WINNIPEG, Canada -- A unique opportunity to think about global partnerships was a highlight of the Mennonite Church Canada Council of Boards here March 2-4.

The Canadian conference invited three Mennonite World Conference (MWC) leaders to interact with each program commission. They asked questions like: How does your work intersect with the work of MWC? How could we develop partnerships with other Mennonite church bodies around the world?

"Almost historic" is how Larry Miller, MWC executive secretary, described the meetings. Hardly any churches in the north are asking in a systematic way how they can relate to a global church, he noted.

Ron Sawatsky, Mennonite Church Canada moderator, said the conversations with MWC " allow us not to forget the rest of the church as we make a new beginning," referring to the formation of Canadian and USA church bodies, each bringing together the former General Conference and Mennonite Church congregations.

In 1900, said Miller, Mennonites numbered about 225,000 in nine countries, with only about one percent in Asia, Latin America and Africa. In 2000, the Mennonite family includes 1.1 million baptized believers, representing 75 languages in some 8,000 churches in 60 countries; 55 percent are from Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Mesach Krisetya, MWC president and university teacher in Indonesia, described the new vision for the changing demographics.

"The church in the south is no longer the object of mission," he said, "but has the same call to mission." He advocated "people to people" relationships that "bring about space where wealthy and poor can work together in mutual accountability."

"Mission agencies [North American based], useful as they are, have been overtaken by koinonia (communion)," commented Krisetya. The "blessings of 'communion-ship,'" he suggested, include the "spiritual inspiration that comes when you discover that someone believes in you." He further declared that he would step down as MWC president if it remained "just a conference"--that is, an occasional gathering rather than an organization which fosters global interdependence.

"You need us, and we need you," summarized Bedru Hussein, MWC vice-president, and a leader in the fast-growing Meserete Kristos Church of Ethiopia. He envisioned a world communion in which the "mouse" can indeed "dance with the elephant."

Specific ideas for global exchange emerged as the MWC leaders met with each commission, for example:

• Canadian Mennonite Bible College Board. The school already has teacher exchanges with the Philippines; faculty have also taught in Paraguay and Lithuania, and the student body includes a growing "Korean community" and students from other countries.

  "We need to systematize the exchanges-beyond professors from the north needing places for a sabbatical," suggested Miller. A "global inventory of gifts," he said, could provide a better "match of competency and need."

  Too often "theology is like roasted wheat which can't be planted," commented one of the MWC leaders. "Theology needs to be contextualized."

  Miller reported on specific proposals: a "Mennonite seminary education world-wide" program-a three-year summer course in each region of the world to bring Anabaptist teaching to seminary students enrolled in the seminaries of other denominations; "Mennonite world university"-a distance learning model which MWC is currently assessing.

• Ministries Commission. Miller listed some MWC activities related to mission: a global gifts inventory; a francophone network (for Mennonites from Congo, Europe and Quebec); a Global Anabaptist Missions Consultation to be held in Guatemala this summer. According to Miller, MWC envisions this consultation becoming a regular forum that meets at last once every three years "to speak to questions of global priorities."

  As an example of global mission partnership, Hussein told about contacts between Mennonites in Russia and Ethiopians before they went underground from 1982-1991. Ethiopians visited with Russians, said Hussein, to learn from their experience with persecution.

  "I'm energized by this global vision!" exclaimed Linda Toutsaint, an aboriginal Canadian member of the commission from Black Lake, Saskatchewan. In response to her excitement, Krisetya responded: "This is the voice of the south as well. You are our prophet!"

• Leadership Commission. After hearing of the need for leadership training in some churches, the commission decided to turn over to MWC 10 percent of money it receives for its pastoral leadership development fund, Company of 1000.

  In its concluding session on Saturday, the General Board gave "support in principle" to four MWC requests to Mennonite Church Canada (see sidebar), and expressed interest in continuing conversations, possibly through a "global ministries coordinator" or a commission to work on global partnerships.

(sidebar)
FOUR REQUESTS PRESENTED TO MENNONITE CHURCH CANADA BY MWC

The following requests were presented to Mennonite Church Canada by three Mennonite World Conference (MWC) leaders on March 4:

1. Write global church into the core of Mennonite Church Canada theology, culture, structure, strategy and development (as it already is in the ecclesiological sections of the "Confession of Faith") and name MWC, at the appropriate places in the appropriate documents, as your primary way of belonging to the global Anabaptist-Mennonite church.

2. Assume fully your role as a MWC member church: participate fully in MWC councils, decisions, projects; pay full fair-share of MWC's core budget; pay negotiated share of project budgets and special services; represent and promote MWC in the Mennonite Church Canada constituency.

3. Request negotiation of "statement of mutual expectations" and "joint ventures" or partnerships between Mennonite Church Canada and MWC; begin negotiations as soon as possible.

4. Use multilateral MWC as context for Mennonite Church Canada bilateral partnerships.

AN EDITORIAL: VISION FOR PARTNERSHIPS
by Ron Rempel, editor, Canadian Mennonite

The vision for Canadian partnerships with churches in other countries got a major boost in a recent three-day conversation between leaders from Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite World Conference.

It was intriguing that Canadian leaders set aside so much time for these talks, amidst a full agenda of program and budget discussions. Not the least of this agenda is the complex process of sorting out Canada-U.S. relations, now that the new Mennonite Church has formed itself into two country-based churches.

What became clear to me as I listened in on the conversation is the connection between the "transformation" vision in North America and the vision of forming partnerships beyond this continent. The two visions are expressions of the same larger whole.

For example, in their most recent set of guidelines, the Canadian and U.S. transformation teams agreed on the following "essential conditions for successful partnership:"

• identity and respect ("A partner is not the object of ministry but is a 'co-worker' in a shared ministry");

• compatibility and mutuality ("All parties see their own objectives being advanced");

• accountability and trust ("Each will be willing to participate in accountability processes involving the other");

• solidarity and communion ("Partnership goes well beyond structure and program to an awareness of being in communion with each other because we are in communion with God and sense human solidarity with the needs of the other").

These conditions sound remarkably similar to those set forth by Mennonite World Conference (MWC) leaders. The leaders from the south don't want to be seen only as objects of mission. "We have the same call to mission," they declared. The MWC leaders called for acceptance of "global church" as the "fundamental operating principle." Within this principle, they suggested, "each gift and institution belongs to the whole body."

They also used the language of communion (koinonia)--a term increasingly used by Christians all over the world to describe the essential nature of the church. A recent World Council of Churches document, for example, states: "The notion of koinonia allows separated Christians to recognize that they already share a profound degree of communion, grounded in their participation together in the life and love of God.. The path to unity is to make that communion ever more visible." (Faith and Order Paper No. 181, The Nature and Purpose of the Church, 1998.)

While the visions articulated by Canadian and MWC leaders sound similar, more work is needed to define the structure of possible partnerships. MWC leaders made it clear they do not want to build an elaborate organization which funds and administers a full range of programs. They kept referring to themselves as an "umbrella"--bringing to mind the giant shamiana (tent) at the 1997 Calcutta Assembly-under which people could meet and work out partnership plans.

Some categories developed by the North American transformation teams could be helpful in developing next steps. In their latest report, they identify three "degrees of partnership" --consulting ministry (conversational, informative); cooperative ministry (time-bound, usually project-centered, emphasis on autonomy over commonality); joint ministry (jointly owned and administered programs).

The Winnipeg conversations provided a stimulating experience of the first degree, with hints of other possible degrees to come.