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2007-11-06 issue:

From preservation to engagement

Together sharing all of Christ with all of creation

by Stanley W. Green

Print Article

When Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz and George Blaurock baptized each other on Jan. 21, 1525, the Anabaptist movement was born.

The movement was born with a strong missional consciousness. Convinced from their study of Bible that a relationship with Jesus Christ not mediated by sacraments or ecclesiastical orders was vital, these early Anabaptists were excited to share this good news with their neighbors.

Since that beginning, the Anabaptist movement has experienced three phases before entering upon its current phase.

Phase 1: courageous witness—the glimpse of a missional church
The initial phase was one of rapid growth spurred by the fervent, unflinching witness, which was met by brutal repression. In an effort to silence the witness of these earnest believers who claimed allegiance to Christ before civil or state authorities, these authorities killed thousands of Anabaptist believers, beginning with the martyrdom by Protestants under Zwingli. Felix Manz became the first martyr in 1527.

 Martyrs Mirror describes the persecution and execution of thousands of Anabaptists in the Low Countries (plus Germany, Switzerland, Austria and elsewhere) between 1524 and 1660 who refused to be silent about their faith.

Living almost five centuries ago, these people typified the Radical Reformation, which questioned human tradition that had propped up the state church for centuries. They refused to defend themselves with political or military power, and their influence spread even under persecution. Perhaps a 10th of the inhabitants of the Low Countries (now Holland and Belgium) came to believe as Anabaptists did, despite mass tortures and executions. After the Inquisition by Spanish rulers in the later 16th century, the executions and tortures stopped, bringing to an end Phase 1.

Phase 2: migration from engagement to quiescence—the martyrs become the ‘quiet in the land,’ a movement becomes a culture
During this second phase, those whose voices could not be silenced became known almost affectionately as those who just want to be left alone to do their own thing. After the Inquisition, persecution continued in Europe, causing some of the most earnest followers of the Anabaptist dream to emigrate to North America in the 18th and 19th centuries.
It also led to a period of quiescence. This period brought a shift from the zealous missional fervor of bearing witness to Jesus to yearning for preservation. The focus shifted from courageous witness to securing space for the community to practice its beliefs and deepening traditions in peace. Desiring only to be left alone, Mennonites became known by the cute moniker, “the quiet in the land.” During this period, Mennonites who had formerly been known for troublemaking became known by their last names. A vibrant religious movement changed into an ethnic identity.

Phase 3: from insular communities to cross-cultural engagement—becoming a missionary people
The migrants to North America settled mostly in rural communities or on the edge of cities, where they could practice their faith undisturbed. It was not until the mid-19th century that the impact of the missionary zeal of Protestant and evangelical churches influenced Mennonite communities. During this time, mission to Native Americans, to cities and African American mission churches began. By the end of the century, this missionary energy expanded to include “foreign” missions, starting in India. The new Mennonite heroes and heroines were those who volunteered to serve across the oceans in far-off lands. Disproportionate to their small numbers, Mennonites made an enormous investment in mission that saw churches planted in more than 60 countries on six continents. In the process, a north-Atlantic peoplehood (of Russian, Dutch, Swiss and German ethnicities) was transformed into a global family.

Phase 4: recovering our roots—becoming a missional people
While there was an unparalleled outpouring of missionary zeal during the 20th century, missionaries were heroic individuals who crossed the oceans or who went to the “reservations” and mission churches among African Americans in the cities. Mission meant relocation and encounter with people of other-than-European ancestry.

The end of the 20th century brought Mennonites, through a merger to a place of imagining a preferred (faithful) future. The last half-decade of the 20th century was a time of new possibilities for North American Mennonites. Who would we become as we responded to the opportunity to reshape the church and our identity? These communities, comprised mainly of Dutch-Russian (General Conference Mennonite Church) and Swiss-German (Mennonite Church), were moving in the direction of a generic, white North American identity accommodated to the influences of Christendom. But a new Mennonite Church (Canada and USA) committed itself to a missional future, beginning the journey of “finding a usable future in our past.” Almost five years into that journey now, here are some of our learnings:

1. It is important to define a clear vision.
When we gathered in Nashville, Tenn., in July 2001, and voted to become one new church, many controversies—polity, theological conviction, perceptions and stereotypes—threatened to fracture the church even before it was born. Critical to how people voted was the question, What would be the driving force that would shape the identity of this new church? The threat of competing or disparate visions was averted when the church agreed that becoming a missional people was the most compelling vision to undergird the new church. That became the vision for our church.

2. Language is important.
We discovered early the importance of how we talked about this vision and the transformation required to become a missional people. We learned that how we talk about God, mission and the church is critical and shapes how we act. We were used to talking about our obligation in mission, what we needed to do for the mission to be accomplished. We learned instead to talk about God’s mission, to observe what God was doing in the world and seek to align ourselves with God’s purposes rather than our carefully crafted plans. Mission was not something one part of the denomination did for or on behalf of the church. Mission was the essence and lifeblood of every congregation. Missionaries were not heroic individuals employed by the mission agency who were consecrated to cross the oceans. Every participant in each congregation was to be equipped to cross the boundaries in their context, which is a mission location, to share the good news about Jesus.

3. The missional journey is fundamentally a spiritual engagement.
The journey is about an engagement that transforms, not merely about acquiring new skills. The journey’s success is predicated on the renewal or conversion each believer must undergo. To this end, the introduction of the missional church vision to delegates came with a set of six spiritual exercises called habits of a missional church.

4. The success of the journey depends on building a broad coalition and alliance of stakeholders to ensure maximum ownership of the vision.
Once the church embraced the vision, we needed to develop a broad coalition of implementers so people did not think the vision belonged only to a segment of the church or that some parts of the church were marginal to or unimportant in the realization of the vision. In August 2001, a team formed that included seminaries, agencies, area conferences, congregations, multicultural ministry representatives and denominational executive leaders. Every part of the church had primary responsibility to make the vision a reality.

5. This journey should anticipate and positively engage conflict so that it has a transformative potential.
During a time of change, various entities in the church may try to co-opt the agenda and control the distribution of resources. This was a time of heightened anxiety and major conflict. The commitment to a common vision helped prevent a conflict that might have proven unmanageable.

6. We learned the importance of framing the missional journey in terms of identity and essence rather than a project to be engaged.
It was important for us to describe this vision not in terms of new techniques or strategies but in terms of the essence of the church’s identity and our heritage as Mennonites who seek to be faithful followers of Jesus.

7. Listening is imperative to contextualize the vision.
Meetings of the Missional Church Team (which gave leadership to sharing the vision and its implementation) were held in various parts of the constituency, and this allowed us to listen to the ways people were thinking about the missional vision and how they were practicing their growing missional consciousness and commitments. This allowed the vision to be contextualized rather than using a cookie-cutter approach.

8. Communication of the vision requires multiple uses of image, media and story to offer the possibility for people to creatively engage in transformative possibilities.
Given our diversity (age, cultural, urban, rural) we needed a variety of images, media and story to communicate the vision. We developed drama, video, stories and interactive engagements to help reinforce people’s understanding of the vision and describe its practical implementation.

9. Local leadership (pastors) in the grass-roots implementation of the vision is important.
From the outset, we recognized that the primary advocates for the vision needed to be pastors and congregational leaders. We worked carefully to encourage, invite and empower pastors to advance and implement the vision.

It’s been six years since we first set out in pursuit of this vision, but the journey has only begun. North Americans have a short attention span, and this process will require more than shifting furniture. It requires radical transformation, even for a people whose roots were a powerful missional movement. If this vision is to be fully realized, there remain yet great challenges ahead, but the promise is so tantalizing that we dare not lose heart.

Stanley W. Green is executive director of Mennonite Mission Network.

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