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MWC Moves Ahead on Support for Global Faith Family and Assembly 15

FRESNO, California — Mennonite World Conference will send a “Koinonia Delegation” to Zimbabwe in 2007 to build communion and fellowship with its members there who continue to endure distress. The team is a response to General Secretary Larry Miller's promise to Zimbabweans on behalf of all participants at the close of Assembly 14 in Bulawayo in 2003: “We will not forget you.”

A larger “Global Anabaptist Deacons” plan is also being formed in response to the service consultation held in Pasadena, California (USA) in March 2006. MWC officers and senior staff moved these support initiatives forward at their meeting here January 5-6, 2007.

They decided to send one international Koinonia delegation in each of the next three years to a different region. The primary purpose of the teams, named by MWC and selected from member churches and volunteers, is to stand in solidarity with churches living in difficult circumstances, not to bring immediate solutions to their problems. Danisa Ndlovu, MWC president-elect and Brethren in Christ bishop of Zimbabwe, told the officers that in his country “each day seems to bring more hardships.” The team will go to Zimbabwe in August at the time of the annual BIC conference.

MWC anticipates sending a team to Asia in 2008 and is also facilitating a Mennonite Church USA “church-to-church” delegation to two churches in the Democratic Republic of Congo in February 2007.

The deacon concept is still being shaped with the intention of creating a “Global Anabaptist Deacon Commission” alongside other MWC commissions. Officers identified three roles for such a commission: to be alert to needs within the global Anabaptist family, to call the global church to prayer and to organize a response.

The majority of MWC member churches are in the South, many of them in particular need. Miller pointed out that while churches perform the role of deacon in their local context, a biblical concept from the first Christian church, and Mennonite service agencies respond generously to world disasters, there is too little attention directed specifically to the global Anabaptist faith family. Global Anabaptist Deacons could help fill that void. Just as importantly, these deacons could also be alert to the diverse needs of the churches in the global North and help the worldwide family of faith to respond.

Part of the goal is to create an ongoing list of potential deacons from which people with appropriate skills would be called for a specific time and particular tasks. MWC, in consultation with host countries, would provide orientation prior to visits. Pakisa Tshimika, Associate General Secretary, and Miller will refine a proposal for a Global Anabaptist Deacons Commission for Executive Committee action in August.

Plans for Assembly 15 are progressing as interest grows inside and outside of Paraguay, particularly in North America and Europe where connections with Paraguay due to many migrations are strong. The Executive Committee, meeting July 31 to August 7, 2007 in Asunción (Paraguay), will decide whether to continue the “continental days” or move to building on the theme from day to day in more of a teaching ministry. They will also decide the theme, taking into account suggestions now being solicited.

With Assembly 15 in Paraguay only two and a half years away, overall MWC funding is in a normal situation. Assembly expenses are accumulating and income, including registration fees which have not yet been set, will rise as the event gets closer. Costs will be significantly higher than for Africa 2003. Thanks in part to a group of donor partners who have made substantial commitments to MWC’s operating fund each year for four years leading up to 2009, MWC has had a good financial year with a positive year-end balance.

Work is continuing on the General Council's action to change MWC councils, functioning for the past 10 years, to commissions. The General Council will not change, however the Peace and the Faith and Life councils are in transition. The Global Mission Fellowship (GMF), whose next meeting will be held in connection with Assembly 15 in 2009, continues with its current goals and membership but is in the process of becoming an MWC commission by 2009.

“Commissions will be a group of people working in the context and on behalf of General Council on issues of concern to MWC member churches. Some of them will be ongoing and others will come and go,” said Miller. While all General Council members were also members of the other councils, commissions will be made up of some General Council members and others named to the commissions because of their particular skills. GMF will name most members of the Mission Commission. The councils met every three years. These smaller groups will be able to meet more frequently and do more in-depth work as issues arise, added Miller.

The intention is to have four commissions initially: Faith and Life, Peace, Deacon and Mission.

Following up on a positive “Global Church Congregations” experience in Pasadena in March 2006, work is being done on a proposal to redefine and broaden the concept to include member churches everywhere. “Global Church Congregations,” will continue in some version,” said Miller.

MWC officials will be part of two significant international delegations in 2007. President Nancy Heisey will lead a delegation of up to nine people, including Miller, to Rome, Italy in response to an invitation from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The meeting, October 19-23, follows up on the report of the five-year international dialogue between Mennonite World Conference and the Catholic Church.

MWC has been given at least three of 250 seats at the Global Christian Forum to be held in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2007. President-elect Danisa Ndlovu, Miller and at least one other person, yet to be named, will attend. The goal of the forum is to bring together representatives of all Christian churches, especially Evangelicals and Pentecostals who are not normally at the table with Catholics, Orthodox and mainstream Protestant churches. Continental forums have been held over the past eight years but this is the first global forum.

— Ferne Burkhardt, MWC news editor