Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) - Blogs - Better Togetherhttps://www.pcusa.org/blogs/better-together/2012-10-17T22:22:51-04:00Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)info@pcusa.orghttp://www.pcusa.org/Latest Better Together posts.Summary of Dallas II2012-10-17T22:22:51-04:00Judson Taylor/blogs/better-together/2012/10/17/summary-dallas-ii/https://www.pcusa.org/blogs/better-together/2012/10/17/summary-dallas-ii/
<p class="date">October 17, 2012</p>
<div class="intro"><p>The Dallas II global mission consultation brought together more than 200 grassroots and national mission leaders from across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), as well as ecumenical and global partners. Together they determined that Presbyterian mission work should be centered on the critical global issues of addressing the root causes of poverty, engaging in evangelism, and working for reconciliation, and refined core values and priorities for responding strategically to those issues with concrete, measurable, global initiatives.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/calltomission/#about">Please read this summary of what happened at Dallas II</a> and share these messages with others as we prayerfully step forward into God’s vibrant mission already underway.</p>
<p> </p></div>
Presbyterian News Service story on Dallas II2012-10-12T09:17:56-04:00Judson Taylor/blogs/better-together/2012/10/12/presbyterian-news-service-story-dallas-ii/https://www.pcusa.org/blogs/better-together/2012/10/12/presbyterian-news-service-story-dallas-ii/
<p class="date">October 12, 2012</p>
<div class="intro"><p>Bethany Furkin of the Presbyterian News Service has written a story about the process and outcomes of the Dallas II mission consultation. <a href="/news/2012/10/8/better-together/">Read it here</a>.</p></div>
Unity, Justice, and Witness2012-10-09T11:13:08-04:00Jason Cashing/blogs/better-together/2012/10/9/unity-justice-and-witness/https://www.pcusa.org/blogs/better-together/2012/10/9/unity-justice-and-witness/
<p class="date">October 9, 2012</p>
<div class="intro"><p><i>Jonathan Seitz, a Mission Co-Worker in Taipei, Taiwan, offers the following reflection on reframing the timeless questions of mission in a new day and age. Read more about Jonathan's work <a href="https://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/missionconnections/seitz-jonathan-and-emily/" target="_blank">here.</a></i>
<p>PCUSA’s three global issues—poverty, witness, and peace—restate classical Christians practices in new language. They evoke the three main streams of the great, if beleaguered, modern ecumenical movement: justice, witness, and unity. These three early twentieth century major ecumenical streams grew out of seemingly discrete concerns:
<ul><li>How should the churches respond to the challenges of industrialization and urban poverty? To migration, globalization, and challenges related to hunger or education?</li>
<li>How should the church witness to the world, and how should the missionary movement reshape itself towards better mission? What can it do to be more faithful and effective?</li>
<li>How were the churches to seek peace in an era of world war (among “Christian nations,” no less)? How do we seek peace in families and neighborhoods, cities, nations, and the whole world?</li></ul>
<p>These were the questions of earlier generations, and they are also our questions today. In time, ecumenical Christians came to believe that “we belong together,” and that unity, justice, and witness are streams of the same river. We are ineffective witnesses if we ignore the poverty or violence that surround us, and our institutional work for poverty and violence lose their basis if they are divorced from our faith in Christ. My guess is that many of us, either individually, or as churches, tend to relate more strongly to one or another of these issues, but as a whole we are called to practice all of them.
<p>One of the delights of mission is that we are often called to work in places where the issues may be similar but the history and the responses are fundamentally different. One thing I have admired in Taiwan is how the call to these issues takes place simultaneously. The Presbyterian Church of Taiwan (PCT) is focusing intentionally on efforts at church growth, even as it remains committed to peace in a country that stands next to a rising military power. It’s a truly multi-ethnic church, with Taiwanese, Hakka, and minority ethnic groups. And it holds together churches that are quite wealthy and quite poor. Since moving to Taiwan, we’ve attended two churches regularly, one small and struggling and another large and established. Our family arrived in Taiwan in August 2009, just after a major hurricane, and it was amazing to watch the quick response of church groups.
<p>Churches pursue their witness in a variety of creative ways. Like PCUSA’s “1001 in 10” campaign, which seeks to start 1001 worshipping communities in the coming decade, the PCT must witness to very different communities and has begun a one-leads-one campaign (which is pronounced like “101,” the nickname for Taiwan’s largest skyscraper). The movement provides an umbrella under which churches can pursue evangelism. Many churches have made the fifth Sunday every three months as a special opportunity to focus on witness. Christmas is usually seen primarily as an outreach time—when neighbors can be invited to learn the story of Christ’s birth. Many churches start after-school programs or participate in ethics programs at local schools. They provide computer classes or run language or music camps.
<p>The strategic goals help echo these shared aspects of the Christian life, while also reminding congregations of the specific calling for Presbyterians today. How can Presbyterians in the US today contribute to a mission that advances the unity, justice, and witness of the church?</div>
Afternoon Breakout Sessions of Dallas II2012-10-06T11:52:10-04:00Jason Cashing/blogs/better-together/2012/10/6/afternoon-breakout-sessions-dallas-ii/https://www.pcusa.org/blogs/better-together/2012/10/6/afternoon-breakout-sessions-dallas-ii/
<p class="date">October 6, 2012</p>
<div class="intro"><p><em>Session 1 - 3:00pm-3:50pm</em>
<ul><li>Black Hawk (video): Transforming Power of Holy Spirit through mission</li>
<li>Eagle 3E12: Competing Local Church Funding Priorities</li>
<li>Eagle 3E13: Cuba Partnership</li>
<li>Eagle 3E14: Bridging & Connecting Congregations</li>
<li>Eagle 3E15: Assisting to find the right candidate for Presbyterian World Mission Evangelism Catalyst position</li>
<li>Eagle 3E16: Prayer - fueling the PCUSA mission movement</li>
<li>Eagle 3E22: Accompaniment as model for mission in contexts of violence</li>
<li>Eagle 3E23: Global Ecumenical Missiology</li>
<li>Eagle 3E24A: Care, protection, being in harmony with God's creation as foundational to glocal mission and spiritual formation</li>
<li>Eagle 3E24B: Collective Impact</li>
<li>Eagle 3E25A: Mission networks: ecumenical, mutual, functional</li>
<li>Eagle 3E25B: Young Adults - Transforming Church to the Movement</li>
<li>Eagle 3E26: Swords to Plowshares - strategies to unify PCUSA behind missions</li>
<li>Eagle 3E27: Root causes of poverty</li>
<li>Eagle 3E06A: North Korea flood disaster of July 2012</li>
<li>Eagle 3E06B: Congregational Involvement, Changing Patterns</li></ul>
<p><em>Session 2 - 4:10pm-5:00pm</em>
<ul><li>Black Hawk (video): Reformed Mission Symposia - promoting strong mission theology</li>
<li>Eagle 3E12: Challenge of historical PCUSA white privilege</li>
<li>Eagle 3E13: Water as Mission</li>
<li>Eagle 3E14: Building community resilience - addressing vulnerability, especially among women and children</li>
<li>Eagle 3E15: Revisiting the past - the church and structural change in Africa</li>
<li>Eagle 3E16: Mobilizing the PCUSA for mission</li>
<li>Eagle 3E22: Vibrant mission partnerships - keeping it alive in between trips // Short-term missions</li>
<li>Eagle 3E23: Fragile churches/Vibrant churches; Challenges of churches in Africa</li>
<li>Eagle 3E24A: A truly mutual partnership, U.S. and Mexico, Presbyterians starting churches</li>
<li>Eagle 3E24B: Peace Discernment Interim Report</li>
<li>Eagle 3E25A: Renewal of mission culture in PCUSA (all boats moving in the same direction)</li>
<li>Eagle 3E25B: Grassroots ecumenical student/young adult movement, speaking truth to power in relationship with a glocal community</li>
<li>Eagle 3E26: Global Alpha Training and Cultural Practice Training</li>
<li>Eagle 3E27: Women acting to stop violence</li>
<li>Eagle 3E06A: Joyful Noise</li>
<li>Eagle 3E06B: Comprehensive mission committee strategy (focus)</li>
<li>Eagle 3E06C: Witness through Healing Ministries</li></ul>
<p><em>Session 3 - 7:00pm-7:50pm</em>
<ul><li>Black Hawk (video): "Village Ark" - ROC parish, Spiritual renewal of congregation</li>
<li>Eagle 3E12: What heart/mind changes and transformations do we as the PCUSA need to go through?</li>
<li>Eagle 3E13: Global Theological Exchange</li>
<li>Eagle 3E14: Bridging - social capital in mission</li>
<li>Eagle 3E15: Creating sustainable, resilient glocal communities</li>
<li>Eagle 3E16: Theology of mission funding // Experiences of God's abundance (vs. scarcity) // Money - raising it and relating to those who have it</li>
<li>Eagle 3E22: Short-term mission theology, ethics, and practice // Short-term missions</li>
<li>Eagle 3E23: What do U.S. congregations need?</li>
<li>Eagle 3E24A: Mission and Peacemaking in the Middle East</li>
<li>Eagle 3E24B: Intentional communities as 'laboratories' of worship and anchors of local mission for congregations</li>
<li>Eagle 3E25A: Root Causes - the Joining Hands movement</li>
<li>Eagle 3E25B: Community health evangelism - a holistic approach to mission</li>
<li>Eagle 3E26: Reaching nations at our doorstep</li>
<li>Eagle 3E27: In this together - what North and South can teach each other</li>
<li>Black Hawk 1: Praying the 'Wall'</li></ul>
</div>
Breaking the bonds of poverty2012-10-06T10:51:05-04:00Judson Taylor/blogs/better-together/2012/10/6/breaking-bonds-poverty/https://www.pcusa.org/blogs/better-together/2012/10/6/breaking-bonds-poverty/
<p class="date">October 6, 2012</p>
<div class="intro"><p>Both Dessa and Cobbie Palm, mission co-workers to the Philippines, were born there as well. In her keynote at Dallas II Friday, she spoke about how the Filipino word “kapwa” literally means “fellow human being,” but actually bears a more profound moral kinship. Kapwa informs the way Christians should treat one another.</p>
<p>Dessa spoke about how, in the 1930s, an accord was signed by the U.S. and the Philippines on sugar trading, engraving the Filipino economy in a triple dependency: on monocrop culture, on sugar trading and industry, and on the U.S. as a single market. Fifty years later, the US demand for sugar was drastically reduced because of the development of artificial sweeteners and the world market price of real sugar plummeted. More than 250,000 sugar workers were forced into unemployment and indebtedness. By the mid-1980s, UNICEF reported that more than<strong> </strong>140,000 children were threatened by hunger and malnutrition, including a boy named Joel Abong, who weighed only 3 kilograms at the age of 7.</p>
<p>“This is the face of globalization,” Dessa said, that slapped simple, hard-working Filipinos held hostage by global market forces that dictate life and death for the Philippine economy and the farmer in the field.</p>
<p>This desperate reality is the backdrop for why many of Dessa’s kapwa Filipinos yearn to leave the country to find more meaningful employment and seek a way out of their perceived dead-ends in that country. The government estimates that our country deploys 4,559 persons a day for overseas work, 4,559 or 1.6M a year.</p>
<p>But not all are able to wrestle their way out of the country. Some find their way to the metropolitan Manila where 11 million Filipinos reside, where an estimated 50% live in slum dwellings, often without clean water, toilets, and unsanitary environments. This would explain why the top three causes of morbidity in the country include Pneumonia, Bronchitis and Acute Diarrhea.</p>
<p>Less than 1% of Filipino students assessed are qualified for high school or college level education due to lack of resources and poor management of the public school system by the government. School facilities are overcrowded and dilapidated, materials and textbooks are inadequate, and schools are marked by technological incompetence.</p>
<p>The UCCP Tondo Evangelical Church aims to jumpstart the educational aptitude of 50 children among the poorest of the poor through the early education and the feeding program. They acknowledge that it is a really modest contribution to a much more complex problem of poverty. Its current pastor, Bishop Elmer Bolocon, a former secretary general of our partner church in the Philippines, explains: “Poverty is not God’s creation; it is a human deviation. There are enough resources for all, but they are not distributed equitably and are concentrated in the hands of a few.”</p>
<p>The church responds to this situation, says the bishop, because our faith requires us to. In our conversation, we both agree that poverty is far from being isolated stories of someone’s misfortunes. Its causes are historically rooted, structural and global in nature.</p>
<p>The picture looks bleak and overwhelming. But we must begin somewhere. And we have. For those of us in this room that beginning connects us to a cloud of witnesses that had been working to change the world long before our time. And we continue that legacy because we believe.</p>
<p>We believe in a God who began small, with just twelve, and reminded us, <em>where two or three are gathered in my name, I will be there.</em> (Matthew 18:20). </p>
<p>We believe in a God who gave us a plan in the face of tragedy all around us and taught us, <em>I have come that all may have life in its fullness.</em> (John 10:10).</p>
<p>We believe in a God who showed us a way through overwhelming circumstances saying,<strong> </strong><em>Peace I give to you, my peace I give to you…Let NOT your hearts be troubled AND let them NOT be afraid. </em>(John 14:27)</p>
<p>And we have! We have begun sowing the seeds! From Asia to Africa, from Central America to the Middle East to the Caribbean and throughout the world the Presbyterian Church USA is involved in work of addressing the root causes of poverty. In Central America the CEPAD through Kilambé Community Development Association in Nicaragua is helping rural villages come together and become legally constituted community associations, empowering them to seek resources for community development. The PC(USA) is there standing and witnessing with them. In Africa, the Kihumo Presbyterian Parish in Kenya is distributing female goats to widows to supplement the nutrition of their children with goat milk, and augment their incomes by selling the goat’s offspring. The PC(USA) is there standing and witnessing with them. In the Middle East, fair trading of high-quality and organic olive oil by the Palestinian producers through Import Peace has helped bring quality health care to our Palestinian brothers and sisters in the Occupied Territories. The PC(USA) is there standing and witnessing with them. In the Caribbean the FONDAMA or Foundations Hands in Hands in Haiti is providing corn and bean seeds to farmers, and simple tools for crop-growing in the continuing effort to rehabilitate the island from the devastating earthquake. The PC(USA) is there standing and witnessing with them.</p>
<p>We have begun to sow the seeds, but we need to do more. We need to come together and grow as an orchard of concerted strategies, sharing resources and learning and working together if we are to become God’s instruments of fulfilling the dreams of people around the world. May we earnestly learn from each other and gain greater resolve in our work. May we examine the ways by which we could be complicit to the problem, while striving to define our collective capacities to respond creatively. May we seek to find the keys to unravel both the specific challenges of each critical global issue, while appreciating the integral links of each issue to one another. May we be moved deeply beyond our isolated initiatives and have the courage to carve bigger and converging spaces that may sustain these emergent alternatives. </p></div>