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Prayers of gratitude and intercession

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    Like the chambers of a heart, the four MWC commissions serve the global community of Anabaptist-related churches, in the areas of deacons, faith and life, peace, mission. Commissions prepare materials for consideration by the General Council, give guidance and propose resources to member churches, and facilitate MWC-related networks or fellowships working together on matters of common interest and focus. In the following, one of the commissions shares a message from their ministry focus.

    In recent years, Anabaptists have been identified by such distinctives as peacemaking, voluntary choice, simple living, community and discipleship. We believe, however, that a key defining characteristic of the early Anabaptist movement was its fervent embrace of mission.

    Even while we continue to accent discipleship, we have muted the passionate, even sacrificial, commitment to evangelism that distinguished the early Anabaptists. For the last half-century, particularly in the north, there has been a troubling relinquishment of the missionary calling of the church.

    In this context, the Mission Commission (MC) of MWC birthed a vision for a book: God’s People in Mission: An Anabaptist Perspective.

    The core of theological/missiological convictions, informally shared among the members of the Mission Commission, first led to an interest in developing a catalogue of those convictions that undergird and influence our foundations and approaches in mission. On 24 March 2014, after several years of yearning for a comprehensive statement of shared mission convictions, the MC adopted a statement, God’s People in Mission, at Dopersduin, Schoorl, Holland. This is a compilation of 10 missional convictions that articulate what we believe together about mission in the global Anabaptist community.

    We believe that further exploration of these convictions in a book-length form can help us think soberly about our essential identity as the missionary people of God. This is an urgent need.

    We hope that the reflections in each chapter will stimulate needed conversations and help us to align ourselves with God’s purposes for the reconciliation of all humanity and the restoration of the created order. In addition, we yearn that through these exchanges we will be revitalized by God’s Spirit for the mission that brought Jesus to our world.

    The desire of the MC is that God’s People in Mission: An Anabaptist Perspective might bring together diverse voices and experiences from within the varied contexts of our MWC global family. A number of the manuscripts were written in the different languages spoken by members of MWC. In the interest of ensuring wide accessibility, we hope eventually to have the text available in the three official languages of the MWC (English, Spanish and French).

    A further goal is to make the book available in several other languages spoken by members of the MWC. We are working hard to finish this book before our next meeting in Kenya 2018.

    Though the primary audience for the book is the MWC global family, we believe the book’s basic biblical-theological foundations and its contextual reflections can serve a wider audience. We hope it can serve diverse groups as a resource for study and reference for workshops, training, Sunday school classes and seminaries by creating and promoting spaces for dialogue, reflection and commitments.

    We believe that every part of the MWC communion needs to recover the understanding that the church by its very nature is missionary. We understand from the biblical text that God’s purposes find their essence and meaning in the mission of Jesus, and the work Holy Spirit is to advance this mission through the church. Since God’s yearning is that all people experience salvation, the church is called to be in mission on every continent until Jesus returns. Our prayer is that every member church in the MWC will be transformed for the missionary purposes of God.

    —A Mennonite World Conference release by Stanley W. Green and Rafael Zaracho, Mennonite World Conference Mission Commission chair and secretary

     

    In the interest of fostering unity within the global Anabaptist family during recent decades, the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Shelf of Literature addresses identity, peace, stewardship and more. This volume will be the eighth volume in the series. 

  • Background

    The Democratic Republic of Congo is a country located in Central Africa, inhabited by nearly 80 million people, belonging to500 tribes and living on a surface of 2 345 410 square kilometers. The country experienced two waves of evangelism. The first evangelism occurred during the15thcentury through the first European explorers. This evangelism did not produce appreciable results. The missionaries’ collaboration with the colonizers for slavery, the lack of the Gospel in local languages, the fighting between tribes, and the traditional religions were some of the main cause of its failure. As for the second evangelism, it refers to the era of missionary organizations. The American Baptist Mission (ABMFS) was the first organization to launch its ministry in 1878 in the Congo Central, in the west of the country.

    Among the missionary societies that followed, one can quote the Congo Inland Mission (CIM), a mission society founded by American Mennonites. The work that CIM started in the Congo in the 19th century has resulted in about 250 000 Congolese Mennonites belonging to three different denominations: the Communauté des Eglises des Frères Mennonites au Congo (CEFMC), the Communauté Evangélique Mennonite (CEM) and the Communauté Mennonite au Congo (CMCo).

    Congolese Mennonites initiatives

    Anabaptist-Mennonite churches in DR Congo preach a holistic gospel. This is why, everywhere they are established, they build chapels, but also schools, clinics or hospitals, colleges or universities. They are also involved in peace building and reconciliation initiatives with the support provided by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and Mennonite Brethren Mission.

    Moreover, Congolese Mennonites are presently active in cross-cultural evangelism. Their testimony goes beyond boundaries especially to Angola, Congo Brazzaville and South Africa.

    And in DRC, Mennonites continue planting churches in other provinces and are reaching even hidden or resistant people such as Batwa Pygmies in the Equatorial Forest. Four Batwa pygmies have been already trained at a Bible Institute and three of them are ordained pastors. Thirty-two local churches are established with them and led by themselves. In fact, mission departments are in charge of this important ministry in the Mennonite conferences.

    Besides, a program to reach especially Chinese citizens and/or foreign businessmen is already moving through prayers, distribution of Christian literature and other contacts.

    Major challenges

    In spite of the dynamism of the Congolese local Mennonite churches and the various natural resources in the country, the populations are confronted with poverty and the majority of them, even Mennonites, live in rural areas, below the poverty line. Political instability, wars, corruption, and the activism of the non-Christian religions are the major challenges that Christian ministries and churches are facing in the DRC.

    Mvwala C.Katshinga and John S. Fumana

  • Like the chambers of a heart, the four MWC commissions serve the global community of Anabaptist-related churches, in the areas of deacons, faith and life, peace, mission. Commissions prepare materials for consideration by the General Council, give guidance and propose resources to member churches, and facilitate MWC-related networks or fellowships working together on matters of common interest and focus. In the following, one of the commissions shares a message from their ministry focus.

    Mission Commission

    The goal of the Mission Commission of MWC is to imagine and build a new global mission partnership within the body of Christ that spans all the continents. We seek a partnership that is rooted in profound mutual love, ordered around mutual submission and that participates in economic sharing unfettered by ugly paternalism or unhealthy dependency.

    And we seek this not only as a gospel demonstration of our unity in Christ, but also for the sake of the mission of God in all the world.

    The story as guide

    The Bible is the story of God’s loving acts in creation and God’s redemptive purposes in history. As a consequence of human rebellion and sin, the world that God created good experienced distortion and destruction. Fear, pride, greed and selfish ambition led to estrangement from God and alienation between peoples. The consequence of this alienation is hatred, violence, war, oppression and injustice.  

    God’s purposes, revealed in Jesus, are to bring an end to hatred and fear, poverty and injustice, and to create one new family from all the different cultures, languages and ethnicities.

    Following Christ’s ascension, the church was constituted by the Spirit of God to proclaim and embody the good news that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God is reconciling all humanity and restoring all of creation. Diversity is God’s gift for our enrichment.

    The wellspring of our mission

    God’s promise to bless all nations on earth is the wellspring of our mission. God’s purpose is to create a people drawn from every tribe and nation who reflect God’s glory in their unity. Following God, we reject the evils of racism and ethnocentric pride.

    The mission of the church of Jesus Christ, therefore, requires that we act with justice and mercy, and that we engage every person and group with dignity, respect and compassion on the grounds of their value to God. It also obliges us to expose and resist every system and every action that oppresses and exploits those who are poor, weak or vulnerable.

    We believe that unity is a gift of the Spirit, not something that we originate. At the same time, we regard the preservation of our visible unity as a practical expression of love and a critical dimension of our mission. When Jesus prays for the unity of his followers and commands them to love one another, it is for the sake of God’s mission (“so that the world may know that you [the Father] sent me” [John 17:23]).

    There is no more compelling demonstration of the authenticity of the gospel than followers of Jesus who are reconciled to each other and united in love across barriers of ethnicity, colour, race, gender, social class, economic status, political alignment or national origin. By the same token, there are few things that so undermine the credibility of our witness as when we Christians alienate ourselves from each other and tolerate or intensify the very same schisms between us.

    The challenge of difference

    One of the challenges we face within the global community is how do we deal with our differences. Our biblical canon gives us some clues on how to balance the tension between unity and diversity. A basic feature of our Bible is the mix of genres and literary styles while maintaining unity and coherence. It contains legal documents, genealogies, historical notes, travelogues, etc., from a variety of authors, subjects, genres and eras. 

    Our Bible allows that there is diversity within unity. The formation of the canon is a testimony that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the early church chose to keep the four Gospels each with its peculiar and distinctive tone.

    A different image for diversity is a tuning fork. This tool is used to adjust the orchestra (a variety of instruments, sounds and qualities) to a specific tone. The presence of the tuning fork does not erase or delete the differences of the musical instruments, rather it aligns the pitches so these disparate instruments can make beautiful music together.

    As communities of faith, our task is to share about the redeeming love of our God. Christ is our tuning fork. When we are tuned to Christ, it is easier to distinguish those non-essential things that separate us. Instead, we work in the midst of diversity for the kingdom of God.

    Realizing our goal will require an unflinching commitment to honesty and solidarity. In a spirit of love and forgiveness, we must speak honestly with each other about the obstacles to authentic community. Mutual love also will require solidarity with each other. We must be willing to share in each other’s struggles and suffering, and eager to offer support, prayer and companionship in the challenges we each face in our witness to the gospel. 

    So, why does the work of the Mission Commission matter?

    It matters because as the body of Christ, the church is God’s good news in a hurting and broken world. In his book, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society*, Lesslie Newbigin describes the church as a “sign, instrument and foretaste” of the kingdom of God. Before a watching world, we are called through our unity in love and sharing to be a reflection of the reconciliation that God has accomplished in Jesus Christ. We no longer live for ourselves, but for the world which God loves and seeks to bless through us (Genesis 12:3).   

    —Stanley W. Green and Rafael Zaracho, Mennonite World Conference Mission Commission chair and secretary

     

     

    *(Eerdmans, 1989, p. 233)
     

    Rafael Zaracho

    Stanley W. Green