Two recent articles on short-term missions provide helpful conversation starters about missiological issues related to the practice of short-term missions.
United Methodist Communications published a piece by Rev. Dan Wunderlich entitled "How to do short-term missions the right way." The piece offers seven suggestions for those (Americans) planning short-term mission trips: learn the issues, check your perspective, do the research, pick the right project, consider not going, train your team, and tell a responsible story.
UM & Global contributor Rev. Lisa Beth White has written a response to Rev. Wunderlich's piece entitled "Balancing the why and the how of short-term missions." Rev. White adds another layer to Rev. Wunderlich's recommendations by raising the question of motivation in short-term missions and connecting it to The United Methodist Church's mission document, "Grace Upon Grace."
Both pieces are sure to be useful in local church settings, classrooms, and other arenas in which United Methodists are seeking to conduct mission in faithful, fair, and fruitful ways.
Dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Thursday, January 4, 2018
2017/2018 year in (p)review
As 2017 ends and 2018 beginnings, it's time to engage in the annual tradition of looking back at what the top topics on UM & Global were in 2017 and looking forward to what they might be in 2018. To see what my guesses were for 2017 at the beginning of the year, see here.
The most popular post of 2017, and the most popular post ever on UM & Global, is "American UMC decline is a white people problem." This piece combined themes of race, church decline, and data analysis. All three of these themes have been important to UM & Global in the past.
The biggest foci for UM & Global in 2017, though, were undoubtedly church unity and our assessment of the draft UMC ecclesiology document, "Wonder, Love and Praise." Both topics took up a lot of blog posts over the year and included posts that were among the most-read of 2017.
UM & Global's treatment of "Wonder, Love and Praise" harkens back in some ways to our assessment of "Grace Upon Grace." Both series included multiple authors from across the connection reflecting upon important documents of the church. The comment collection process for "Wonder, Love and Praise" is now closed, and we will have to wait to see what the Committee on Faith and Order does with the comments submitted by our authors and others.
The focus on church unity is part of a larger complex of issues including, as I termed them at the beginning of 2017, General Conference, the Sexuality Debate, and Global Ecclesiology. In some ways, the sexuality debate in the UMC has become a black hole, sucking in all others issues that operate at a more than local level. UM & Global would not have spent so much time exploring the grounds for and challenges to church unity in 2017 without that backdrop. Questions of where the UMC will go in the future are important for a blog "dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church," but the challenge for 2018 will be to continue to engage with such questions without being consumed by them, while still having attention for other important missiological topics.
The most popular post of 2017, and the most popular post ever on UM & Global, is "American UMC decline is a white people problem." This piece combined themes of race, church decline, and data analysis. All three of these themes have been important to UM & Global in the past.
The biggest foci for UM & Global in 2017, though, were undoubtedly church unity and our assessment of the draft UMC ecclesiology document, "Wonder, Love and Praise." Both topics took up a lot of blog posts over the year and included posts that were among the most-read of 2017.
UM & Global's treatment of "Wonder, Love and Praise" harkens back in some ways to our assessment of "Grace Upon Grace." Both series included multiple authors from across the connection reflecting upon important documents of the church. The comment collection process for "Wonder, Love and Praise" is now closed, and we will have to wait to see what the Committee on Faith and Order does with the comments submitted by our authors and others.
The focus on church unity is part of a larger complex of issues including, as I termed them at the beginning of 2017, General Conference, the Sexuality Debate, and Global Ecclesiology. In some ways, the sexuality debate in the UMC has become a black hole, sucking in all others issues that operate at a more than local level. UM & Global would not have spent so much time exploring the grounds for and challenges to church unity in 2017 without that backdrop. Questions of where the UMC will go in the future are important for a blog "dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church," but the challenge for 2018 will be to continue to engage with such questions without being consumed by them, while still having attention for other important missiological topics.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Recommended Viewing: I am a missionary series
Global Ministries has begun releasing two new series of short videos.
The first is entitled "I am a missionary." The videos include short interviews of Global Ministries missionaries taken during a recent gathering in Latin America. The missionaries speak about their motivations to enter missionary service and their experience as missionaries.
The second is entitled "Fearless Fellows." The videos include short interviews of Global Ministries' Global Mission Fellows, talking about their calling to mission work and what they've learned from their places of assignment.
The videos could be a good resource to use in classroom, Sunday School, or worship settings.
The first is entitled "I am a missionary." The videos include short interviews of Global Ministries missionaries taken during a recent gathering in Latin America. The missionaries speak about their motivations to enter missionary service and their experience as missionaries.
The second is entitled "Fearless Fellows." The videos include short interviews of Global Ministries' Global Mission Fellows, talking about their calling to mission work and what they've learned from their places of assignment.
The videos could be a good resource to use in classroom, Sunday School, or worship settings.
Thursday, December 28, 2017
Recommended reading: Mission Year in Review
As 2017 draws to a close, this is in the season for year-in-reviews. UM & Global will have our own retrospective of 2017 and look forward to 2018 next week. In the meantime, I recommend you check out Rev. Scott Parrish's "Mission Year in Review." Parrish makes a passionate plea for churches to try new things and engage with their surrounding culture. This plea makes it a very forward-looking year-in-review.
Monday, December 25, 2017
Recommended Viewing: Christmas Around the World
Merry Christmas from UM & Global!
As you celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus, please enjoy this slideshow of United Methodists from around the world celebrating Christmas. It was compiled by UM Communications.
As you celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus, please enjoy this slideshow of United Methodists from around the world celebrating Christmas. It was compiled by UM Communications.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Recommended Reading: Kyle Tau on Unity, Ecumenism, and Ecclesiology
Rev. Dr. Kyle Tau, Ecumenical Staff Officer for Faith & Order and Theological Development for the Council of Bishops of The UMC, has recently published an article in Methodist Review that connects well to many of the reflections on ecclesiology and unity UM & Global has been publishing this year.
The abstract for the article reads: "This essay explores the current conditions for church unity derived from the political and organizational culture of modernity and questions whether a new definition and form of unity is needed as modernity itself undergoes a major transformation. It asks whether the centralizing legal and bureaucratic structures that now animate conversations around church unity ought to be retought in light of postmodern trends. It proposes a more multi-textured form of unity as koinonia or communion made up of an overlapping network of relationships characterized by the mutual recognition of members, ministries, and sacraments. Drawing upon the metaphor of a web or ecosystem this essay affirms the ecumenical shift to pursuing bilateral full communion agreements over large multilateral attempts at merger, and proposes that intra-Methodist unity be conceptualized as a communion of distinct connectional structures."
Articles from Methodist Review are available for free, with registration required.
The abstract for the article reads: "This essay explores the current conditions for church unity derived from the political and organizational culture of modernity and questions whether a new definition and form of unity is needed as modernity itself undergoes a major transformation. It asks whether the centralizing legal and bureaucratic structures that now animate conversations around church unity ought to be retought in light of postmodern trends. It proposes a more multi-textured form of unity as koinonia or communion made up of an overlapping network of relationships characterized by the mutual recognition of members, ministries, and sacraments. Drawing upon the metaphor of a web or ecosystem this essay affirms the ecumenical shift to pursuing bilateral full communion agreements over large multilateral attempts at merger, and proposes that intra-Methodist unity be conceptualized as a communion of distinct connectional structures."
Articles from Methodist Review are available for free, with registration required.
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Conferencing, relationships, and denominational unity
Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Director of Mission Theology 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.
Here is an interesting comparison for United Methodists: The Church of the Nazarene had their quadrennial General Assembly this past summer. Opening worship for the event, which brought together Nazarenes from around the world, emphasized “unity in diversity,” a theme participants enthusiastically affirmed, talking about how much they valued relationships across cultural and national differences in the church. Organizers and participants referred to General Assembly as a “global family reunion.” At GA2017, one of the big debates was whether to have future General Assemblies every four years or every five years. Delegates voted to keep future General Assemblies every four years because they so enjoyed meeting together.
Such a description is nigh-unthinkable for a General Conference of The United Methodist Church. If General Conference were to promote a theme of “unity in diversity,” it would be cynical dismissed by many participants as a top-down attempt to paper over divisions and preserve the institution. Participants often speak of the global nature of the church as a challenge rather than a blessing. Nobody thinks of General Conference as a family reunion. And no majority would vote to keep the meeting every four years for the fun of it. GC might be kept every four years, but the reason would be to address all of the important business facing it.
The Church of the Nazarene’s General Assembly and The United Methodist Church’s General Conference are both expressions of the Wesleyan practice of conferencing. But they seemingly could not be more different. How can we account for this difference, and what can it tell us about The United Methodist Church can effectively foster the sorts of familial Christian relationships necessary to undergird denominational unity?
In his book, The Methodist Conference in America: A History, Russ Richey argues that the practice of conferencing in American Methodism, at all levels from charge conferences to General Conferences, originally served three functions: polity, fraternity, and revival. Polity refers to official decision-making, fraternity refers to relationship-building, and revival refers to spirituality-building. One of Richey’s main arguments in the book is that, over time, the polity function has edged out the other two, especially at less local levels of the church. There’s certainly much to bemoan about the loss of the revival function, but for now my focus is on the loss of the fraternity function.
As Richey demonstrates, the reasons for the eclipse of fraternity by polity are many and long-term. The complexity of Methodist polity has increased. The number of Methodists has increased since the 18th century. The diversity of Methodists has increased. The culture around us has changed. And Richey barely touches on the global nature of The United Methodist Church. There is no simple one thing for us to reverse to go back to a better time in the history of United Methodism.
Yet, with the work of the Commission on a Way Forward and the called General Conference in February of 2019, we do have the opportunity to fashion new ways of going forward, new ways of being for the future, even if we cannot simply go back to the past.
One thing United Methodists can learn from our ancestors and from our Nazarene cousins is the importance of making time and space for relationships in our conferences. If we want our denomination to foster relationships, then we need to allot sufficient time in our gatherings to create genuine relationships.
Instead, United Methodists, following the logic of American culture and under the pressures of a slowly diminishing American base, have prized efficiency and impact in how we structure our conferences. We have prioritized making as many decisions on as many topics as possible. These priorities have left us with little time for relationship, which has not been a priority.
Creating time and space for relationships is not easy. It requires effort. It is expensive. It often means letting go of other things one could be doing with that time and space. Creating time and space for relationships requires prioritizing relationships over other functions.
The Nazarenes have some insight here in how they structure General Assembly: Minimize the decisions you need to make. Nazarenes have a strong practice of subsidiarity: more local organizations have a lot of the decision-making power, freeing up more time in General Assembly. In addition, while General Assembly does speak to important issues in the church and world, it does not try to be comprehensive in its proclamations, freeing up more time. Less is more: the fewer decisions that General Assembly needs to make, the more time for relationships.
Such principles could apply to United Methodism as well, and not just at General Conference. Where can more decision-making be entrusted to locals? What can we afford not to address at our conferences? How can we then open up more space for relationships?
In my post last week, I suggested denominations can’t get more relationship by doing more of what they’re already doing. Here I am suggesting something even stronger: to foster more relationship, we may even need to do less of what we’re already doing. The surprising insight is that in order to have a more unified denomination, we may need to let go rather than grab tight. In order to get more relationship and thus more unity, we must be willing to give up our own power and accept our limitations.
We may find comfort than in so doing, we will be following the way of Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Philippines 2:6-8). Jesus gave up his own power and accepted limitations, even the limitation of death, all for the sake of relationship, for the sake of love. May we have the courage to do likewise.
Here is an interesting comparison for United Methodists: The Church of the Nazarene had their quadrennial General Assembly this past summer. Opening worship for the event, which brought together Nazarenes from around the world, emphasized “unity in diversity,” a theme participants enthusiastically affirmed, talking about how much they valued relationships across cultural and national differences in the church. Organizers and participants referred to General Assembly as a “global family reunion.” At GA2017, one of the big debates was whether to have future General Assemblies every four years or every five years. Delegates voted to keep future General Assemblies every four years because they so enjoyed meeting together.
Such a description is nigh-unthinkable for a General Conference of The United Methodist Church. If General Conference were to promote a theme of “unity in diversity,” it would be cynical dismissed by many participants as a top-down attempt to paper over divisions and preserve the institution. Participants often speak of the global nature of the church as a challenge rather than a blessing. Nobody thinks of General Conference as a family reunion. And no majority would vote to keep the meeting every four years for the fun of it. GC might be kept every four years, but the reason would be to address all of the important business facing it.
The Church of the Nazarene’s General Assembly and The United Methodist Church’s General Conference are both expressions of the Wesleyan practice of conferencing. But they seemingly could not be more different. How can we account for this difference, and what can it tell us about The United Methodist Church can effectively foster the sorts of familial Christian relationships necessary to undergird denominational unity?
In his book, The Methodist Conference in America: A History, Russ Richey argues that the practice of conferencing in American Methodism, at all levels from charge conferences to General Conferences, originally served three functions: polity, fraternity, and revival. Polity refers to official decision-making, fraternity refers to relationship-building, and revival refers to spirituality-building. One of Richey’s main arguments in the book is that, over time, the polity function has edged out the other two, especially at less local levels of the church. There’s certainly much to bemoan about the loss of the revival function, but for now my focus is on the loss of the fraternity function.
As Richey demonstrates, the reasons for the eclipse of fraternity by polity are many and long-term. The complexity of Methodist polity has increased. The number of Methodists has increased since the 18th century. The diversity of Methodists has increased. The culture around us has changed. And Richey barely touches on the global nature of The United Methodist Church. There is no simple one thing for us to reverse to go back to a better time in the history of United Methodism.
Yet, with the work of the Commission on a Way Forward and the called General Conference in February of 2019, we do have the opportunity to fashion new ways of going forward, new ways of being for the future, even if we cannot simply go back to the past.
One thing United Methodists can learn from our ancestors and from our Nazarene cousins is the importance of making time and space for relationships in our conferences. If we want our denomination to foster relationships, then we need to allot sufficient time in our gatherings to create genuine relationships.
Instead, United Methodists, following the logic of American culture and under the pressures of a slowly diminishing American base, have prized efficiency and impact in how we structure our conferences. We have prioritized making as many decisions on as many topics as possible. These priorities have left us with little time for relationship, which has not been a priority.
Creating time and space for relationships is not easy. It requires effort. It is expensive. It often means letting go of other things one could be doing with that time and space. Creating time and space for relationships requires prioritizing relationships over other functions.
The Nazarenes have some insight here in how they structure General Assembly: Minimize the decisions you need to make. Nazarenes have a strong practice of subsidiarity: more local organizations have a lot of the decision-making power, freeing up more time in General Assembly. In addition, while General Assembly does speak to important issues in the church and world, it does not try to be comprehensive in its proclamations, freeing up more time. Less is more: the fewer decisions that General Assembly needs to make, the more time for relationships.
Such principles could apply to United Methodism as well, and not just at General Conference. Where can more decision-making be entrusted to locals? What can we afford not to address at our conferences? How can we then open up more space for relationships?
In my post last week, I suggested denominations can’t get more relationship by doing more of what they’re already doing. Here I am suggesting something even stronger: to foster more relationship, we may even need to do less of what we’re already doing. The surprising insight is that in order to have a more unified denomination, we may need to let go rather than grab tight. In order to get more relationship and thus more unity, we must be willing to give up our own power and accept our limitations.
We may find comfort than in so doing, we will be following the way of Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Philippines 2:6-8). Jesus gave up his own power and accepted limitations, even the limitation of death, all for the sake of relationship, for the sake of love. May we have the courage to do likewise.
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