North Americans seek their place in new global mission context

A new era has begun in Mennonite mission work, and North Americans are trying to figure out how they fit into it.

Churches around the world that once received missionaries are now sending them. International relationships of equality are emerging, creating a desire for cooperation and ending the exclusive leadership of North Americans.

Seeking to adapt to these changes, leaders of North American Mennonite mission agencies made plans Jan. 30–31 to form a regional mission fellowship that will take its place alongside similar bodies being formed in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Each region is a subgroup of the Global Mission Fellowship (GMF), created last August at the Mennonite World Conference assembly in Zimbabwe.

About 50 conferences and agencies around the world have joined the GMF, whose purpose is to strengthen international cooperation in mission work.

North America already has an inter-Mennonite mission forum, the Council of International Anabaptist Ministries (CIM). But the members of CIM, whose annual meeting in Chicago drew about 70 participants, decided the North American part of the GMF needed a fresh start. They appointed Janet Plenert, executive director of international ministries for Mennonite Church Canada Witness, to lead the formation of a North American regional mission fellowship.

Janet Plenert, assigned to lead the formation of a North American regional mission fellowship, listens as Javier Soler of the Amor Viviente church in Honduras speaks during the Council of International Anabaptist Ministries meeting.

“I thank God for God’s moving among us,” Plenert said after accepting the assignment. “I’m both grateful and overwhelmed by the task ahead.”

At the meeting of representatives from 20 agencies, conferences and institutions (see sidebar), the mission leaders often spoke of the changes brought by the globalization of mission work.

“We [North Americans] have seen ourselves as central to the global Christian mission movement,” said Richard Showalter, president of Eastern Mennonite Missions. “That day, however, is over. We are, in many respects, running to catch up.”

What North Americans are catching up to is a growing web of mission efforts criss-crossing the globe.

“I feel uncomfortable now sitting in an area committee [of CIM] and deciding how missions in Africa should be done,” said Harold Ens, general director of MBMS International, the Mennonite Brethren mission agency. “Because I know the Brazilians are sending missionaries to Africa, too.”

Ens also cited the examples of German Mennonites doing mission work in Brazil and Paraguay, Colombians evangelizing in Peru, Mexico and Panama, and Japanese in Thailand.

“We’re in a totally different world in terms of international mission,” he said. “It’s very complex.”

North America, too, is an international mission field. Indonesian and Honduran Mennonites have planted churches in North America.

Representing the Honduran church at the CIM meeting was Javier Soler, who chairs the GMF planning committee. Soler is president of Amor Viviente, or Living Love, a group of churches in Honduras that grew out of work by Eastern Mennonite Missions, the Lancaster Mennonite Conference mission agency.

Amor Viviente, founded in 1974, planted a church in New Orleans in 1983 and now has 12 established congregations in North America and two more in formation.

Participants also noted how North American Mennonites’ growing ethnic diversity strengthens the church.

Samson Lo, a Chinese pastor and director of cross-cultural ministries for MC Canada Witness, said 40 congregations in British Columbia represent cultures and ethnic backgrounds that are new to MC Canada.

Agency leaders at the CIM meeting said they were taking just the first steps toward greater changes to come. A regional mission fellowship in North America might eventually replace CIM, Plenert said.

The most important thing will be to respond to God’s leading in a new day for fulfilling the Great Commission.

“For us in North America, the challenge is how to partner effectively with the evangelistic vision that has emerged in churches around the world,” said Len Barkman, representing the Evangelical Mennonite Conference.

“It is good to see the doors open to a greater level of cooperation in international mission.”

—Paul Schrag for Meetinghouse