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2009-02-17 issue:

Leaders say church planting on the rise, but 'witness' goal difficult to measure

In the East there are 47 new churches and ministries envisioned or in formation, but one key leader reports many of us have lost interest in evangelism.

by Anna Groff

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The gospel of Jesus Christ is practiced and proclaimed through a seamless web of evangelism, justice and peace across the street and around the world.” This goal is one of four established by Mennonite Church USA delegates when the denomination was formed in 2001. Anna Groff asked four leaders to assess progress toward our “witness” goal.—Editor

Sharon Waltner
Moderator of Mennonite Church USA

Witness is the essence of the Christian walk for all believers, and it’s one of four missional priorities Mennonite Church USA is committed to developing and nurturing between now and 2020.

The missional paradigm moves us from a passive “sending” role to a position of empowerment as we are now “being sent.” We are making progress, even though we cannot measure it with numbers and charts. Congregations are embracing the idea that the church exists for the world rather than itself. People are learning that attending church is not about “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM) but rather, “How can I better learn to worship, witness and serve others?” Our “missionaries” aren’t the only ones charged with witness. The rest of us are also called to be evidence of God’s kingdom here and now.

Congregations and conferences are increasingly committed to mending the gaps between evangelism and peace-justice—both of which are integral to our church’s collective witness. Some see these as opposing options, even pitted against each other for emphasis. The Executive Board feels this is a false dichotomy. Has the web of evangelism and peace-justice become seamless? We are making progress, but I fear we still have a few areas needing generous applications of duct tape to hold this web together.

Our Savior said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you. Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:21-22). Witness is not something we delegate to others. It doesn’t require degrees, training or skills. It is accepting the empowering call to being sent.

We are not all called to be missionaries in the traditional sense of the word, but we are all sent. I cannot envision a greater example of radical and seamless witness.

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Stanley Green
Executive director of Mennonite Mission Network

Last year when I spoke at a congregation about becoming a missional people, I highlighted the importance of engaging our culture so that we share our witness to Jesus as the source of healing and hope. Afterward an older gentleman told me that he was in his 80s and had been a pastor for most of his life. I steeled myself to hear a critique. Instead, the man whose hand I was shaking asked me to pray for him. With tears flowing down his cheeks, he shared that at one time in his life he cared passionately about engaging people with the gospel but that he had “lost it.” His despair was truly frightening.

In my encounters with fellow Mennonites, I try to make sense of the mixed signals. According to some surveys, a quarter of Mennonites report a keen missional consciousness. These encounters with fellow-believers leave me feeling encouraged. However, I meet just as many people who seem to have lost it. They have lost the capacity to share about Jesus and, sadly, do not seem to care about that loss. A few years ago I received a letter from a fellow Mennonite who berated me for believing that we should invite others to encounter Jesus. These encounters leave me saddened and discouraged about the identity and future of Mennonites. 

I find hope in encountering some Mennonites, mostly immigrant and newly emergent congregations, who are sincere in their witness. We are a community that encompasses both those with an apathy about having lost our capacity for witness to Jesus and many who share an enthusiasm to be aligned with God’s purposes for healing and hope in the world. Churches are dying for lack of witness, and new churches are being planted in many places around the world and across the street in many communities in this country.

Have we made progress? I believe the jury is still out. Will we allow ourselves to tolerate a further erosion of our capacity for witness through accommodation to the relativism in our culture? Alternatively, will we recover our identity as heirs to the Anabaptist tradition marked by such an enthusiasm to share about Jesus that it makes us willing to endure the discomfort of boldly proclaiming Jesus in a culture that has little place for him? In some places we have made great strides in our interest and capacity to bear witness to Jesus. In other parts of our church we have seen overall declension. The choices we make in our lives and in our local congregations about allowing ourselves to become the “sent ones” will determine our future and answer this question.

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Richard Showalter
President of Eastern Mennonite Missions

We are farther along than we were six years ago in intent to be a missional church. The “missional church” language is understood and affirmed by more. Professor Patrick Keifert’s prophetic word says “the whole church is missional when it is as much ‘church sent’ as it is ‘church gathered.’ ” Though this has made us less comfortable, we believe that Keifert is right.

There are signs that we are beginning to change our behavior. This past summer, members of West End Mennonite Fellowship of Lancaster, Pa., under the leadership of pastor Josef Berthold, spent time each week interacting with their neighbors on their turf, where we, not they, are most vulnerable. Last year, Elizabethtown district of Lancaster Mennonite Conference distributed free hoagies in a neighboring town. This year, the bishops and credentialed leaders also took “plunges” into our surrounding communities, meeting and blessing those they met. Congregations such as Ephrata, Lititz and Weaverland report exciting developments in outreach to local youth.

Such activities do not in themselves make us any more missional than operating day-care centers, serving new immigrants, reaching out to prisoners, giving to AIDS victims, working for peace and justice or going to Thailand to work in community development—more common ventures among us. However, they indicate a vector, intentionally moving beyond our church walls in new ways with kingdom purpose.

Yet the overarching challenges are not small. With membership standing now at about 16,000, Mennonite Church USA’s largest conference, Lancaster, has experienced a 20 percent decline in this decade, in contrast to steady increases in those preceding. Thank God that numbers are not the only measure of church health. Sometimes, indeed, they are positively misleading. I pray that in this case they may only partly conceal a deep, new turning to God, issuing in all kinds of practical steps in local and global witness.

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Loren Horst
President of Virginia Mennonite Missions 

Congregations are reaching out. While congregations will always struggle to keep a right balance between maintenance and mission, almost every congregation is trying. “Mission,” though variously defined, is still one of the highest values in the church.
There is a resurgence of new church formation, albeit taking various forms. Church planting is again on the rise. A recent tally by a number of conferences in the east totaled 47 new churches or ministries in some stage of vision and formation.

The pace is accelerating compared with the last number of years. While the number of people willing to be supportive of church planting may have declined a bit, they still represent 78 percent of Mennonite Church USA members, according to Conrad Kanagy’s Church Member Profile. That translates into 6,678 people in my own conference. The challenge is to help people move from “willing” to “doing.”

Mennonite Church USA is becoming more global and multicultural. Nearly 30 percent of the members in my conference are members of racial-ethnic churches. Such congregations are the growing edge of our denomination, so the percentage will continue to grow. Such congregations still do not carry corresponding authority or responsibility for Mennonite Church USA, so work remains to be done.

Most congregations now have members who are globally aware, and many are even capable of mounting mission efforts far beyond our borders or neighborhoods, with or without the help of mission agencies. Some confusion will result, but given the choice between orderly control and a dynamic Holy Spirit global movement, I’ll take the latter.

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