A Common Mission

Healthy Patterns in Congregational Mission Partnerships

David Wesley

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781625649072
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630877576
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

The term Ubuntu articulates an African understanding of our need to connect to one another in order to be complete. Likewise, A Common Mission offers a description of churches that connect with one another through the growing phenomenon of mission partnerships. The word "common" indicates something shared among equals. The word "common" also suggests something present in all parts of an organism, production, or narrative, such as a common thread. These two aspects of commonality provide an important orientation for contemporary mission. Since 2008, congregational partnerships emerged so quickly and spontaneously that very few researchers originally noticed this groundswell. Partnerships remain present in over 80 percent of United States mega-churches and are prominent in a large number of smaller US churches. This should not be surprising. Mission exists as an expression of the church's identity, an evangelistic expression that crosses frontiers and goes to the ends of the earth. In our globalized context, however, mission also crosses neighborhood "frontiers" to the immigrants within our own communities. Mission expresses its Christian witness as congregations love those separated from the church by ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, religion, or fear. A Common Mission provides a framework of healthy patterns for churches to live into this mission identity.

1

A Grass Roots Phenomenon

“Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation . . . within a few short decades, society rearranges itself – its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world. And the people born then cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived, and into which their own parents were born. We are currently living through just such a transformation”

—Peter Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society1

The term Ubuntu articulates an African understanding of our need to connect to one another in order to be complete. Likewise the title A Common Mission offers a description of churches that connect with one another through the growing phenomenon of mission partnerships. The word “common” indicates something shared amongst equals. The word common also suggests something present in all parts of an organism, production, or narrative, such as a common thread. These two aspects of commonality provide an important orientation for contemporary mission. Mission efforts in the midst of a changing global context are challenging. The signposts of the past century prove difficult, if not impossible to navigate mission efforts into the future.

Since 2008, congregational partnerships emerged so quickly and spontaneously that very few researchers originally noticed this groundswell. Still, partnerships remain present in over 80 percent of United States mega-churches, and prominent in a large number of smaller U.S. churches. In 2008, I heard anecdotal stories about partnerships. The narratives resulted in my addressing the subject for my doctoral dissertation. Through this process I listened to stories from Christians in Swaziland, South Africa, and the United States. People from differently sized churches talked about partnerships formed between congregations in different parts of the globe. Research conversations about partnerships occurred in coffee shops, walking down the beaten paths of Africa, in homes, and under spreading shade trees. They occurred in places of worship and nearly anywhere people would agree to talk to me. In the process, I heard passionate stories that describe an emerging pattern of mission engagement.

In 2012, I met an engineer named Fred at a Panera restaurant in Oklahoma City. He told me that his involvement in his church’s partnership brought his whole life into focus. As we met, he spread pictures from his trips across the table. One picture he singled out revealed a ten year old African boy drinking water from a blue plastic cup as a drop of the water fell from the boy’s chin. Fred became emotional as he told me this picture demonstrated how the partnership allowed him to experience the greatness of God. Fred described how God led him to build a friendship with Jimmy Braithwaite, a South African who owned a pump company in Swaziland. Jimmy developed the plans for a low maintenance solar paneled water pump that Fred’s church could install. The community where the boy lived lacked clean drinking water; however, the new water pump gave them access to water that they did not previously have. Fred then said, “the rest of this story is about how God multiplied water just like he multiplied bread and fish.” From the patent designed for this first well, and the network of people involved in the partnership, a five million dollar grant resulted in similar solar paneled water wells throughout Swaziland. Two years later, the water system received two global awards totaling over 50 million dollars. The awards provided the establishment of similar wells throughout Sub Sahara Africa. The friendship between Fred and Jimmy was the catalyst to network a system that is impacting thousands of lives throughout Africa.

Since 2008, I have heard similar stories where people found a sense of fulfillment and passion as they engaged in congregational partnerships. On a trip to Africa, I met a medical doctor donating a portable X-ray machine that cost nearly $70,000. After training those who would use the equipment in rural communities, the doctor watched with satisfaction as an eight-year-old Swazi girl, just diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, became the first person to benefit from his gift. This girl, like many others, received much improved treatment as doctors could document and follow her development. On several occasions, I heard pastors talk about how a central focus on mission brought a sense of renewal and purpose to their congregations. In Africa, I witnessed Christians faithfully living their faith in the face of overwhelming circumstances. I heard those in Africa tell me that the partnership allowed them to minister in greater ways as they worked alongside their guest partners. Many of those in Africa stated these partnerships gave their churches credibility as they met community needs of clean water and improved health.

Of course, some aspects of these partnerships prove healthier than others, and some congregations remain more intentional than others. After the interviews and findings from over 200 people in numerous locations, I began to find some common threads, or best practices that appear consistent throughout the variety of locations and partnerships. These practices form the framework of this book.

The Emergence of Partnerships in the Midst of Global Instability

The 21st century church lives in a time of unprecedented global challenge and transition. Many congregations chose not to retrench resources, or withdraw from their commitment to missions, during these financial challenges and changing global dynamics. Instead, churches find innovative ways to multiply their mission involvement and financial commitments. This growth includes more than simply supporting missionary causes. As congregations seek to live into God’s mission within a shifting global context, they also find new patterns for mission engagement. Although this movement carries a risk of destructive dependency and paternalism, it represents a greater potential for unprecedented mission opportunities.

These shifts in missions corresponded to a shift in globalization, one described by Robert Schreiter as Third Wave Mission. Schreiter defined the first wave of mission as the movement occurring during the time when missionaries accompanied explorers and traders. Primarily Jesuits, these missionaries traveled at the request of the monarch. The second wave, according to Schreiter, began early in the 19th century with the formation of many mission agencies and denominations. During this period of many global and political changes, missions served as means to expand the church throughout the world. Also, during this time, critics challenged missionary movements because of their organizations’ link to colonialization.

Third wave mission, according to Schreiter, occurs within a third wave of globalization. The movement began in the 1990s and continues today. Third wave of globalization results in a dramatic compression of space and time. Information about distant events appears instantly available. Journeys that used to take months, weeks or days occur in a few hours. Schreiter argues this compression raises the question of what the term “mission field” now means. He writes, “Deterritorialization . . . elements of culture now float around free of their original locations . . . Territory and national culture are thus increasingly not boundary markers for mission and mission society-identity.” Within this globalization movement, the missionary’s focus shifts from lifelong mission commitments toward shorter-term commitments. Lastly, the third wave of globalization blurs or erases the exotic differences of people in far off lands. Third wave mission exists as a response to third wave globalization. The shift includes the emergence of lay involvement, short-term missions, and church partnerships.

In the past decade, a growing, and substantial, number of congregations came to no longer view missions as a program or agency to support. On the contrary, many churches view mission as a central part of their identity as the body of the Christ. Stated differently, the congregation does not simply support missionaries, but views itself as missionary (a missionary ecclesiology). A sharp increase in congregations entering into long term, global, partnerships reflect this change. This trend represents a paradigm shift for many congregations. The trend also represents a paradigm shift for mission agencies and long-term missionaries. Rather than simply sending multiple work groups, this form of partnership focuses on complex humanitarian issues. Some congregations view this new focus as a way for congregants to live their Christian faith, gaining credibility in areas where people tended to see the church as myopic and self-serving.

Anthropologist Robert Priest describes “evangelicals . . . engaging in holistic mission out of a deep conviction that such patterns of positive public Christian presence are essential for credible Christian witness.”2 According to Priest, the new movement in some congregations reflects:

(N)ot solely a movement from spaces where there are Christians to spaces where there are not, but rather a movement from spaces where there are Christians and churches that have extensive material resources to other spaces where there are significant numbers of Christians and churches that live under circumstances of material poverty and social constraint.3

These holistic, grass roots, approaches to global Christian efforts represent an important shift in missions.

Evangelical missions of the 20th Century, the time Schrieter calls “second wave,” focused largely on evangelism and church planting to non-evangelized areas. Congregations accomplished evangelistic goals through the work of long term missionaries sent by mission agencies.

The current shift, seen in some congregational partnerships, builds on both the previous and the current work of long-term missionaries, many who establish churches and institutions. However one also finds a movement toward congregations networking with multiple organizations to address global humanitarian issues as another form of mission. This movement involves congregations that seek connections (many times beyond their own theological tradition) to help them negotiate networks with a variety of entities, including non-U.S. congregations. This shift, therefore presents potential for addressing global challenges such as HIV/AIDS, drought, hunger, and large scale disaster relief.

The rapid growth of this grass-roots phenomenon appears relatively recent. Using one of the most common terms to describe this movement, “partnership,” raises a challenge. Partnership, as a term, can indicate very different things to different people. For a westerner, the term can indicate business transactions with a focus on task completion. Non-westerners may think of the concept, “partnership” in relational terms. They might use friendship terminology as a means to meeting needs. For these reasons, the term partnership needs to be appropriately contextualized and applied in each location. I have chosen to use the term “congregational mission partnerships” to describe the current phenomenon since this pattern initiated from local congregations, rather than missiologists or mission agencies. Congregational mission also expresses the missional concept of the congregation as missionary.

Some people view partnerships as toxic, as a return to colonialist missions that appear donor dependent and one directional. Others doubt it possible to maintain a balanced relationship between Christians with an overabundance of financial resources and Christians desperately needing those same resources. The majority of participants in my research, however, find renewal within their congregation through these partnerships. Pastors are also discovering new ways to lead their congregations in mission. These congregations, while not accustomed to inten...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: A Grass Roots Phenomenon
• Chapter 2: A Shared Mission
• Chapter 3: A Reciprocal Mission
• Chapter 4: Communicating the Mission
• Chapter 5: The Church as Missionary
• Chapter 6: Collective Impact
• Chapter 7: A Common Mission
• Bibliography
• An Invitation to Partnership