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.
I recently saw a surprising flyer put out by the Methodist Church in Britain. The flyer was for an advertisement for a new program to assist with evangelism that the Methodist Church in Britain was offering. This itself was not surprising.
What was surprising to me was the program itself: the Methodist Church in Britain was offering for local churches in Britain to receive missionaries from CIEMAL, the Consejo de Iglesias Evangélicas Metodistas de América Latina y el Caribe (Council of Methodist Church in Latin America and the Caribbean), who would assist these British churches with their evangelism programs over the course of three years.
The Methodist Church in Britain pointed out that Methodism is growing in many places in Latin America and the Caribbean and left unspoken the contrast that Methodism is shrinking in most places in Britain. If Methodism is growing in Latin America and the Caribbean, might not Latin Americans and Caribbeans have something to teach the British?
That seems logical enough, but what was surprising was the embrace by the Methodist Church in Britain of a very different sort of relationship with some of its descendant churches than the one it traditionally had. Don't get me wrong - I think the shift is very laudable, but it is still surprising.
Traditionally, the Methodist Church in Britain was the one exporting missionaries elsewhere. Those missionaries went out and told other people how to do their evangelism. British Methodists did not receive missionaries or need anyone else to tell them how to do their own evangelism. They were the ones with the money, the power, and the answers.
That attitude has been changing for some time in Britain. The post-colonial and post-Christendom British church realizes it can no longer expect to project itself as the center of money, power, and knowledge, among Methodists abroad or within its own society, in the same way it used to.
Yet this recent flier represents a further step, and a necessary one. There is a progression - from "we will go out as missionaries with the answers," to "we will go out as missionaries in partnership with others, where both sides have answers," to "we may still go out as missionaries, but we also need to receive missionaries and answers from others."
Some of my surprise, I am sure, comes from being an American. It is difficult enough to get many American Christians to shift from the first mindset to the second on the above continuum. That denominational leadership would promote the shift to the third mindset seems unthinkable. What would be the reaction if The United Methodist Church offered to deploy Congolese evangelists in the United States? How would US churches respond to the suggestion that they needed to place themselves under the tutelage and leadership of Africans?
Yet that is the direction that Western Christians should go. We must recognize that it is not only us who go as missionaries, nor only us who have the answers, nor only others who have problems with which they need help. All Christians are called to mission. All Christians have knowledge to share. And all Christians, including Western Christians, have problems with which they need help. We, too, must be willing to listen to others who have aspects of the gospel to share with us so that we can hear them with fresh ears. We, too, must be willing to receive from others just as much as we seek to share with them. The church in the United States may not be at that point yet, but I pray it gets there.
Dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Monday, September 10, 2018
Recommended Reading: Norma Dollaga on Duterte, theology, and poverty
United States Attorney General and United Methodist Jeff Sessions was roundly criticized in June for his use of Romans 13 to justify the Trump Administrations' policy of child separation for families arriving at the US southern border.
Yet Sessions is far from the only politician globally using theology to justify questionable practices. In the Philippines, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte has pondered publicly about the connection between God, poverty, and suffering. The strongman ruler has been accused of fomenting violence against the poor and indigenous groups in his country.
Just as United Methodists in the US responded to Sessions' claims, United Methodist deaconess and theologian Norma Dollaga takes on Duterte's theological claims in a piece on her blog entitled "Poverty Is Not A Creation of God." It is a recommended read.
Yet Sessions is far from the only politician globally using theology to justify questionable practices. In the Philippines, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte has pondered publicly about the connection between God, poverty, and suffering. The strongman ruler has been accused of fomenting violence against the poor and indigenous groups in his country.
Just as United Methodists in the US responded to Sessions' claims, United Methodist deaconess and theologian Norma Dollaga takes on Duterte's theological claims in a piece on her blog entitled "Poverty Is Not A Creation of God." It is a recommended read.
Friday, September 7, 2018
Recommended readings: Africa Initiative meeting
The Africa Initiative, a unofficial caucus group of African United Methodists with ties to conservative American United Methodist caucus groups, met a few weeks ago in Nairobi, Kenya. Among other discussions and trainings, the group discussed proposed legislation for the upcoming called General Conference in February 2019. The group endorsed the Traditional Plan. You can read a UMNS article by African journalist E. Julu Swen about the meeting here.
The meeting has received some pushback from African United Methodists living in the United States. For examples, see articles by Albert Otshudi Longe and Kalaba Chali.
Amid the meeting and its criticism, there are four points worth highlighting:
1. Not all Africans think the same. There are debates in Africa, just as there are in the US, even if they are not the same debates.
2. While American traditionalists and progressives are promoting various African voices, we should be careful to not just read these African voices as presenting the same set of views as their American allies. Africans have their own takes on issues and their own takes on which issues are most worthy of the church's focus.
3. Both Chali and Longe are living in the United States. One can interpret their critiques of the Africa Initiative in a variety of ways, but one interpretation is to see a distinction between the views individual Africans hold and the views Africans feel free to express publicly in Africa. Many African cultures emphasize deference to communal norms to a much greater degree and individual expression to a much lesser degree than does US culture.
4. Swen's article alludes to conflicts between the Africa Initiative and the African bishops. Three of the thirteen African bishops were at the Nairobi meeting, but the relationship between the Africa Initiative and the bishops as a whole, along with the different strategies each adopt in advance of General Conference 2019, may actually be the determining factor for how African delegates approach that General Conference and thus the result of the conference.
The meeting has received some pushback from African United Methodists living in the United States. For examples, see articles by Albert Otshudi Longe and Kalaba Chali.
Amid the meeting and its criticism, there are four points worth highlighting:
1. Not all Africans think the same. There are debates in Africa, just as there are in the US, even if they are not the same debates.
2. While American traditionalists and progressives are promoting various African voices, we should be careful to not just read these African voices as presenting the same set of views as their American allies. Africans have their own takes on issues and their own takes on which issues are most worthy of the church's focus.
3. Both Chali and Longe are living in the United States. One can interpret their critiques of the Africa Initiative in a variety of ways, but one interpretation is to see a distinction between the views individual Africans hold and the views Africans feel free to express publicly in Africa. Many African cultures emphasize deference to communal norms to a much greater degree and individual expression to a much lesser degree than does US culture.
4. Swen's article alludes to conflicts between the Africa Initiative and the African bishops. Three of the thirteen African bishops were at the Nairobi meeting, but the relationship between the Africa Initiative and the bishops as a whole, along with the different strategies each adopt in advance of General Conference 2019, may actually be the determining factor for how African delegates approach that General Conference and thus the result of the conference.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Recommended Readings from Darrell Whiteman on Contextualization
Last week, we published piece on contextualization by Dr. Darrell Whiteman, leader of Global Development, entitled "Contextualization, Relevance, and Biblical Fidelity in the Church and Mission." As a companion to that piece, Dr. Whiteman also shared a list of recommended readings on the topic of contextualization. Those recommended readings are as follows:
Flemming, Dean (2005) Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Flemming, Dean (2009) “Contextualization in a Wesleyan Spirit: A Case Study of Acts 15” In Whiteman, Darrell L. and Gerald H. Anderson (eds.) World Mission in the Wesleyan Spirit, American Society of Missiology Series, No. 44. Franklin, TN: Providence House Publishers, pp. 16-27.
Kraft, Charles H. (2016) Issues in Contextualization. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library.
Moreau, A. Scott (2012) Contextualization in World Missions: Mapping and Assessing Evangelical Models. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic.
Moreau, A. Scott (November 2018) Contextualizing the Faith: A Holistic Approach. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Whiteman, Darrell L. (1997) “Contextualization: The Theory, the Gap, the Challenge” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 21:2-7.
Whiteman, Darrell L. (2010) “The Gospel in Human Contexts: Changing Perceptions of Contextualization” In MissionShift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium. David J. Hesselgrave and Ed Stetzer (eds.). Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, pp. 114-128.
Flemming, Dean (2005) Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Flemming, Dean (2009) “Contextualization in a Wesleyan Spirit: A Case Study of Acts 15” In Whiteman, Darrell L. and Gerald H. Anderson (eds.) World Mission in the Wesleyan Spirit, American Society of Missiology Series, No. 44. Franklin, TN: Providence House Publishers, pp. 16-27.
Kraft, Charles H. (2016) Issues in Contextualization. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library.
Moreau, A. Scott (2012) Contextualization in World Missions: Mapping and Assessing Evangelical Models. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic.
Moreau, A. Scott (November 2018) Contextualizing the Faith: A Holistic Approach. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Whiteman, Darrell L. (1997) “Contextualization: The Theory, the Gap, the Challenge” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 21:2-7.
Whiteman, Darrell L. (2010) “The Gospel in Human Contexts: Changing Perceptions of Contextualization” In MissionShift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium. David J. Hesselgrave and Ed Stetzer (eds.). Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, pp. 114-128.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Darrell Whiteman: Contextualization, Relevance, and Biblical Fidelity in the Church and Mission
Today's post is by Dr. Darrell Whiteman, the leader of Global Development, an organization that seeks to "enable missionaries, pastors, and lay people to better distinguish the universal message of the gospel from their local interpretation and practice of living out the gospel within their communities."
As a young Free Methodist missionary in Central Africa (1969-1971) nearly 50 years ago, I wondered why the churches over there attempted to look so much like the churches back home. It seemed like they were almost “carbon copies” in worship, theology, polity, and ministry.
What’s wrong with this picture?
I couldn’t articulate why that made me so uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem right. Why should churches in Africa look so much like churches in the United States? Something was wrong, but I didn’t know why or what it was. The strategic goal seemed to be denominational extension more than advancing the Kingdom of God by joining Jesus in his mission.
I now realize years later that what was missing was contextualization—a term that didn’t even appear in missiological discourse until the early 1970s. Since then there has been a plethora of academic and missiological publishing on this important concept, even though in practice there is still a lack of contextualization in much mission activity today.
Ironically, long before his time, the provocative Methodist missionary to India and the world, E. Stanley Jones, understood the need for contextualization which he expressed eloquently in his classic book, The Christ of the Indian Road (1925).
Let me begin by discussing what contextualization is and why it is important and close with some suggestions about why it is relevant to the United Methodist Church and its global mission efforts today.
What is contextualization?
Contextualization is both a method and a perspective and relates to the challenge of connecting the gospel to culture. As a method it attempts to communicate and live out the gospel and to establish the church in ways that make sense to people within their local cultural context. In this way Christianity meets people’s deepest needs and penetrates their worldview, thus enabling them to follow Christ and remain within their own culture. Jesus may be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8) but cultures are constantly changing and more rapidly than ever in the present era.
Advocating cultural change or conversion to Christ?
Much of the postcolonial critique of mission in the age of colonialism has come because too many missionaries too often confused following Jesus with adopting the cultural ways of the missionary while simultaneously condemning the culture of their converts. Perhaps without realizing it, they were advocating a kind of cultural conversion more than conversion to Christ within their own culture. They didn’t understand or appreciate the principle hammered out in the Jerusalem Council’s decision that Gentiles could become followers of Jesus without having to become culturally and religiously Jews, as recorded in Acts 15.
Will contextualization lead to syncretism?
Opposition to contextualization sometimes comes from those who fear it will lead to “watering down” the gospel and its requirements to become a follower of Jesus.
In reality, however, the opposite is true. Contextualization doesn’t take the sting out of the gospel, it intensifies it. Contextualization sharpens the focus and offence of the gospel, it does not dilute it. If the gospel doesn’t critique culture, then culture wins every time and the transforming power of the gospel is lost.
One way of looking at the relationships between the gospel and culture is as follows: The gospel affirms most of culture, critiques some of culture, and transforms all of culture. I take this to mean that converts can and should remain within their culture and follow Jesus (I Cor. 7:17-24), recognizing that there will be aspects of their culture that will undergo change because of their allegiance to Christ. Following Jesus will put disciples at odds with aspects of their culture in every society, whether ancient or modern. The gospel has always been offensive, (foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews, I Cor. 1:23) so let’s be sure we offend people for the right reasons and not the wrong ones. Too much mission activity is so culturally offensive that people don’t experience the offensive of the gospel.
I think many people oppose contextualization because they don’t understand it and fear it will become the slippery slope that leads to syncretism—a mixture of biblical and non-biblical beliefs and practices. Actually, the opposite is true. Contextualization is the best hedge against syncretism because it sharpens the focus of the gospel.
How can the church be relevant to culture while remaining faithful to the Bible?
Contextualization is concerned with both cultural relevance and biblical fidelity. Good contextualization is both relevant to the cultural context and faithful to the biblical text, and this is not easy to do. It’s not easy because the cultural context is constantly changing, and it is also challenging because there are sometimes divergent interpretations of the meaning of the biblical text.
Nevertheless, without the effort of doing contextualization the church becomes stagnant and irrelevant. Because of the lack of contextualization Christianity is often perceived as a foreign religion by many in the Majority World and an irrelevant waste of time by some in the West. Many in the West are increasingly turned off to organized religion, i.e. the church, but are still interested in Jesus and his teaching.
Who is responsible for doing contextualization?
Contextualization must be done from inside the culture and community, not attempted by outsiders. It should always be done in community, not by distant desktop theologians. It benefits from knowing how to exegete the biblical text, but also how to discover the deeper underlying values and worldview of the cultural context. Skills in biblical exegesis and anthropological ethnography can help. And finally, it cannot be done adequately without the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Contextualization is important, because without it the church can drift into cultural irrelevance and/or wander away from biblical teaching. How do we maintain a balance between cultural relevance and biblical fidelity in an increasingly post-Christian and secularizing society in the West? It requires dialogue and respect for the other when there is a difference of opinion and often repentance when holding to our cherished position in a debate causes us to dehumanize the other or dismiss their perspective out of hand.
Is contextualization helpful in an increasingly divided church?
Could some of the divisions within the United Methodist Church today be less strident if all sides in the discussion understood and practiced contextualization in community and were led by the Holy Spirit? Would our mission efforts be more effective if we encouraged contextualization by followers of Jesus in other cultures and religions that are different from our own? Would we better understand that the Spirit of Christ in one person greets the Spirit of Christ in the other, and closes the distance between them? As we contemplate the importance and practice of contextualization today we may have to relinquish our need for certainty in exchange for our quest for understanding.
As a young Free Methodist missionary in Central Africa (1969-1971) nearly 50 years ago, I wondered why the churches over there attempted to look so much like the churches back home. It seemed like they were almost “carbon copies” in worship, theology, polity, and ministry.
What’s wrong with this picture?
I couldn’t articulate why that made me so uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem right. Why should churches in Africa look so much like churches in the United States? Something was wrong, but I didn’t know why or what it was. The strategic goal seemed to be denominational extension more than advancing the Kingdom of God by joining Jesus in his mission.
I now realize years later that what was missing was contextualization—a term that didn’t even appear in missiological discourse until the early 1970s. Since then there has been a plethora of academic and missiological publishing on this important concept, even though in practice there is still a lack of contextualization in much mission activity today.
Ironically, long before his time, the provocative Methodist missionary to India and the world, E. Stanley Jones, understood the need for contextualization which he expressed eloquently in his classic book, The Christ of the Indian Road (1925).
Let me begin by discussing what contextualization is and why it is important and close with some suggestions about why it is relevant to the United Methodist Church and its global mission efforts today.
What is contextualization?
Contextualization is both a method and a perspective and relates to the challenge of connecting the gospel to culture. As a method it attempts to communicate and live out the gospel and to establish the church in ways that make sense to people within their local cultural context. In this way Christianity meets people’s deepest needs and penetrates their worldview, thus enabling them to follow Christ and remain within their own culture. Jesus may be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8) but cultures are constantly changing and more rapidly than ever in the present era.
Advocating cultural change or conversion to Christ?
Much of the postcolonial critique of mission in the age of colonialism has come because too many missionaries too often confused following Jesus with adopting the cultural ways of the missionary while simultaneously condemning the culture of their converts. Perhaps without realizing it, they were advocating a kind of cultural conversion more than conversion to Christ within their own culture. They didn’t understand or appreciate the principle hammered out in the Jerusalem Council’s decision that Gentiles could become followers of Jesus without having to become culturally and religiously Jews, as recorded in Acts 15.
Will contextualization lead to syncretism?
Opposition to contextualization sometimes comes from those who fear it will lead to “watering down” the gospel and its requirements to become a follower of Jesus.
In reality, however, the opposite is true. Contextualization doesn’t take the sting out of the gospel, it intensifies it. Contextualization sharpens the focus and offence of the gospel, it does not dilute it. If the gospel doesn’t critique culture, then culture wins every time and the transforming power of the gospel is lost.
One way of looking at the relationships between the gospel and culture is as follows: The gospel affirms most of culture, critiques some of culture, and transforms all of culture. I take this to mean that converts can and should remain within their culture and follow Jesus (I Cor. 7:17-24), recognizing that there will be aspects of their culture that will undergo change because of their allegiance to Christ. Following Jesus will put disciples at odds with aspects of their culture in every society, whether ancient or modern. The gospel has always been offensive, (foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews, I Cor. 1:23) so let’s be sure we offend people for the right reasons and not the wrong ones. Too much mission activity is so culturally offensive that people don’t experience the offensive of the gospel.
I think many people oppose contextualization because they don’t understand it and fear it will become the slippery slope that leads to syncretism—a mixture of biblical and non-biblical beliefs and practices. Actually, the opposite is true. Contextualization is the best hedge against syncretism because it sharpens the focus of the gospel.
How can the church be relevant to culture while remaining faithful to the Bible?
Contextualization is concerned with both cultural relevance and biblical fidelity. Good contextualization is both relevant to the cultural context and faithful to the biblical text, and this is not easy to do. It’s not easy because the cultural context is constantly changing, and it is also challenging because there are sometimes divergent interpretations of the meaning of the biblical text.
Nevertheless, without the effort of doing contextualization the church becomes stagnant and irrelevant. Because of the lack of contextualization Christianity is often perceived as a foreign religion by many in the Majority World and an irrelevant waste of time by some in the West. Many in the West are increasingly turned off to organized religion, i.e. the church, but are still interested in Jesus and his teaching.
Who is responsible for doing contextualization?
Contextualization must be done from inside the culture and community, not attempted by outsiders. It should always be done in community, not by distant desktop theologians. It benefits from knowing how to exegete the biblical text, but also how to discover the deeper underlying values and worldview of the cultural context. Skills in biblical exegesis and anthropological ethnography can help. And finally, it cannot be done adequately without the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Contextualization is important, because without it the church can drift into cultural irrelevance and/or wander away from biblical teaching. How do we maintain a balance between cultural relevance and biblical fidelity in an increasingly post-Christian and secularizing society in the West? It requires dialogue and respect for the other when there is a difference of opinion and often repentance when holding to our cherished position in a debate causes us to dehumanize the other or dismiss their perspective out of hand.
Is contextualization helpful in an increasingly divided church?
Could some of the divisions within the United Methodist Church today be less strident if all sides in the discussion understood and practiced contextualization in community and were led by the Holy Spirit? Would our mission efforts be more effective if we encouraged contextualization by followers of Jesus in other cultures and religions that are different from our own? Would we better understand that the Spirit of Christ in one person greets the Spirit of Christ in the other, and closes the distance between them? As we contemplate the importance and practice of contextualization today we may have to relinquish our need for certainty in exchange for our quest for understanding.
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Missional Ecclesiology: Values: Habits of the Missional Heart
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.
As indicated previously, I had the honor of preparing a document for the Commission on a Way Forward for use in developing their Missional Framework. This is the fifth and final post in a series explaining what I sent to the Commission and why. In these posts, I speak about my own writing and am not commenting on how the Commission used that writing or the final Missional Framework they developed.
The document I prepared is structured into three sections: a set of affirmations about mission, a set of affirmations about the church, and a set of values flowing from these two sets of affirmations. Especially in the original long version of my document, I attempted to draw connections between specific values and specific affirmations about mission and the church. In this post, I want to reflect on these values.
As noted in the introduction to this series, presenting the conclusions of my document as a set of values reflects my conviction that the issues facing The United Methodist Church are primarily matters of the heart, not of polity. Thus, I did not want to suggest specific polity formulations as part of a missional ecclesiology. Moreover, I did not know what directions the Commission’s work was going to go and wanted my offering to be useful in any instance.
Additionally, because of the breadth and diversity of God’s mission and the ever-changing forms it takes, I cannot pretend to know what arrangements would adequately enable the church to live into that mission. I am a straight, white, north American male living in the early 21st century. I am limited by that social and cultural location, and others will certainly have a different understanding of how best to organize as a church for the sake of God’s mission than I.
Hence, I instead wanted to highlight spiritual dispositions I thought could fit with a variety of ecclesiological arrangements and indeed would be necessary to focus on mission in any of them. I thought this focus on spiritual dispositions would also be a very Methodist approach, since the cultivation of proper spiritual dispositions was central to how Wesley understood sanctification.
I thought it essential to begin with faithfulness as a value, both our faithfulness to God and our faithfulness to our calling into God’s mission. Ideally, we do what we do as a church in mission because we are people of faith driven by our faith. If faith is not at the center of our efforts to be the church and to be in mission, then the rest is all for naught.
The next two values – humility and contextuality – emphasize our limits. Part of our faithfulness involves understanding that we are not God. We are humans, created by God, and our knowledge of God and God’s mission is always incomplete, limited, and partial. That is not a problem we can overcome; that is part of how God designed us as humans. Recognizing and accepting these limitations frees us for more faithful service in God’s mission.
The next two values – creativity and flexibility – fit with the theme that runs throughout the document of accepting change for the sake of being part of God’s mission. The distinction between creativity and flexibility, which is not clear in the shorter document, is intended to recognize that some Christians are innovators in mission, which is good, and other Christians must give those innovators some space in which to work if those innovations are to lead to successful new ministries.
The final two values – mutuality and generosity – are intended to further characterize how we relate to each other as fellow limited humans who are alike part of God’s church and God’s mission. I hope they convey some of the love that Jesus instructs us to show to each other as fellow Christians and to the whole world.
Indeed, this love is the reason why mission and the church exist – our acting out the love we have received from God through Christ, sharing it with the world, and inviting others to partake in God’s love in Christ. Whatever comes in the future of The United Methodist Church, may we continue to focus on and live out this love.
Given the spiritual nature of these values, I thought it appropriate to conclude the document with a prayer, which I offer here as a conclusion to this series as well: “We pray that these principles may guide us in a way forward that leads to deeper discipleship of Jesus Christ, more faithful service in the transformation of the world, and a more unified practice of being the church of Jesus Christ, sent by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit in mission for all the world. Amen.”
As indicated previously, I had the honor of preparing a document for the Commission on a Way Forward for use in developing their Missional Framework. This is the fifth and final post in a series explaining what I sent to the Commission and why. In these posts, I speak about my own writing and am not commenting on how the Commission used that writing or the final Missional Framework they developed.
The document I prepared is structured into three sections: a set of affirmations about mission, a set of affirmations about the church, and a set of values flowing from these two sets of affirmations. Especially in the original long version of my document, I attempted to draw connections between specific values and specific affirmations about mission and the church. In this post, I want to reflect on these values.
As noted in the introduction to this series, presenting the conclusions of my document as a set of values reflects my conviction that the issues facing The United Methodist Church are primarily matters of the heart, not of polity. Thus, I did not want to suggest specific polity formulations as part of a missional ecclesiology. Moreover, I did not know what directions the Commission’s work was going to go and wanted my offering to be useful in any instance.
Additionally, because of the breadth and diversity of God’s mission and the ever-changing forms it takes, I cannot pretend to know what arrangements would adequately enable the church to live into that mission. I am a straight, white, north American male living in the early 21st century. I am limited by that social and cultural location, and others will certainly have a different understanding of how best to organize as a church for the sake of God’s mission than I.
Hence, I instead wanted to highlight spiritual dispositions I thought could fit with a variety of ecclesiological arrangements and indeed would be necessary to focus on mission in any of them. I thought this focus on spiritual dispositions would also be a very Methodist approach, since the cultivation of proper spiritual dispositions was central to how Wesley understood sanctification.
I thought it essential to begin with faithfulness as a value, both our faithfulness to God and our faithfulness to our calling into God’s mission. Ideally, we do what we do as a church in mission because we are people of faith driven by our faith. If faith is not at the center of our efforts to be the church and to be in mission, then the rest is all for naught.
The next two values – humility and contextuality – emphasize our limits. Part of our faithfulness involves understanding that we are not God. We are humans, created by God, and our knowledge of God and God’s mission is always incomplete, limited, and partial. That is not a problem we can overcome; that is part of how God designed us as humans. Recognizing and accepting these limitations frees us for more faithful service in God’s mission.
The next two values – creativity and flexibility – fit with the theme that runs throughout the document of accepting change for the sake of being part of God’s mission. The distinction between creativity and flexibility, which is not clear in the shorter document, is intended to recognize that some Christians are innovators in mission, which is good, and other Christians must give those innovators some space in which to work if those innovations are to lead to successful new ministries.
The final two values – mutuality and generosity – are intended to further characterize how we relate to each other as fellow limited humans who are alike part of God’s church and God’s mission. I hope they convey some of the love that Jesus instructs us to show to each other as fellow Christians and to the whole world.
Indeed, this love is the reason why mission and the church exist – our acting out the love we have received from God through Christ, sharing it with the world, and inviting others to partake in God’s love in Christ. Whatever comes in the future of The United Methodist Church, may we continue to focus on and live out this love.
Given the spiritual nature of these values, I thought it appropriate to conclude the document with a prayer, which I offer here as a conclusion to this series as well: “We pray that these principles may guide us in a way forward that leads to deeper discipleship of Jesus Christ, more faithful service in the transformation of the world, and a more unified practice of being the church of Jesus Christ, sent by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit in mission for all the world. Amen.”
Monday, August 27, 2018
Recommended Reading: Methodist Mission Bicentennial Story Collection
Next year will be the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the first denomination-wide mission organization in American Methodism.
Among the ways in which this anniversary is being commemorated is a compilation of profiles of Methodists from around the world engaged in mission. This compilation includes short biographies of individual Methodists and descriptions of congregations and other institutions significantly involved in Methodist mission.
Currently, there are over 200 profiles included in the database, and new profiles continue to be added. The profiles come from a mix of stories submitted by individuals and existing academic, journalistic, and denominational publications. The majority are in English, though there are currently some Spanish-language profiles as well.
This resource is likely to be of interest to teachers and students of mission and/or Methodist history as the fall semester begins. The profiles can serve as a means of exploring mission according to various themes and locations, as well as a entry-level reference on the lives of specific missionaries.
The compilation can also be a means of sharing your own research. To submit a profile you have written to the database, visit http://methodistmission200.org/mission-stories/submit-your-story/.
Among the ways in which this anniversary is being commemorated is a compilation of profiles of Methodists from around the world engaged in mission. This compilation includes short biographies of individual Methodists and descriptions of congregations and other institutions significantly involved in Methodist mission.
Currently, there are over 200 profiles included in the database, and new profiles continue to be added. The profiles come from a mix of stories submitted by individuals and existing academic, journalistic, and denominational publications. The majority are in English, though there are currently some Spanish-language profiles as well.
This resource is likely to be of interest to teachers and students of mission and/or Methodist history as the fall semester begins. The profiles can serve as a means of exploring mission according to various themes and locations, as well as a entry-level reference on the lives of specific missionaries.
The compilation can also be a means of sharing your own research. To submit a profile you have written to the database, visit http://methodistmission200.org/mission-stories/submit-your-story/.
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