Reference documents
Presented to the General Council of Mennonite World Conference Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA, July 2015
By Martin Junge, General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation
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Global Mennonite History Series: Asia
released in 2011
Authors
I. P. Asheervadam, Adhi Dharma, Alle Hoekema, Kyong-Jung, Kim, Luke Martin, Regina Lyn Mondez, Chiou-Lang Pan, Nguyen Thanh Tam, Nguyen Thi Tam, Takanobu Tojo, Nguyen Quang Trung, Masakazu Yamade and Earl Zimmerman
General Editors
John A. Lapp, C. Arnold Snyder
- Asia: A Brief Introduction — Alle Hoekema
- Christianity in Asia — Alle Hoekema
- The Mennonite Churches of Indonesia — Adhi Dharma
- The Mennonite and Brethren in Christ Churches of India — I. P. Asheervadam
- The Mennonite Churches in Chinese-speaking areas — Chiou-Lang (Paulus) Pan
- The Mennonite Church in the Philippines — Regina Lyn Mondez
- The Anabaptist Mennonite Churches in Japan — Masakazu Yamade
- Anabaptism in Korea — Kyong-Jung Kim
- The Mennonite Church in Vietnam — Luke Martin with Nguyen Quang Trung, Nguyen Thanh Tam and Nguyen Thi Tam
- Conclusion: Asian Missions as Missio Dei — Takanobu Tojo
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Presented to the General Council of Mennonite World Conference
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA,
July 2015
By Fernando Enns of Germany
Dear brothers and sisters!
It is a joy to be here, with you in Harrisburg,the place of our Assembly! And it is a joy to greet you as brothers and sisters! I simply take it for granted that I may address you as brothers and sisters.
This is the ultimate reason why I decided to come here: to be with my brothers and sisters, from the whole world! To meet you! To celebrate with you! To worship with you! To rejoice with you, and to lament with you! To be inspired by you! To learn from you, and to share my gifts with you! To confess my faith with you and to pray with you – and pray for you, as you will pray for me!
It goes without saying, that I come to this place, because I am part of this communion, this “community of Anabaptist related Churches”, called Mennonite World Conference.
This is my home – as much as it is yours. I count on many things we have in common: our faith in Jesus Christ, whom we confess as Lord and Saviour, our common heritage of the Radical Reformation, the Anabaptist movement of the 16th century; our way of being church, which was formed over the centuries by our common “Mennonite story”;; our passion for peace and justice; our common witness and mission in this world.
Yes, it is indeed a joy and a privilege to be part of this communion. And, I admit, it is also the diversity that attracts me. The different languages you speak, the different ways you look, the different cultures you come from. I feel enriched by the different ways of singing, praying, worshipping. I want to know, how you are church in a totally different political and societal setting.
I want to listen to your concerns and the challenges you encounter. I want to be informed by the way you read the Bible and how you interpret it, my brothers and sisters, because I know, from experience, how great it feels to be a global family, including all our differences, and yet being one in Christ. To be with you here informs me of how rich, colourful, beautiful and diverse “Walking with God” can be. I could simply stop here, and invite us to a song of joy!
There will be time for that later. Right now, I want to reflect with you on some challenges.
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Anabaptist Songs in African Hearts
released in 2003 at the 14th global assembly in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (also available in Spanish and French) -
Introduction to the Updated, Online Edition (2011)
The following online electronic resource represents my efforts over the last few years, as a student at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), with the sponsorship and partnership of the AMBS Mission Studies Center, directed by Walter W. Sawatsky, to update the first print edition of this work: Anabaptism and Mission: A Bibliography, 1859-2000 (Elkhart, IN: Mennonite Mission Network, 2002), compiled and edited through the tremendous and tireless efforts of Chad M. Bauman and James R. Krabill.
Throughout the ongoing project thus far, the researching and compiling of sources was a humbling task, as the body of bibliographic materials on this subject never remains static. Not only has the project entailed updating entries of authors and sources listed in the first edition, as well new authors and scholars that have come on the scene in the first decade of the 21st century, but several more sources even from the 20th century were found and added, as the development of electronic communication and information technology has made a great deal more information and data available, even since the time of the first publication. Furthermore, the author has continued the trend of conceiving of Anabaptist as inherently broader than the mainline Mennonite denominations.
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“Give us each day our daily bread”
Across the globe, more than 41 million people – around half of them children – are now at risk of starvation in 43 countries. The global hunger crisis is driven by conflict, by climate change; and by the economic impacts of COVID-19. Even in countries where some have an abundance of food, many people are lacking the basics.
Mennonite World Conference is working with a large group of Christian churches and networks to launch a weekend of prayer and action 16-17 October 2021. This will coincide with World Food Day on 16 October.
Global church and network partners include ACT Alliance, Integral Alliance, Lutheran World Federation, Micah Global, Organization of African Instituted Churches, Salvation Army, World Council of Churches, World Evangelical Alliance, World Methodist Council and World Vision International.
It will be a time for us, as followers of Christ, to unite across denominations in solidarity with our sisters and brothers, praying for them and with them, so that they can live their lives without hunger, with dignity, in all life’s fullness, experiencing the grace and love of God.
During the course of the weekend, we invite our members to share a meal with other families and individuals, offer your prayers for those who are hungry, and reflect on the causes and impacts of hunger.
On Sunday, 17 October 2021, we encourage local congregations to focus on this global hunger crisis in their Sunday service.
Click on the resources below.
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Why We Pray and Act Against Hunger
The Focus of our Gathering
Across the globe more than 41m people – around half of them children–are at risk of falling into famine in 43 countries. Famine is preventable and has no place in the 21st century. These people are not starving, they are being starved by conflict and violence; by inequality; the impacts of climate change; and by a fight against COVID-19 that has left them even further behind.
Time is running out. Action must be taken now to prevent the needless deaths of tens of thousands of children. If the world stands by and does too little too late, children will starve to death. Hunger will also force children and their families to make dangerous survival choices, such
as child marriage or child labour, and this will have lasting harmful consequences for girls and boys.Up to 811 million people were hungry in 2020, up by 161 million from 2019. This is a 25% increase from 2019, which is greater than the total increase over the past 5 years. Hunger increased in all regions of the world. Asia has the largest total number of hungry people, but Africa has the highest proportion of its population.
In our time of worship, we will focus on the invitation from Jesus to follow him – ‘Feed my sheep.’
We have the assurance that God sees and knows and hears the cry of each person experiencing hunger in the world today and invites us to participate in their redemption, ensuring that the daily needs of all people can be met. Our response, in hope-filled obedience, is to join in God’s
redemptive work in the world.Read more about hunger
Download worship resource below, a collaboration with ecumenical partners (Micah Global, Integral Alliance, ACT Alliance, World Methodist Community, Lutheran World Federation, The Salvation Army, World Council of Churches, WEA, World Vision) ⬇️
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Liturgy: Sharing food with the Hungry Ð Isaiah 58: 6-12
Conflict; an uneven global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic; the effects of climate change; high inflation; as well as the rising cost of food, fuel, and fertiliser are driving a polycrisis that is pushing tens of millions of girls, boys, and their families into extreme hunger.
The number of people affected by acute food insecurity has nearly doubled over the past three years, from 135 million people across 55 countries and territories in 2019 to a record 258 million in 58 countries in 2022 Ð even more than last year’s mid-year projection that, without urgent action, 222 million across 53 countries and territories could face Ôcrisis’ (IPC 3) conditions or worse.
In the face of dire statistics, we know that hunger has a nameÉ
- Seven-month-old Hamdi weighed only 8.8 pounds in June when she arrived at a nurition clinic in Baidoa, Somalia. Health workers found her to have severe acute malnutrition, exacerbated by acute watery diarrhea and measles. Drought in Somalia is not only impacting access to food.
- Ten year old Peter in Kenya, whose family’s food supply has been impacted by drought and climate change.
- 1-year old Nadia in Afghanistan, displaced and experiencing severe malnutrition.
Nadia, Hamdi and Peter found help and support…but the situation globally remains a significant challenge. And hunger is in every neighbourhood and community.
These realities are true in a world where there is enough to feed everyone….and so we pray for justice, for hearts to act and serve and for systems to change to take steps to end hunger.
Worship resource
- Opening prayer
- Hymns & music
- Hunger today
- Prayer of Confession
- Scriptures
- Reflections
- Examples of action
- Prayers
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Liturgy Guide and Resources
for the Weekend of Prayer and Action Against Hunger October 11-13, 2024
For this Weekend of Prayer and Action Against Hunger, Christians from all around the world will gather for prayer and worship around the theme of global hunger and food justice.
We offer this guide to support worship planners to develop a service of prayer or worship that fits your local context. You will find selections of prayers to choose from, which are offered to be used or adapted for your own community’s context.
“Enough to Share”
There are shared meals one will never forget. Years ago, I visited churches in Zimbabwe. It was a difficult time with incredibly high inflation and political turmoil with violence. We passed by a church building under construction in the suburbs of Harare. It was a working day. Spontaneously people came when they saw our cars. We sang and prayed together.
We were about to leave, but someone asked us to stay. Women went to their homes and came back soon with chicken, rice, and salad. We sat down and shared a meal together. What a sign of love and welcome. I was blessed by the gracious gift of food, hospitality, and care. It was like light rising in the darkness. I was reminded that God’s kingdom is not a future dream. It becomes real in the middle of the injustices and hardships we are facing, such as increase of hunger, wars, armed conflicts, climate change, most affecting those who only cause few carbon emissions, etc. God’s kin-dom is real, today, when we share food with one another, explore new ways to grow wheat and vegetables, see Christ in the stranger and become God’s beloved community.
Follow up questions:
- Do you remember meals that touched and even changed your life?
- With whom could you share food? Perhaps you wish to reach out to people with whom you never met for a meal?
- Look at your life and at your community in the light of God’s promises in Isaiah 58,6-12.
Any thoughts on how these promises transform yourself, your community and the world?
—Bishop Rosemarie Wenner
English
Español
Français
Portuguese, International
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A teaching resource from the Faith & Life commission
What does it mean for member churches of Mennonite World Conference to share an Anabaptist identity? What is the value of Anabaptist “tradition” – and what does that word mean in a global context? What are our Anabaptist understandings of mission and fellowship?
In 2009, the newly appointed Faith and Life Commission was asked to produce three papers that could be used in helping MWC communities reflect on such questions:
- “A Holistic Understanding of Fellowship, Worship, Service, and Witness from an Anabaptist Perspective” by Alfred Neufeld Friesen of Paraguay;
- “The ‘Anabaptist Tradition’ – Reclaiming its Gifts, Heeding its Weaknesses” by Hanspeter Jecker of Switzerland; and
- “Koinonia – The Gift We Hold Together” by Tom Yoder Neufeld of Canada.
All three papers were approved as a teaching resource by the MWC General Council in May 2012.
Some weeks ago, I received a request from Bert Lobe to consider describing and reflecting on how the sixteenth century Anabaptists understood diaconal service, and how that understanding and practice developed historically. The idea was that this kind of study might provide a basis for discussion and discernment for the MWC Deacons Commission…
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César García, Mennonite World Conference general secretary, offers a meditation on Acts 4:32-35.
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