Global Episcopal Mission network up and running
Episcopal News Service. June 26, 1996 [96-1503]
Charlie Rice, Communications Assistant for the Diocese of Southern Ohio
(ENS) "I worked in the House of the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta. I found myself sitting next to a 15-year-old boy who was Christ," Rick Harvey of Idaho told more than 100 people attending the first Global Episcopal Mission (GEM) conference in Nashville, Tennessee, in June. "I washed his dirty blankets. I bathed him, and touched the scars on his arm. I was Thomas until I touched those wounds."
Harvey added, "I don't think that there are any tracks in the sand of India because of my shoes, but there is sand in my shoes from India."
Stories of how missionary work like Harvey's changes lives -- both here and abroad -- were the essence of the five-day conference which focused on the future of overseas missions for the Episcopal Church.
But the conference -- described as a mission education institute -- also talked about the realities of doing mission work and issued some challenges to encourage the Episcopal Church to "own" its corporate name: The Foreign and Domestic Missionary Society.
Missionary activity by the Episcopal Church in recent decades has dwindled, partly because of funding, but also because of a lack of clarity about missionary work, speakers indicated. And representatives from dioceses in Africa, Asia, Central America and other countries reminded attendees that missionary work from North America and Europe is not something which can -- or should -- be "done" to them.
Facing the hard reality that the number of appointed missionaries of the Episcopal Church has dwindled from more than 500 in the 1950s to 26 this year, the bishops and diocesan members of the Global Episcopal Mission Network (GEM) are organizing themselves into a new diocesan-based mission network that "will support mutually responsible and inter-dependent relationships among dioceses within the Episcopal Church and within the Anglican Communion."
It all began during the General Convention in Indianapolis in 1994.
"When I heard at the last General Convention that we were going to cut mission spending again, I talked to Bishop Thompson and we got going," said co-convener Bishop Richard Grein of New York.
Bishop Herbert Thompson of Southern Ohio concurred, adding, "The last General Convention was a wake-up call. Mission work has long been a function of the national church -- disassociated from the parish and the diocese. This is very different from the New Testament idea. Through GEM, we are providing a new model that keeps missionaries connected" primarily at the local level.
GEM is not designed to replace or compete with missionary work at the national level. Rather, it is creating a network of parishes and dioceses working together to support mission work here and abroad.
Bishop David C. Jones. suffragan bishop of Virginia, explained, "We are not creating a funding group, but we are a group of funders who desire to be in touch with one another. We are an integral part of the infrastructure of mission. The concern that we have is that sending agencies don't have resources available. This is a dimension that we need to address together."
Grein added that "with local responsibility comes local funding. By 'owning' missionaries who report back, keeping us up to date on their activities, funding and interest are stimulated."
The Rev. Canon John Peterson, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, opened the conference with a challenge.
"Our mission is to tell people about Jesus Christ," Peterson said. "But we must show our allegiance and love by our actions. Action is key. Jesus healed, Jesus touched, Jesus consoled. We must show the people of this world who do not know Christ what it means to be a Christian."
As the Decade of Evangelism enters its seventh year, Petersen said, the Anglican Communion must be ready to enter the Third Millenium with the clear understanding of what it means to be a missionary church.
Stories of successful missionary work abounded.
"In Nigeria, you're going to find that people are very lively, despite everything," Bishop Benjamin Kwashi of Jos, Nigeria, told youth delegates. "A good portion of the church is full of young people. I spoke at the Anglican Youth Conference in Nigeria last year, and there were 7,000 young people. That was a low turn-out because of the political instability. I've seen nearly 13,000 before."
At youth events, the young people "pray from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.," Kwashi said. "They will sing, dance and pray all night. I love them and they love me too -- even though I can't always stay up with them all night. There is a gentle revival taking place. We don't understand it, but we're seeing it happen."
Peterson also told the youth, "For any of you in any part of the Communion, I would encourage you to participate, be it in Honduras, be it in Nigeria, be it in Jerusalem, be it in the United States, wherever. Your lives will be dramatically changed, because you will have touched the mission of the church, that is the people of the Church of God."
Many delegates shared their concerns about the lack of participation in mission work at the parish level. Pam Boston of Oregon said, "I've heard of numerous parishes that have an annual Mission Sunday, when they want someone to come in to 'do something about mission' for the day. We need to get past that, and make mission an everyday concern and matter of daily prayer."
"The first enemy of mission is parochialism," explained Grein. "In my first parish the only new item of business at one meeting was the purchase of a new vacuum cleaner. We talked about it for two hours, and people actually got heated up about it. Unless the people of God have a context, they will kill themselves on the little things. The larger context is global mission."
Delegates from 35 member dioceses officially established the GEM Network by approving incorporation papers, adopting by-laws, proposing a 1997 operating budget, and electing a 12-member board to oversee the future of mission work. They also wrestled with 19th-century assumptions, stereotypes and past abuses of missionaries.
"Sometimes we feel that we have all the answers," said Pat Powers of Western New York. "We forget that the receiving church probably knows more about how to do mission than we do."
Thompson agreed. "We've had to come to grips with the excesses and abuses of the past. We've also had to come to terms with our past complicity in colonialism. For these we repent."
"We need to be more concerned with the receiving churches than we have been in the past," added Bishop Onell Soto, former Bishop of Venezuela now assisting in Atlanta. "It is important not to impose a missionary on a diocese."
But despite drastic cuts in U.S. foreign aid and budget cuts by the national church, Soto declared that "GEM ought to be congratulated. At a time when there seem to be many voices calling for isolation in America, GEM is calling us to global mission."
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