldn’t find two of her Facebook profiles and her roaming number became out of reach. In 2018, Kuwaiti authorities found Joanna’s body by chance, kept in a freezer of her second employer.

Jullebee Ranara was a domestic worker. She could not send her 4 children to school because she was poor. In her desire to offer better lives for her children, she decided to work abroad. Perhaps also a victim of illegal recruiters or human trafficking, she ended up working for a family in Kuwait. On January 21, 2023, she was reportedly raped, murdered, burned, and thrown in the desert. News reports would point to her employer’s 17-year-old son as her tormentor and killer.

We remember their stories as we engage in Bible study on the Book of Ruth. I would center our thoughts on the part of the Book of Ruth that is focused on Naomi and Ruth’s relationship.

Ruth’s story resonates with me as a deaconess engaged in mission work through Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. How does her story deepen my commitment to be in solidarity with those who need our significant presence, and what is the role of mission agencies as people journey in risky situations in foreign lands?

Ruth’s story also resonates with the many women, like Joanna and Jullebee, who leave our country everyday by the thousands to find a greener pasture in foreign lands so that their families here in the Philippines may live.

Naomi’s family, along with daughters in law Ruth and Orpah, left Judah to go to Moab because of famine. In Biblical narratives, the most common consequence of famines is involuntary migration. This was evident in the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rachel and their sons. They would usually migrate to Egypt to seek food, even if it meant being subjected to exploitation by Egyptian masters and rulers. Most of these people’s lives were turned upside down by the realities of famine during their time. Their stories speak of the vulnerability that migrants face as they rely on the mercy of people to help them and yet are in turn subjected to abuse and exploitation of those in power.

Mijal Bitton, a teacher, writer, and leading thinker on questions relating to Jewish American identity, pluralism, gender equity and sociological diversity asserts that “starvation is not a function of scarcity, but rather a function of how societies distribute food.”[1] This is confirmed by economist and philosopher, Amartya Sen whose “work demandsthat instead of examining food availability, we should be investigating whether individuals can gain access to food and control food resources. This shift is borne out by the Genesis stories. The Mesopotamian region and neighboring Egypt could potentially feed everyone. But Abram, Sarai and their children must fight to get access to food, and must confront the dangerous vulnerability embodied by economic migrants.”[2] This is also the same context that prompted Naomi’s family to move from Judah to Moab.

As I reflect on the stories I earlier shared about Joanna and Jullebee – I can’t help but also point out that if we talk of resources, my country, the Philippines, has enough resources to feed and provide for all of its people. But the question remains: why do people need to migrate, and why are people poor?

Let’s go to Ruth . . .

In the story, Ruth showed a deep faithfulness to Naomi. In losing her husband and two sons, Naomi is resigned to the kind of life awaiting her. She knows that nothing is left for her but to wallow in poverty and shame. She blessed her two daughters-in-law and sent them home. Orpah obliged. Ruth did not. And to this Ruth pledged to never leave Naomi and spoke of a beautiful, poetic commitment:

Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried (v.16 NIV).

As for Mijal-Bitton, “Ruth’s persona is intersectional: she embodies the vulnerabilities of women, of widows, of economic migrants, of foreigners, of stigmatized strangers (she is a Moabite).”[3]

In their time it was not easy for Naomi, Ruth and Orpah to lose their husbands. They have to bear the brunt of a difficult life in a patriarchal world – without property, without status, without economic power, non-existent.

When Ruth decided to leave her all and be with Naomi, she put to risk her own life. Her decision meant that whatever happens to Naomi would also happen to her.

This story raises questions for me: How did Ruth embody solidarity with Naomi? How does this solidarity challenge us as churches to do our ministry with struggling migrants and immigrants? How do we see the image of God in Ruth’s decision to accompany Naomi? What image of God do we want to profess or give witness to as we engage in ministry with migrants?

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[1] The Book of Ruth: A story about famine offers a powerful lesson for a pandemic – The Forward

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.