Towards a Network of Theological Enquiry
A question of mission – a mission of questions
Freedom of the human spirit from captivity
Theological and ethical issues in the age of globalisation
Towards an Asian theological agenda for the 21st century
Impulses in Caribbean theology
Beyond partnership – Towards a global theological agenda
The people of God among all God's peoples
Globalisation: A myth without a vision?
Democratic impulses in Buddhism
The Joint Meeting of CEVAA, CWM and UEM is an outcome of a meeting during the World Council of Churches (WCC) Assembly at Harare in December 1998. The three leaders of the respective organisations met and dreamed of closer co-operation between the three organisations which have attempted to live out the principle of partnership in mission. Though there are similarities in the ways in which all three organisations have tried to put into practice the insights on mission emerging from the ecumenical movement, each organisation has done it in its own way. The cultural roots of the missionary bodies to which all three organisations owe their origin and the cultural mix of churches in the organisations have played a part in making each organisation distinct. The consultation decided to share evaluations of each organisation's current mission engagement with an aim to:
1. Learn from and challenge each other
2. Give fresh impulses to the ecumenical movement
3. Identify areas for co-operation
The consultation believed that good ideas in mission should not only be relevant but also be translatable into action.
As preparation for the consultation, several documents were prepared and translated into the two official languages of the consultation, English and French. The documents mainly contained the history of development of the organisations, the structures of operation and the programme activities. Three main areas were considered:
-How does our organisational structure enable power sharing and the participation of member churches in planning and discharging the mission of the church?
-What are the principles for financial co-operation in each of the three organisations?
-How have we helped our member churches to be missionary churches (exchange of personnel, theological animation, joint programmes/regional empowerment).
Three persons were appointed to collate and critically reflect on each of the three specific areas, and make presentations. The presentations were followed by plenary discussions. All participants were then divided into four small groups to reflect on four major questions that emerged through the discussions. Two key theological presentations provided further input and challenges. After further discussion in plenary, the groups presented their recommendations. The consultation benefited from the interaction and participation of all participants. The instant translation facilities were of great help. Many mission related topics and burning issues at the local, regional and global levels were touched upon, but not all could be included in the report. This report is neither the minutes nor the full record of the event. It contains mainly the priorities that the participants themselves identified for pursuance by the three organisations, which are looking forward to closer co-operation in order to make their specific contributions to the global ecumenical movement.
All three organisations acknowledge their indebtedness to the ecumenical movement. The former missionary societies, which gave birth to the organisations, went through major theological and structural changes. They implemented the principles of partnership in the context of world mission, and became communities or communions of churches in and for mission. Thus there are similarities in the fundamental principles which gave birth to the three organisations.
Theologically speaking, the mission principles of the organisations reflect the themes and priorities of the global "ecumenical" or "conciliar" movement and its missiological insights. The documents of the organisations speak of their involvement in the "missio Dei", and of 'the priesthood of all believers', 'giving back the word to the people of God', missional (or, apostolic) actions, and churches understood as 'churches in mission'. The classical distinction between foreign and home mission was theologically overcome. Each church in its own place, and interacting with churches in other parts of the world is considered to be participating in God's global mission. Words such as 'sharing', 'equality', 'mutual support' and 'mutual challenge' are constantly reaffirmed and practised in various forms and degrees.
All three organisations acknowledge cultural and theological diversity as a source of enrichment.
The three organisations have developed schemes for equipping and training people – youth, women, lay and ordained – for greater participation in mission at both local and global levels.
Churches in the three organisations share personnel, spiritual and liturgical materials and ideas, as well as finance. The three organisations believe that all resources for mission belong to God and, therefore, they are committed to maintaining a high ethical standard of stewardship. This is particularly applicable with regard to money and property. Mutual accountability and challenge are an intrinsic part of resource sharing.
All member churches are expected to make financial contributions according to their size and economic strength, as understood by them. No fee is levied by any of the organisations. However, this matter is now under review in the three organisations.
The data confirms that in all three organisations between 85 to 98% of the common budgets is generated in the North. Though efforts must be made to redress this situation, account has to be taken of the negative impact of unjust economic structures on the churches in the South, diminishing their capacity to finance their local activities as well as their contributions to the common work. So, the three organisations also strive for the greater financial self-reliance of member churches.
The organisations are keen to enhance greater regional ecumenical participation and empowerment, thus linking local, regional and global priorities in an interactive fashion.
On the issue of decision making, the organisations acknowledge that decisions taken together in the community are in principle binding on member churches. However, there are gaps between the principle and the practice. When this happens, the three organisations look into the specific situations where churches are unable to adhere to certain common decisions. Questions such as 'why' certain churches do not adhere and 'how far' the organisations would go to accommodate, were opened up. The issue of decision making raised some intriguing questions such as, how can a global organisation take local contexts seriously a joint-decision making process? How far are those joint decisions applicable to and taken as a priority in a given local context when a church is unwilling to implement them? These questions were not fully explored to look for similarities or differences in the way the organisations respond. However, all three organisations grapple with the issue.
There are no major differences in mission understanding between the organisations. But there are differences in the modes of operation, in structural matters and also in each organisation's historical journey.
It is interesting to note how the three organisations arrived at and implemented changes in different ways and at different periods of time. Summarising roughly, CEVAA was created after 10 years of experience with apostolic actions and with various changes in the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. The change in CWM came rather suddenly around the 1974-75 Review and the implications of the change implemented over a period. UEM worked for about 20 years on the processes of structural and constitutional changes, and more importantly, preparing the minds of the people toward the changes. Further, the organisations were not born during the same historical period. CEVAA and CWM are children of the 1960's and 1970's, while UEM is a child of the 1990's. They were born in different global and ecumenical contexts. How these differences are reflected in the organisations – constitutionally, structurally and programmatically – have yet to be studied more closely.
In terms of financial resources, CEVAA did not inherit the assets and buildings of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society in France and Switzerland. However, UEM and CWM inherited solid financial and property assets. This makes a difference in the sources of income and the related freedom in exercising mission policy.
The three organisations are staffed differently. CEVAA has 8, CWM has 20 and UEM 45 paid staff. There are various reasons besides finance for those differences. CEVAA was created from the beginning with a small secretariat staff. The lack of financial resources has led to further reductions in staff. CWM works with a small staff because much of the work is to be done by churches. The international secretariat of UEM continues to function also as a service department for the ecumenical desks of German churches, which includes dealing with a huge network of district partnerships. This difference in staffing makes an impact on the capacity of the organisations to involve themselves in mission, particularly in the regions.
There are differences in the way the organisations empower or approach the regional groupings of their members. CEVAA has opted for a representation of member churches through International Commissions where major mission priorities and issues are debated. This enables CEVAA to involve another layer of persons than those present at Council meetings. UEM has formal regional structures (with annual councils and paid regional staff), for decision-making, co-ordinating joint programmes and for other enabling activities for churches in the regions. CWM has regional consultations that work on a somewhat similar agenda as the regions of UEM. CWM is also developing broader regional identities which embrace churches beyond its constituency.
The following recommendations were formulated by the participants at the consultation (speaking as "we") and are directed to the churches, committees and secretariats of the three participating organisations.
The vision of mission being undertaken a community of diverse churches is essential to our organisations. Since the middle of the 1980's, it has in some places been challenged as being too impersonal. The need to personalise relations is being increasingly felt in some sectors of our member churches.
All three organisations should develop stable bilateral or trilateral relationships within a framework of multilateral partnerships in order to put a face to world mission and the church universal. This needs to be done if world mission is to be concrete and effective in local contexts. We ask in particular UEM to share its experience in this matter with the other two organisations.
To further enhance the participation of member churches in the communities, it seems important to improve the means of communication, within and between the churches, through the use of modern technology in addition to face-to-face meetings. We ask the three organisations to help equip all member churches with the necessary facilities.
Diversity in our constituencies is a sign of enrichment, but it can also be a cause of conflict. An educational process is necessary in order to effectively learn from and mutually challenge, one another.
The ways in which money is acquired, used, and managed are spiritual matters. Faith, theology and financial matters should be seen as one-whole. We feel the need for renewed reflection on these matters as recent developments in the world economy challenge our model of mission. Increased competition in the "donor market" and on the activity field between donor agencies and solidarity organisations, as well as requests for precise information and even imposition of specific management rules may jeopardise some of our principles.
The three organisations should make an extra effort to follow the key principles of financial management – accountability, mutual trust and transparency. Transparency should be applied not only in the three organisations, but also between and within each of the member churches to the congregational level. It is important also to find out what proportion of their resources the member churches are putting to mission work and what proportion they set aside for maintenance.
Ethical considerations in raising and investing funds in the organisations should be clearly formulated and regularly evaluated.
The budgets of the three organisations and of the churches should be regularly reviewed with a view to finding out whether they still reflect the mission priorities they seek to practice.
Workshops and consultations should be organised jointly in the regions on questions such as financial management and stewardship, as well as project planning, monitoring and evaluation. We recommend that churches use the skills and competence of professionals. They must also equip pastors with financial and property management capabilities. In these matters, missiology and administration might profit from being constantly kept in dialogue. Stewardship should particularly concentrate on exploring local resources and putting them to responsible use.
With regard to financially struggling churches, we recommend that the three organisations undertake a study of the exact situation of the churches, and provide short-term help. They should also work towards the long-term goal of financial self-reliance of these churches. We recommend that the three organisations supply consultancy teams made up of professionals – accountants and financial experts as well as theologians and pastors. These should be preferably from churches in the same region.
We identified education as a major challenge facing the three organisations, and think that this is a potential area for co-operation.
We recommend actions at three levels:
Firstly, there is an urgent need to involve and educate young people (men and women) in mission. We regard CWM's Training in Mission (TIM) programme both as an area for joint involvement and as a model for joint future action. Furthermore, this model could be used to equip older generations for mission. We think in particular of retired people, who have time, skills and expertise to offer to our churches. We suggest that the three organisations share information, training resources and programmes.
Secondly, the three organisations should co-operate in fostering continuing professional development for pastors and other church workers through training seminars and equipping programmes. They need to be helped to cope with new challenges and to equip their congregations for mission. Our organisations could also help by providing them with the most basic material needed for their ministry (e.g. books, reviews). This applies mainly, but not exclusively, for people within member churches in the "South".
Thirdly, mainly in the "North", recent cultural developments have estranged many people from the Christian tradition. They lack the basic knowledge of facts, persons and values of Christianity. This is particularly true amongst young people. There is an urgent need to provide basic education in the Christian faith and its traditions. We urge our organisations to help their member churches in this evangelistic task.
An urgent and essential mission challenge before our organisations is the rising importance of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement (which includes the African Instituted Churches) both within and outside our member churches. The 20th century has been the century of two major missionary endeavours, one from the Pentecostal movement and the other from the ecumenical movement. The first seems to be the more dynamic, especially in the second half of the 20th century. Our organisations and churches are typical representatives of the Protestant ecumenical or conciliar mission theology and practice. Dialogue between us and Christians of the Pentecostal movement could play a key role in overcoming one of the major divisions in mission work today.
The three organisations should enter into dialogue with Christians of these spiritual traditions within and outside their member churches. Such dialogues could centre on the following: renewal of community life and worship; theology of the Holy Spirit; priorities in mission and world evangelisation and their practice; and participation of all believers in mission. Through encounter and dialogue with them, we can learn more about the development and characteristics of these movements and hope that they may also learn about the ecumenical movement and its concerns. This could later lead to the production of documents and materials which can help local churches struggling with missionary pluralism.
We also envisage that in certain other contexts, another dialogue might be just as important, such as dialogue with "migrant" or "ethnic" churches in the countries where our member churches are present. We hope that such contacts and dialogues can lead to co-operation and bridge-building between our churches and "migrant" or "ethnic" churches.
-Preventive action through congregational networks and church movements. Breaking the taboos and the wall of silence that surround HIV/AIDS.
-Pastoral action for the affected persons and their families, caring for them and for the orphans of those who have died of HIV/AIDS. Training of pastors and deacons to counsel patients and their families.
-Sharing of experiences and expertise between the churches that have already taken measures or established specialised ministries to face up to the spread of this disease.
-Renew the healing ministry of the church by developing appropriate liturgies and healing practices adapted to different cultures.
-Campaign to combat the development of sex tourism.
-Work on action plans to persuade on pharmaceutical firms to reduce the price of drugs so that they are more affordable and hence available to more patients.
This can be done more effectively through collaboration with many other international and regional organisations, such as the World Council of Churches and the World Health Organisation and other non-governmental organisations and action groups. Such common action will be a Christian witness that will have a personal or pastoral dimension as well as a social or structural dimension.
We urge all three organisations to involve themselves in a programme of long-term action on this matter
Negative impact of globalisation – We ask the three organisations to engage themselves and their member churches in programmes of education on a Christian response to economic globalisation with special regard to the issues of economic injustice and ecological destruction. Here, materials provided by other ecumenical institutions can be used profitably.
Violence against women and children – The three organisations and their member churches should implement the recommendations of the WCC "Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women" and commit themselves to the "Decade to Overcome Violence" decided at the WCC Assembly in Harare. This programme is particularly concerned violence against women and children. Part of the programme would be the participation of women in church structures, the construction of non-discriminating liturgies and the struggle against discriminating structures as well as cultural or religious traditions that oppress women and children.
The following issues were raised and discussed as needing further exploration.
Our three organisations may be understood as alternative attempts at 'globalisation'. They do not follow the overall ethos of the free market system with its neoÅliberal ideology. In attempting to be alternative communities, we follow the vision and tradition of the early church which followed Jesus and attempted to have an ecumenical vision that was different from that of the Roman Empire with its vision of Pax Romana.
Yet, while being alternative global communities, there is the question of whether our three organisations, created between the 1970s and the 1990s, are not too much linked to traditional mission understandings and ways of doing theology to respond to the challenges of globalisation of the 21st century. How can they communicate their vision of an alternative community to the community being structured by economic globalisation? We now have a generation that works with the internet, jumping from one interest to another, linking and delinking from networks, and forming their world view only on the basis of matters that interest them. This highly individualistic approach which is intrinsically suspicious of all institutions, be they political, social or religious, jeopardises the survival of any institution. This trend, particularly evident in the West, is sweeping over the world through globalisation and the influence of the new electronic media. How will our organisations with their emphasis on community decision and action survive in this milieu, and help member churches create new forms of community life that is based on the values of the Reign and Realm of God? How can our communities encourage an approach that makes our churches realise that they are part of a world community that is the Church of Christ?
There is a fundamental ecclesiological question with which many of our churches as denominations struggle. How can a church root itself in a particular context in which it exercises its ministry and mission while being open to the influence, enrichment and critique that comes from other members of the body of Christ? Some try to overcome this problem by emphasising 'central authority' that is binding on all churches while others ignore the problem by not recognising any ecclesial or theological authority outside their own national synod or council. Neither approach reflects the fundamental biblical image of the church as the unity of all in one body in which the diversity and complementarity of all members is recognised. Would it be possible for our organisations to experiment with ways to overcome this dichotomy which has come from various historical divisions of the Church and has become so deeply entrenched in our denominational traditions?
Another unresolved ecclesiological issue is the relationship between church structure (synod, council, authority of moderator/bishop) and frontier mission activities. This tension between church authority and mission is evident even in the early church. There were tensions between James, Peter and Paul. There was a tension between the Jerusalem church and the Antioch church. The tension continues. The modern missionary movement arose because of the refusal of churches to be missionary minded. That movement, with its consciousness of the whole church being engaged in a mission to the whole world gave birth to two other ecumenical expressions, namely, the Faith and Order and Life and Work movements. In the 1960s the missionary movement joined the other two to form the modern ecumenical movement. Our communities are a consequence of that 'integration'. Today, the question of the relationship between institution and mission has been opened up again on the one hand through the challenges posed by evangelical churches and Christians and on the other by action groups who see themselves as on the frontiers of mission. How can our organisations that hold within them both groups of people contribute to this debate?
There are two sets of testÅquestions here. The first asks, have the churches in our organisations been empowered to indeed become missionary churches? If so, do they have and practise a holistic understanding of mission? These questions imply a certain interaction between the organisation as a community of churches and each member church as well as between churches. To raise these questions is also to imply that each church in the community is not so autonomous as to be free from interference from outside. It puts the ecumenical understanding and practice of each church to the test.
The second set of questions has to do with the missionary nature of the local church. In trying to overcome the division between mission abroad and mission at home, our organisations pose the question, does the participation of churches in our communities enable them to coÅoperate ecumenically with other churches locally? Also, in bringing to the fore the missionary nature of each church in its place and abroad, have our organisations helped churches recognise and practise 'the priesthood of all believers'? Every time there is a meeting of our organisations, there is a struggle to get a balanced representation of ordained and lay, men and women, young and old. This struggle raises questions about how the churches themselves practise 'representation' in their ministries and structures of leadership. Another question is addressed particularly to churches in the West. How successfully have we been in welcoming and taking into our fold ethnic or migrant churches? This is a specific challenge within a broader challenge that all churches reflect the multiÅcultural nature of contemporary life. Most people belong to more than one culture and even to subÅcultures such as 'youth', 'women' and so on. A church that does not pay attention to this reality will soon become irrelevant.
In the course of our discussion we became aware that our churches are not only in different political and economic contexts but also hold diverse mission understandings. As yet we have not provided sufficient opportunities for churches to debate among themselves their different and even conflicting understandings and practices of mission. Such encounters will enrich each other and also enrich the missiological positions of our organisations.
While power sharing in decision making and in the distribution of resources is practised, we still do not do enough in the way of sharing liturgical resources, contextually shaped spiritualities and theological insights. CWM has taken the lead in this matter and should share its experience with the other two organisations.
From the beginning, theological animation (empowerment) and ministerial formation have been important concerns in our organisations. But yet, theological education and ministerial training in most of our churches still adhere to forms of ministerial training shaped in the West. Besides written theological traditions, there are a fund of oral theological traditions that still remain largely unutilised. What positive and critical contributions can our organisations bring to the development of contextual and indigenous theologies?
The use of contextually relevant models of training for ministerial formation without sacrificing academic standards have yet to be worked out in all places. A member church of CWM, the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, has developed and tested an alternative model for theological education and ministerial formation for both clergy and lay using the concept of 'the teaching congregation' in the Institute for Theological and Leadership Development (ITLD). This institute has not only produced good church leaders but has also been recognised as an academic institution by the University Council of Jamaica. Other CWM churches are also trying to use this model. We ask CWM to share this model for ministerial formation with the other two organisations. Can our organisations take the lead in providing contextually based models for theological education and ministerial formation?
Though the three organisations have followed similar principles of partnership in mission, they have developed these principles in different ways. There have been limited interactions between CEVAA and CWM as well as between CEVAA and UEM to learn from one another. This was the first time that all three organisations met together. It was a good beginning. The organisations learned much from each other in terms of structures and procedures as well as successes and failures. The consultation was undergirded and enriched by devotions led by participants from different cultures and the networking and fellowship that developed through informal conversations. The participants from each organisation have agreed to invite their respective organisations to commit themselves to continue this process of consultation not only to challenge each other and learn from each other but also to collaborate in programmes of mission thinking and practice. In this way, the group of around 30 participants became a sign of 'one world community in faith' which is our ultimate vision and hope in Christ.