Our Presbyterian World Mission has sounded
a loud cry of an immediate, dire financial crisis. (See https://www.pcusa.org/news/2015/5/5/presbyterian-world-mission-funding-gap-may-force-r/).
An all-star list of our General Assembly Moderators and other leaders helped to
amplify the cry across our Church with their pastoral letter. Our stellar
mission co-workers, serving in partnership all around the world, are being
called home, new terms of service are being cancelled and our whole
international mission presence faces a massive downsizing. As an Executive
Presbyter serving a Presbytery that has had a long and vital commitment to
Presbyterian World Mission this news breaks my heart. I have sitting on my
bookshelf here at the Presbytery of Carlisle a whole line of those cute, little
statuettes which were given to the “Top-Ten” mission giving presbyteries. (I believe
this little annual recognition was itself cancelled in recent cutbacks.)
Mission leaders in our Presbytery are rallying to raise support for World
Mission, and we hope to provide funding for a new mission co-worker position,
and thus begin to turn the tide on this crisis. For those of us convinced that
the future of our denomination requires closer linkages with global
Christianity, our own Presbyterian World Mission is a vital piece of our common
life.
Nonetheless, it may be that the funding
crisis at World Mission also presents us with the opportunity to ask some
important structural questions:
1) The
recruitment, calling and support of our mission co-workers:
As an Executive Presbyter, I am directly
involved with the employment of many church leaders, especially pastors. In
fact, I guess that in my, one Presbytery I work with the hiring and
installation of more pastors in any given year than World Mission hires
co-workers. Every Presbytery in our Church hires and installs pastors
regularly. In this process, our Presbytery functions with a high degree of
professionalism, competence, consistency and theological rigor. Supporting the process
of pastoral transitions is one of my most important ongoing, job
responsibilities. We have a carefully defined process for hiring pastors which
is rooted in our ecclesiology and supported by our polity. This process has
abundant support from the Office of the General Assembly, including the office
of Vocations, and many theological requirements of this process are defined in
our Book of Order. My question is why
Presbyterian World Mission does NOT
use this well-honed, theologically rigorous process for hiring mission
co-workers. The whole personnel process of World Mission has been subsumed within
the World Mission administration and separated from all direct connection with
our presbyteries and congregations. Why has World Mission created a completely
separate, autonomous personnel process? Why has World Mission created a
personnel process aside from and different from the polity and practice of
every presbytery in the church? I believe I can answer these questions: World
Mission, probably initiated by Robert Speer in the great era of foreign
missions, made decisions to function as a corporation. All the rest of us, i.e.
all the presbyteries and congregations, function as a church. I believe the distinction
between functioning as a corporation and functioning as a church is profound
and irreconcilable.
2) Our
theology of ordination:
One of the most compelling aspects of
our Presbyterian theological vision today is our understanding of ordination as
expressed in the offices of Teaching Elder, Ruling Elder and Deacon. Our
theology of ordination is beautifully articulated in our Book of Order and is a hallmark of modern, Reformed theology today.
My question is why some of our most important church leaders, namely our
mission co-workers, are not included within our theology of ordination. Our
theology of ordination is limited to church leaders serving in our own
congregations and church related institutions. Are not our mission co-workers
serving with partner churches and institutions all around the world worthy of
ordination as much as church leaders serving here at home? Certainly, many of
our mission co-workers are, in fact, ordained officers. But we do not require all mission co-workers to be
ordained officers as we do our installed pastors and session members. I suggest
that all our mission co-workers need to be ordained officers within the PC(USA)
and named as such in the Book of Order.
I will argue for the creation of mission co-worker as an ordained office in
addition to Teaching Elders, Ruling Elders, and Deacons. My preference would be
to begin the long process of constitutional amendment seeking to add mission
co-worker as an ordained officer in the Book
of Order. This potential new church officer as mission co-worker may also
be used to include those that are not already ordained who are emerging to lead
new worshiping communities.
3) Election
by the People:
Please see the Book of Order F-3.0106, “Election by the People”. Clearly one of
the sacred, historic, theological principles of our church is the election of
our church officers by the people. But the long standing, personnel procedures
of Presbyterian World Mission has abandoned this foundational doctrine of our
Church. With this neglect we have lost a vital means by which we connect our
mission co-workers with the Church. Our mission co-workers should be directly
connected with our presbyteries and congregations and elected to service by
these Councils. Thus I suggest that all mission co-workers should be formally
elected to their positions by either a congregation or a presbytery. This is
always our procedure for Teaching Elders, Ruling Elders and Deacons. The hiring
of mission co-workers must stop being an invisible, hidden process held tightly
by World Mission administrative staff. We need an open, public, transparent
search process exactly parallel to the search for a new Teaching Elder. Claiming
this practice of electing our mission co-workers will be a big step toward directly
reconnecting World Mission with our presbyteries and congregations.
In my recent, little book on the history
of our foreign mission work I wrote: “The future of the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.), and all of American mainline Protestantism, will require a greater
immersion in the powerful movements of global Christianity. These connections
will span the globe gathering brothers and sisters from profoundly different
cultures together in the church. When local congregations today see themselves
as part of the remarkable movement of Christianity around the world the spark
of spiritual vitality and energy will fill hearts and our churches. Certainly, congregation-based
mission partnerships are important. There will also be a crucial role for
governing bodies and church councils who seek to create opportunities for
partnership and shared mission practices across the great barriers of culture
and language. And a revitalized, national agency of Presbyterian World Mission
with a team of professional mission personnel is evolving into a leading piece
of the foreign mission enterprise.” (See my The
Presbyterian Mission Enterprise, Wipf and Stock, 2015). May it be so for
Presbyterian World Mission and the future of our PC(USA).
