Leadership: A word from Mennonite Church USA leadership

During the past four years, I have felt a special calling to help the Mennonite Church USA Executive Board and staff focus on our vision (see below) and our purpose of becoming a missional church at all levels. However, when I first agreed to accept the moderator-elect position, I did not understand the words “missional church” or anticipate how these words would shape my thoughts and actions during my term of service.

As a lay person, I admit I do not fully grasp the nuances of missional church theology. After learning from others, I have embraced five points as the foundation for my missional church thinking:

• God sent Jesus to the whole world.
• God is already active in and throughout the world.
• The congregation is God’s primary agent and strategy of mission.
• We are a sent people, not just a sending people.
• Participating in God’s mission is not a program of the church but the center of all that we do.
  These concepts focus our efforts across all levels of our church toward the following:
• equipping and encouraging individual church members to be people through whom God’s healing and hope flow to the world;
• supporting congregational leaders as they equip every member to be engaged in God’s work in the world;
• discerning together God’s desires for us as we join in the transforming work of Jesus in the world;
• worshiping together in the Spirit, seeking the grace, joy and peace of God that come from participating in Christian community.

As Pittsburgh 2011 (our denomination’s next biennial convention) approaches, we hope you will experience how these missional-church-inspired efforts are shaping our work and will influence the work of the delegates at convention. Both before and at the convention, you will hear about how various groups and people within the church are working to clarify their vision and align their activities based on missional theology. The experience of Mennonite Church Canada in building capacity for working on difficult theological issues will continue to influence us as we discern the nature of Mennonite Church USA and of God’s desires for us.

At Pittsburgh, the table groups, the Conversation Room and the open-mic times will provide us with opportunities to speak with each other in loving, personal ways about our understanding of Scripture and the movement of the Holy Spirit. Members of the majority culture attending the convention will experience new ways of being the church together in anticipation of the day when all tribes, peoples, languages and nations join together in worshiping the Lamb as one body (Revelation 7:9). Finally, we hope delegates will adopt the so-called Pittsburgh Experiment, through which we will seek to discern together a purposeful plan for our church for the next two years. In all of these things, we trust that delegates will be open to working together in new ways towards the same vision that has united us since its adoption in 1995.

It is clear we are asking for significant commitment and openness from our people across Mennonite Church USA. While all of us are painfully aware of our own limitations and the limitations of our church, our leadership group is confident that with the help of God, Mennonite Church USA can be fully engaged in God’s activities in being reconciled to the world and that the Pittsburgh 2011 gathering can be a step toward that end.

In closing, I want you to know that while the commitment required to serve as your moderator has been significant, filling that role has been a wonderful, life-changing experience. I have had the opportunity to observe our church at its best (as well as during less auspicious times). In each of those circumstances I have been inspired by the faith, devotion and commitment of our people to being faithful followers of Christ. I am confident in our church—in the leadership that has been called to service—and in the knowledge that together our church at every level will find ways to allow God’s healing and hope to flow through us to the world. Thank you for the opportunity to serve.