Domestic Missionary Partnership Seeks to Forge Community
Episcopal News Service. March 9, 2000 [2000-056]
Dick Snyder
(ENS) The foundation and form and future of missionary spirituality in the Episcopal Church were explored at the annual meeting of Domestic Missionary Partnership (DMP) February 3-6 in Burlingame, California.
"Building a missionary spirituality can be a gift to the larger church," said Rustin Kimsey, bishop of Eastern Oregon and president of DMP, which comprises 10 dioceses.
"We help small, isolated dioceses feel that they are not so isolated and alone," he said. "We provide a communion for those dioceses to come together, and to enjoy one another and to build on our friendships."
Participants listened to an overview of mission and of authority in the church presented by the Rev. John Kater, professor of ministry development at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.
"Unfortunately, many times in the church's history, faith is presented as part of a package, part of a 'whole' which very often arrived as part of a colonial or imperial package. Christian faith simply provided the religious underpinning," Kater said. "In that kind of missionary strategy, context is irrelevant."
Kater argued that context -- utilizing conversation and interaction with those involved in the missionary strategy -- is essential. He said that prior to the last Lambeth Conference, "the Anglican Communion never tried to realize what diversity means for us. Lambeth permanently changed the Anglican Communion. We will never be able to ignore context again. "The best kind of evangelism is where we learn from our past, our mistakes, and where people make of themselves open, inviting communities," he added.
Bishop Steven Plummer of Navajoland agreed with Kater's presentation about missionary efforts having been made in a colonial or imperial package.
"In the Navajo experience, missionaries came from the government," Plummer said. Those missionaries discouraged use of the Navajo language, ordered children to cut their hair, and tried to make them dress and look "like Anglos," he said.
"You have to be the victim of that kind of experience to understand," he noted. "We now wrestle with how to forgive those who harmed our ancestors. We have to forgive each other and move forward."
Many of the member dioceses of DMP have embraced the concept of total ministry, also known as mutual ministry or collaborative ministry in which, the ministry of all the baptized is recognized and affirmed.
Kater praised the role of total ministry in "claiming the fact that the authority of the community belongs to the community. Ultimately, authority in the church is Christ's, and that is shared with the whole community."
A practical missionary application was presented to the participants by the Rev. John Robertson, interim national staff officer for Native American ministry. He spoke about Gospel-based Discipleship (GBD), a practice he described as being borrowed from the Maori, native people in New Zealand.
He explained that each day, participants -- lay and ordained -- join together to read and reflect on the Gospel, and then share what the Gospel is saying to them. And then they share what the Gospel is calling them to do.
Robertson said that GBD "is not meant to be a program; it's a people-to-people thing. It is not the messenger who is important. It is the message. It's not Bible study; it is Gospel engagement." Where it is in use, it is "re-bubbling-up leadership. What happens is that people begin to emerge as leaders. After consistent use, it turns to amazement and transformation, and then to empowerment of their people," he said.
GBD is in daily use at the diocesan office of the Diocese of Alaska, explained Mary Parsons. It was instituted there by the diocesan bishop, Mark MacDonald.
"I have found my own prayer time to be more frequent, and better quality," she said. She added that GBD can be used "across denominations and cultures."
Robertson concluded that "through determining what the Gospel is saying to us today...that gives us a basis for missionary strategy."
Kater praised the concept of GBD. "It is a way of inviting the community to reflect on the community's book. It's a way of listening to each other, a way of communion. And it helps to hear things that we might not hear for ourselves," he concluded.
Bishop Vernon Strickland of Western Kansas, president-elect of the DMP, agreed the meeting was helpful. "This meeting is lifeblood for us in Western Kansas. We have more in common with the people here than with any other group in the church."
He added that he felt invigorated by the meeting. "I am not interested in 'maintaining,'" he said. "I am interested in mission."
Bishop Keith Whitmore of Eau Claire, who was attending his first DMP meeting, said, "It was wonderful. After three quarters of a year, sort of wandering around in the new office of bishop, it's nice to leave here with some sense of direction and connection."
DMP member dioceses are Utah, Idaho, Eastern Oregon, Western Kansas, Navajoland, North Dakota, Alaska, Nevada, El Camino Real and Eau Claire.