Elliott Wright: Food Production as a Strategy for Sustaining the African Church

Today's post is by Rev. Elliott Wright. Wright has written for and about Global Ministries for half a century and was for 20 years its public information officer. He is a United Methodist elder of the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Annual Conference. This post is part of an occasional series on food and mission.

Pair “mission” and “food,” and one set of resulting images will include church food pantries and soup kitchens geared toward feeding the poor in response to biblical mandates, notably Mathew 25. While retaining the importance of the act of feeding the physically hungry and sharing table fellowship, another understanding of the importance of food to mission is emerging in Africa today. This is the linking of the humanitarian goals of food security with an economic strategy for sustaining the work of the church in mission on the continent. This brave effort arose from the vison of and bears the name of the late United Methodist Bishop John Yambasu of Sierra Leone. The Yambasu Agriculture Initiative (YAI) is an Africa-rooted mission enterprise in collaboration the General Board of Global Ministries.

Food Production as Church/Mission Economic Strategy
Agriculture was basic to the Methodist and other Wesleyan missionary presence in Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As congregations were planted, so were fields— of grain and cassava— in central and southern Africa and parts of West Africa, often on huge tracks of land given to mission agencies and churches by tribes or colonial powers—private or governmental. Farms were endemic to such notable mission stations as Camphor in Liberia, Cambine in Mozambique, Quessua in Angola, and hectare after hectare, many hosting small holder farms, in Zimbabwe. Provision of nourishment for the mission stations and their communities was the historic role of the church lands, with holdings passing from mission agencies to indigenous entities.

Today, Yambasu said in 2019, almost every rural United Methodist church in Africa has “access to vast land resources.” Unfortunately, much of the land, he reported, “has remained unutilized. Tragically, the church is fast losing huge portions of these lands to encroachers and wealthy people who use their wealth to challenge the church’s ownership.”[1]

Food Security and Church Sustainability
Yambasu’s eyes fixed upon the land as he searched for assets to address two contemporary challenges to African United Methodism: poverty/hunger and the need of financial resources to sustain the church in Africa. Some 278 million people in African experienced food shortage in 2021, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. While the church is growing in some areas, especially the French-speaking countries of central and West Africa, American mission money has for decades underwritten much of what is today African United Methodism. The possibility of this pattern of support continuing into the future was unlikely in Yambasu’ thinking, given the US membership decline and the dissention within the denomination.

The bishop called his idea a “therapeutic strategy”—commercial farming enterprises will “end poverty in the church, employment will be created, communities will be empowered and transformed and food security can be achieved.”[2]

At first brush, commercial farming as a “therapeutic strategy” for ending hunger and funding the church hints of religious communitarianism, which has a weak track record in the annals of both faith and economics. But there is a fundamental difference. The YAI is rooted not in communal living but in service to the community within and beyond the congregation.

He saw all of the 13 UMC episcopal areas in Africa taking part, and he was in a good position to lead the way. Bishop Yambasu was president of the United Methodist African College of Bishops, vice president of Global Ministries, and newly elected chancellor (chief ceremonial officer) of the United Methodist Africa University at the time of his death in an automobile accident on August 16, 2020. The university in Zimbabwe, whose chief operational officer is titled vice chancellor, opened in 1993 with two initial departments, theology and agricultural sciences.

The bishop set forth his therapeutic strategy in two papers, one in early 2018 at a gathering of African UMC leaders considering the theme “Visioning the United Methodist Church in the 21st Century,” and the second a year later in Johannesburg at an Africa Agricultural Summit jointly organized by the African bishops and Global Ministries.

Yambasu’s proposal gained traction with his colleague bishops, and one outcome of the Johannesburg summit was a plan for Global Ministries to provide grants for self-determined, sustainable pilot projects in the various conferences. Under the leadership of Roland Fernandes, Global Ministries’ directors made an initial special allocation of $3 million in the fall of 2020 for a grant pool and would in the spring of 2021 add another $3.5 million. The project was named for the bishop following his death. Thirteen grants in a dozen conferences were funded from the first allocation, and several new grants from the second allocation will be considered by Global Ministries at its board of directors’ meeting in October 2022.

Variety of Enterprises
The first YAI enterprises differ from place to place as determined by local or regional factors. Some are crop specific, such as maize and pigs, cassava and peanuts, and fish farming. Others concentrate on vegetables and fruit, general livestock, or chickens. One conference is developing high yield seeds. Another is putting its focus on increasing the capacity of 200 farmers in raising livestock. Some locales are cultivating inherited church land, while others are incorporating other acreage. Conferences in the following countries are involved to date: Angola, Mozambique, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe. Others are expected to join.

None of the pilots are yet mature enough to provide solid evidence of long-term contributions to either food security or church institutional financial stability. The first pilot was in Sierra Leone and enjoyed a first bountiful crop of rice in February 2022, most of its Global Ministries’ grant of $200,000 going for planting and harvesting equipment.[3]

Training is an essential component in the YAI ’s emphasis on sustainable agriculture. From early in the program, Global Ministries provided a technical advisor in the person of Dr. Kepifri Lakoh, who in August 2022 became director of the program, with a base in Sierra Leone. Lakoh holds a PhD in agribusiness and was for five years director of monitoring and evaluation of Global Ministries. A number of missionaries with academic and practical backgrounds in agriculture are involved in specific places, but most participants are new to agribusiness. In the autumn of 2022, the Initiative will sponsor three two-week training sessions relevant to the work for an estimated 80 conference staff and volunteers.

The success of YAI will depend on multiple factors including weather, markets, financial and social capital, and church commitment.  Bishop Yambasu was convinced that commercial farming can resolve poverty and provide a stable economic future for the United Methodist people of Africa and their churches. It is a bold vision, but one not outside the realm of faith reflected in Psalm 144’s images of barns filled with produce and fields with sheep, or the promise of no more hunger in Revelation 7:16.

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[1] Yambasu, John. “The Church and Agriculture in Africa—A Call to Action,” address to Africa Agricultural Summit, Johannesburg, South Africa, January 13, 2019. Typescript, pages unnumbered.

[2] Ibid.

[3] As reported by Jusu, Phileas, “Bishop Yambasu Agricultural Initiative Harvests First Crop,” United Methodist News Service, February 22, 2022. https://umcmission.org/february-2022/bishop-yambasu-agriculture-initiative-harvests-first-crops

Recommended Viewing: David W. Scott on Colonialism and the Church

Dr. David W. Scott, Director of Mission Theology for Global Ministries and blogmaster of UM & Global, was invited to present to the Council of Bishops last week on the topic of colonialism and the church as part of the council's on-going Task Force to End Racism, led by Bishop LaTrelle Easterling.

In his presentation, Scott offered some remarks about the definition of colonialism, briefly reviewed three ways in which The United Methodist Church and its predecessor denominations have historically been entangled with colonialism -- settler colonialism in North America, European and especially British imperialism around the world, and American expansion around the world in its various forms, looked at how that history continues to impact the church today, and then offered some thoughts on how the church should address that legacy. Scott's presentation also included some question and answer interactions with the bishops.

Scott's presentation can be viewed on the Council of Bishops Facebook page as part of the livestream of that session. It begins at the beginning of the livestream and lasts approximately 50 minutes.

Recommended Reading: German UMC Welcome to WCC

The World Council of Churches (of which The United Methodist Church is a member) begins its General Assembly next week in Karlsruhe, Germany. The General Assembly will bring together representatives from churches around the world under the theme "Christ's love moves the world to reconciliation and unity." Various United Methodists will be at the meeting in a variety of capacities, but the event will have special significance for the German branch of the UMC (the EmK - Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche - in German). In advance of the WCC General Assembly, EmK leaders, including Bishop Harald Rückert and retired Bishop Rosemarie Wenner have issues greetings to the local Karlsruhe EmK congregation (the Erlöserkirche - Church of the Redeemer) and through them to the WCC. The Erlöserkirche will have a role in helping to host WCC guests. For a summary of those remarks and additional details about EmK activities related to the General Assembly, see coverage by Klaus Ulrich Ruof (original in German; Google translation to English).

5 UMC story lines to follow this fall

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.

Summer is winding down, and the fall looms before us. With the fall will likely come a series of new developments within The United Methodist Church (some already underway) related to major questions about the future of the denomination. Here are five such story lines to follow this fall.

US Disaffiliation

There have already been several recent developments in the increasingly acrimonious fight over disaffiliation from the UMC by congregations in the United States. There have been lawsuits and threats of lawsuits by those seeking to leave the UMC. The WCA has called on US Traditionalists to withhold at least some apportionments and to resume charges against those disregarding Book of Discipline provisions around gay ordination and gay marriage. Both those seeking to leave and those seeking to stay have been waging an information and PR campaign among local churches in the US, with those planning to remain in the UMC asserting that those leaving are spreading falsehoods.

Moreover, the Judicial Council just yesterday ruled on the use of Book of Discipline Paragraph 2548.2 as a means of disaffiliation. That paragraph allows the transfer of congregational property to another "evangelical denomination" with whom the UMC has a "comity agreement." Exiting Traditionalists would have preferred to use its provisions over those of Paragraph 2553, but the bishops requested a Judicial Council ruling on whether 2548.2 is applicable in this case. The Judicial Council answered that the paragraph only applies to property, not members, and only for denominations with which the UMC already has an General Conference-adopted agreement. This ruling precludes its use for transfer of congregations to the Global Methodist Church and represents a significant blow to Traditionalists.

In addition, many annual conferences have scheduled special sessions to act on requests for disaffiliation. These sessions will be a test of the numbers of departing congregations, the terms on which they will depart, and the atmosphere in which they will do so.

Plans for General Conference 2024

When the Commission on General Conference announced its decision to further postpone General Conference to 2024, it acknowledged that "the further postponement raises a number of additional questions not specifically addressed in The Book of Discipline 2016." The Commission left it up to the Judicial Council to determine "which preparations and processes are based on the postponed 2020 General Conference and which would need to be enacted should this be seen as a new 2024 General Conference."

Should that ruling come this fall, it will set the direction for the UMC relative to General Conference on issues such as which delegates will attend the next General Conference and what legislation will be before it, both questions that may well shape what happens at that meeting.

Proposals for the future of the UMC

With General Conference 2024 possibly coming into greater focus this fall and disaffiliation well underway, there is an opening for new proposals about the future of the denomination to emerge. In his address to the Council of Bishops earlier this week, Bishop Thomas Bickerton spoke of the UMC needing to pivot towards "a conversation about what it is we want and dream about as a church moving forward." Look for new proposals to emerge this fall from those intending to stay UMC about what they envision the denomination to look like beyond the current conflict over disaffiliation.

While some of these new proposals for the future of the denomination may come from episcopal leaders or US Centrists and Progressives, it is also quite likely (indeed, it should be expected) that leaders from the central conferences will contribute to this debate, even if it is just to reiterate the principles of regionalization embodied in the already-proposed Christmas Covenant.

Episcopal elections

There are episcopal elections currently scheduled for late this year in the United States and the Philippines. The results of these elections will be an indication of what sort of direction leaders from the US and the Philippines want to see the denomination take. Especially with new proposals for the future of the denomination likely to emerge earlier in the fall, episcopal elections will serve as a stand-in referendum on these various visions of the church.

European disaffiliation

Earlier this year, Methodists in Bulgaria became the first to leave en masse to join the Global Methodist Church. At the time, Bishop Patrick Streiff of the Central and Southern Europe Central Conference ruled that the vote by the Bulgaria-Romania Annual Conference to do so violated the Book of Discipline. The Judicial Council just released its ruling in the case: While the Council agreed that it did not have jurisdiction in this instance, members clearly expressed their opinion that Streiff had been right and that the Bulgaria-Romania Annual Conference had indeed disregarded the Book of Discipline.

The church in Bulgaria has already made its departure effective. What remains to be seen is what routes the churches in Romania and in Estonia, which has also voted to leave the denomination, will take. While both have indicated that they will leave, they are not doing so immediately. Romania expects to leave by the end of the year. Both have chosen to work with their supervising bishops to follow some sort of process. The question remains to be answered this fall what that process will look like.

The larger significance of questions about European disaffiliation is what sorts of precedents it will set that could be influential if branches of the church in Africa or other branches of the church in Europe choose to disaffiliate as well. Traditionalist African leaders have indicated that they will not leave before General Conference 2024, but it remains unclear what will happen at that point, and developments in Europe this fall may well have an influence on those decisions.

Daniel Bruno: Methodism in Latin America in Times of Neoliberalism: Some Themes

Today's post is by Rev. Lic. Daniel A. Bruno. Rev. Bruno is a pastor of the Argentina Methodist Church and Professor of Church History. It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) and appears here in translation with the author's permission. It is the second of a two-part translation of the original piece.

In an earlier post, I described the context of neoliberalism in Latin America and its effect on the churches there, including Methodism. In this post, I will point out briefly some aspects that deserve to be debated to glimpse a new horizon and a possible future for our Methodist churches.

The challenge of community evangelization in context

For decades we have been concerned, and continue to be, with the question of the numerical growth of our churches. And that's okay; it is a genuine concern. The problem has been linking the concern for numerical growth with the concept of “evangelization,” which is much broader and more challenging. Today commercial marketing uses the word "evangelize" as a method to sell a product and generate customer loyalty. Without a doubt, we have done something wrong if it has learned this from the churches that speak of “evangelizing.”

The model of evangelization that came to us through the missions was effectively a client model. They had to grow in number in order to not close the mission post. Thus, the terms began to melt together: growth and evangelization. Added to this is the subjectivist and individualistic character that was imprinted on the evangelistic action.

Wesley's practice was very different. His phrase "spread the good news of salvation and reform the nation" demonstrates his broad concept of the task that the witnesses of the good news have in the society in which they live. Wesley created what we might today call a community network of evangelism. The space in charge of spreading the good news was given, not to an individual, but to community spaces, such as the societies, classes and bands that, as a connective network, nourished the believers in all their needs and also gave them a horizon of testimony. Wesley was never concerned with "growing", but rather with giving witness to the love of God in the lives of people. The enormous growth of the Methodist movement was a consequence of working in networks and witnessing in society.

Growth arises as a consequence of a committed mission, not as an end in itself. This is reflected in the book of Acts 2: 46-47, when the first Christians lived the gospel and as a consequence of that testimony: "The Lord added every day to those who were going to be saved." The testimony comes first; growth accompanies a good testimony. When we ask ourselves why we are not growing, we should ask ourselves what witness we are bearing to the Good News.

The challenge of a mission that troubles

This leads us to revise our mission. One of the most dangerous concepts that neoliberalism has managed to implant in our societies is that of "common sense," that is, the uncritical acceptance of what is given or of what is "politically correct" since it is accepted as true by many. It is the way of accepting what is established, without accepting other transgressive alternatives.

The concept has penetrated our churches and without a doubt, applying it to mission is a contradiction. If Wesley would have based himself on "common sense," he would never have gone to Bristol to preach in the open air. If Jesus would have based his ministry on "common sense," he would not have left Joseph's carpenter's shop. The gospel demands a mission that troubles.

The challenge of a “two-way” mission

During the 19th century, Protestantism used the term "mission" disconnected from the task of the witness of churches in their places of origin. It continued to use it as an expression of a special action of missionary expansion (accompanied many times, it must be said, by colonialist military expeditions) to reach regions where the gospel was not known, establishing a "mission" there.

Today it is necessary to strip the concept of mission of the idea of "going and bringing," and change it to that of "meeting and dialoguing." Latin American Methodism must necessarily seek its mission outside of common sense or sometimes against it. Mission in Latin America, a land shaped by so many and varied cultures, must know how to open spaces for dialogue, letting the Spirit act and in many cases allowing oneself to be evangelized by “others,” as Jesus did with the Syrophoenician woman. And in that encounter, claim all the faces and excluded or subaltern groups such as: indigenous peoples, women in their fight for gender equality and against violence against women, creation as a mistreated common home, etc.

The challenge of returning to being a movement

If Wesley had something very clear, it is that he never wanted to be a church institution. That was what the Anglican Church was for. He always perceived Methodism as a movement. Does this mean the absence of organization? Certainly not; Wesley was quite strict with habits and discipline. But he was very clear that the entire organization and structure had to be at the service of and be functional for mission.

The missions that organized Methodism in Latin America had a different vision. For them, mission consisted of marking territory, through the construction of large and beautiful churches, by endowing the mission with an institutional structure copied from the Methodist Episcopal Church, which, by the way, the autonomy processes tried to modify, but without a doubt it was not enough.

This heritage, which by the way we must value and which at some point was necessary for external visibility and internal organization, today in many cases has become a burden. In many cases the institutional structure stifles the mission. The roles were reversed.

And that must necessarily be revised. The Latin American Methodism of the not-so-distant future will have to be wise to reorganize itself in its context. It must transform itself with an embodied spirituality and a renewed liturgy, which maintains all its historical richness but appeals to the new generations. May it build communities of abundant life in times of institutional disbelief and exacerbated individualism.

The challenge of a broad ecumenism

Large historical Methodist churches of our continent are retreating from a pioneering path of ecumenical leadership to close themselves in an atmosphere of self-pleasure intolerant of difference. Undoubtedly, this is part of the "climate of the times" in which we live, a conservative, intolerant wave that affects all areas of life – social, cultural, economic and, of course, religious – in our region.

The strange thing for Methodism is that, having a rich history that since its origins points to a path of openness of view and mind, today it tries to twist the obvious with conservative and orthodox positions with which Wesley would never have agreed. In a large number of sermons and tracts, Wesley refers to "thinking and letting think" as applied to various aspects of the Christian life. Sermon 39, “The Catholic Spirit,” which could well be translated as “The Ecumenical Spirit,” also reveals his fight against intolerance.

This invites us to think about the forms and attitudes that, as people and as a church, we adopt in the face of differences. We must recognize that, at the beginning of the 20th century, almost all Latin American Methodisms did not have this sermon in mind at all when they made the controversy against Catholicism a battle for ideas, for membership, and for territory.

Neither do certain Methodisms have it in mind today when they abandon ecumenism and deny both thinking, as a free and critical action of reason, and letting think, as an action of tolerance in the face of difference. Without a doubt, Wesley's tremendous phrase " God has given no right to any of the children of men thus to lord it over the conscience of his brethren," should be a guide that helps to revise our affirmations, our judgments, and our prejudices.

The challenge of speaking clearly and loudly

The prophetic task of the church has been a characteristic of Methodism. What we know today as public theology, for Wesley was part of the works of mercy. His concept of good news, deep and radical, led him to fight against the "execrable villainy of slavery," to dabble in economics, in health, in medicine, and to criticize those who transformed these tools given by God for the well-being of God’s children into matters of personal profit. Latin American Methodism also knew how to speak clearly and loudly at different hard times in the history of its peoples.

In this current context, the prophetic attitude is dissipating. Why? Why, right at a time with so much injustice, inequality, violence, and hunger, does it seems that we are returning to "winter quarters"? Why do we close ourselves in the churches and transform public theology into private theology? Perhaps it is because of what we said before, have we put the institutional structure before the mission? Have we given in to the temptation to elaborate a mission from “common sense”?

These are some of the challenges we face as Latin American Methodists. it is time to start working on them. We invite you to follow our posts for the month of August on the Evangelical Methodist Church Argentina’s website, where these aspects will be deepened by additional authors.

Recommended Readings: Methodist Church in Britain on Agriculture in Zimbabwe

This blog has been running an occasional system of posts on mission and food throughout this year. In that vein, several recent blog posts from the Methodist Church in Britain's Global Relationships team on agricultural project in Zimbabwe. Andrew Ashdown, MCB's Partnership Coordinator for Africa, has been visiting Africa and the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe (an autonomous church from the British tradition). Part of the joint work between the MCB and the MCZ has involved agricultural projects. Ashdown has written about such projects in the following posts:

Mission through Education, Agriculture and Development. Waddilove Schools and Farm. Zimbabwe

Income generation for Education and Church growth. Moleli Goat-rearing Project

The hardships of rural ministry in Africa. Mbembesi Chicken Rearing project. Matabeleland, Zimbabwe

Recommended Reading: Soundings Towards an Intercultural Identity for The United Methodist Church

The journal Methodist Review recently published another article that may be of interest to UM & Global's readers. It draws on history and theology to comment on the intercultural nature of The United Methodist Church. Hendrik R. Pieterse and David W. Scott wrote "Soundings Towards an Intercultural Identity for The United Methodist Church: Some Historical and Theological Resources." The piece can be found for free, with registration, on Methodist Review's website. A full abstract for the piece is below.

 

Hendrik R. Pieterse and David W. Scott, "Soundings Towards an Intercultural Identity for The United Methodist Church: Some Historical and Theological Resources"

The United Methodist Church today is in an identity crisis rooted in the role of culture, power, and agency in the negotiation of denominational identity. To confront these challenges, the UMC must recognize the extent to which white American understandings of Methodism have functioned as normative in debates over Methodist identity. To illustrate the intercultural dynamics at stake, we analyze the history of Italian and Japanese immigrants’ struggle to find a place within American Methodism in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These case studies show that Methodism flourished when there was room for intercultural conversation about its nature. Thus, United Methodists need an alternative understanding of our collective identity that evolves out of intercultural conversations that remain alert to the role of culture, power, and agency in identity formation. We suggest that one promising resource in this task is the Methodist practice of conferencing or dialogue.