From the editor

Ten years ago to the month, delegates at Nashville 2001 voted to create Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada. The 2001 delegate workbook offered an audacious look at the future of our new national church body. According to the document, “Imagining the Future: 2001 to 2011,” this is some of what 2011 was supposed to look like:

• 75 percent of congregations are active in urban mission partnerships, and more than 2,000 people are participating in a year of service;

• the 2011 assembly celebrates partnerships with 10 other national Mennonite church bodies;

• enrollment of Mennonite students in Mennonite seminaries has doubled since 2001;

• the Ecumenical Stewardship Center reports that Mennonites top its giving chart for the first time;

• a newly created Mennonite Peace Center plays a key role in the passage of peace tax fund legislation that pays for peace instead of war;

• Mennonite artists and musicians complete a new, illustrated electronic hymnal;
• a new merger process begins with the goal of Mennonite Church USA joining some related Anabaptist groups.

What happened?

I don’t recognize any of these characteristics in the Mennonite Church USA of 2011. Why did we so completely miss the mark set for ourselves? If we believe God’s Spirit moves in the midst of the gathered church—even when doing business in a delegate session—how could this happen?

I see many reasons; some may consider them excuses:

1. Much of the language in 2001 was about what we were going to do for God in the next 10 years. But since that time, we have come to understand that being a missional church is not about what we can do. It is about what God is already doing and then discerning how we can join in God’s work.

2. Two months after the vote to form Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada, the U.S. church was traumatized by 9/11. We found it more important to think about Islam and unforeseen U.S. wars in Muslim countries.

3. The Great Recession required retrenching and reordering priorities for many church institutions that just wanted to survive.

4. A 2008 attempt by the Executive Board to create a “one board” model diverted institutional and leadership time and money that could have been directed toward some of those 2001 goals.

5. The primary way we’ve done business in delegate sessions has required delegates to respond to what leaders have brought to them rather than discerning direction together as a spiritual community.

This last reason may be something Mennonite Church USA can address. If delegates approve a proposal called the “Pittsburgh Experiment” during this summer’s convention, they will establish goals and priorities for the next biennium through a different process. Instead of delegates debating resolutions, leaders want a new process that can generate a purposeful plan. In the Pittsburgh Experiment, such a process would focus on listening for the Holy Spirit, praying, listening to each other and discerning how the church should respond to God’s love and care for us and the world.

If the process generates new goals for the next 10 years, realization of those goals will confirm that such discernment put us in touch with what God is doing already.