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April 24, 2008
Presbyterian world mission: let it grow
PC(USA) mission force to increase as number of partners proliferates
LOUISVILLE — For the first time in 50 years, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is poised to increase its corps of international mission workers.
The proposed 2009-2010 General Assembly Mission Budget — approved here this week by the General Assembly Council (GAC) and going on to the upcoming 218th General Assembly in San Jose, CA — includes funds to increase the number of full-time, compensated mission workers from the current 196 to 215 in 2009 and 220 in 2010.
There is clearly renewed interest in PC(USA)-related world mission. Last fall’s Mission Challenge — when nearly 50 PC(USA) mission workers spent a month visiting congregations and presbyteries telling their stories and asking for prayer and financial support — generated a net of $500,000 for international mission.
Building on that response, GAC Communications and Funds Development head Karen Schmidt told the council April 23 that $2 million in Extra Commitment Opportunity (ECO) gifts for world mission are anticipated each of the next two years. One element of that effort, she said, will be a “Top 200 Churches” funding strategy to the denomination’s largest congregations.
“We’re also working off the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands (MIJHH) seeds that have been planted the last five years,” she added, “that we are sure will bear fruit in the coming years.
The MIJHH — a five-year $40 million fund-raising effort launched by the 2002 General Assembly to raise funds for new mission workers and for congregational development in this country, particularly new racial ethnic and immigrant congregations — recently celebrated the deployment of the 25th new mission worker through the campaign. The campaign concludes at this General Assembly, though pledged funds will continue to flow for a number of years.
Honorary campaign chair Thomas Gillespie told the council he believes the funding strategy to large churches can be successful. “I’ve called a lot of ‘tall steeple’ pastors and was not turned down by a single one,” he said. “Many were, in fact, eager, though some were unaware that we still send mission workers. “We’re going to see many answers to prayer.”
The heightened interest — and financial support — for world mission comes at a time when the landscape of Presbyterians’ involvement in international mission is rapidly changing, said GAC World Mission Director Hunter Farrell.
“There’s a remarkably big space in Presbyterians’ hearts to engage in mission around the world,” he told the GAC’s Evangelism Committee April 24. “There is also a large and growing need for mission engagement around the world. We are constantly receiving requests from partners, and our faithfulness as a denomination involves looking at the needs and working with all of our partners, inside and outside the church, to find the resources to meet the needs.”
“Mission-sending” groups are proliferating, as are mission networks of Presbyterians who share a passion for mission work in specific places. New groups such as the Presbyterian Global Fellowship and more than 35 mission networks currently at work complicate denominational efforts to provide a unified message and commitment to church members and overseas partners.
The broadest-based consultation on PC(USA) world mission in many years produced an agreement last month that has been endorsed by dozens of Presbyterian-related mission organizations. No group is known to have rejected the compact.
The agreement is essential, Farrell said, to guarantee that Presbyterian mission remains faithful and responsive to Jesus Christ and to our partners overseas. “We have always looked carefully and critically at each mission appointment,” he said, “to ensure that we are meeting the expressed needs of the partners.”
At the same time, he added, “there is a large and growing need for mission engagement around the world. We are constantly receiving requests from partners.”
Coordination of Presbyterian world mission efforts is also important, Farrell said, to continue to overcome a mission history that is not altogether positive. “We need to be clear and intentional about our language, for instance,” he said, “avoiding terms like ‘missionary’ because so much of our earlier activity was wrapped in the banner of colonialism.”
Today, he continued, “we face the perception in parts of the world of ‘American empire’ and there’s a lot of neo-colonialism present in some mission activities, so we have to be careful about the ways we think and talk about people.”
And in a time when so much is quantified — from membership losses to budget and staff cuts to the sheer size of the mission worker force — Farrell cautioned against “a numbers game.” “Raw numbers don’t necessarily reflect either commitment or faithfulness,” he said.
The size of the paid mission worker force certainly doesn’t tell the whole story of PC(USA) international mission. One of the denomination’s success stories through all the years of declining mission worker numbers, is its Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program. That program will also see budget increases — 8 percent in 2009-2010, Farrell said in response to a question from former GA Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase.
“Many people believe the [YAV program] is vitally important for two reasons,” Farrell said. “It allows us to send not just a Ph.D. in New Testament who goes as an expert but young persons who go in relatively powerless way that divinely prepares them for a profound mission encounter.”
The YAV program, Farrell continued, “also prepares young people in a unique way for Christian vocation. It’s great vocational preparation, to see the church vitally connected in the world.”
The church’s presence in the world is the point, after all, GAC Executive Director Linda Valentine told the council. “This is all about being visible witnesses to Jesus Christ in the world,” she said during the April 23 plenary, “about being wise stewards of the resources entrusted to us and spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world.”
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