In follow up to my earlier post, the following is what I presented this past weekend at the Believers Church Conference (Believers Church includes Baptists, Penticostals, Mennonites, Brethren, etc…adult baptizers). I was the the young adult representative on a panel discussing mission and evangelism in light of denominationalism and congregationalism in the Believers church in our time. My answer is based on a personal theology of mission and recent reading as well as conversations I have had with young adults in the Mennonite church.
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Question: “How do young adults desire to engage in the church’s ministry of mission and evangelism? Where do you see possibilities and problems in the church’s approach to mission in our day? Provide illustrations.

The question asked assumes that mission and evangelism exist as departments or branches owned by the church. We know that ultimately mission and evangelism belong to God and so every Christian should naturally engage the world with mission and evangelism through the way they live. The church then is a group of Christians who gather together for mutual encouragement and building up and worship of God. Therefore mission is at the heart of this group of Christians called the church. The church does not design, select, and control mission and evangelism unless the church is purely viewed as a structural organization. If the church is viewed as a body of believers living in the way of Christ, then Christians of all ages, young adult, middle-aged adult, baby adult and old adult, are part of this body and together they engage the world with mission and evangelism because it is integral to who they are as individuals and as a larger body that God has called, is calling and will continue to call.

Michael Frost sums this up well in his book Exiles when he says “In fact I believe that our proper understanding of Christ (Christology) leads us into an appropriate commitment to mission (missiology) which forces us to develop the means of a common life together (ecclesiology). It must happen in that order. Too many churches begin by trying to artificially develop an ecclesiology, determining first where to meet, what songs to sing, what to preach, how to have small groups and leadership structures. Instead…to build a ship, you must first create a hunger for the sea. That hunger comes form our familiarity with Jesus.”

The church cannot exist without mission or evangelism. The church functions as an earthly representative of the body of Christ. It should be seen as a sign of the kingdom of God which is to come and should reflect the truths of the kingdom that we experience here on earth. Any true representation of the kingdom arises out of a unity in Christ. That in essence should be the basis for groups of churches with similar views (known as denominations).

The early church operated as a community in which members served one another following the example of Christ. The wealthier Christians shared what they had with those Christians in need (see Romans 15:25-28, 12:13, 2Cor 8:13-14, Gal 6:10). This generosity was based on Jesus’command to love your neighbour as yourself (Matt 22: 27-40). Healthy relationships and the possibility for reconciliation among members of the body of Christ are possible through this same command (Romans 13:9). The commandment was not new to the believing community since it had been in effect since the time of the exodus (Lev 19:18).

A community cannot function as a Christ-like unit without an attitude of servanthood. The apostle Paul saw his mission intimately connected with the identity of Christ as the Servant in Isaiah. The whole-life mission of the church or the church in mission must be realized within the greater context of God’s salvation-history. This principle was the basis for Paul’s theology of mission and in the same way it should also be central to the core of the church. As a natural result it will be seen in the mission theology of the church. In order to achieve any real unity and fellowship in the church, each member must see others as better than themselves (Phil 2:3-5). This is foundational to our being as local bodies (known as congregations).

Michael and Allen Hirsch, in The Shaping of Things to Come, remind us, “Mission is not merely an activity of the church. It is the very heartbeat and work of God. It is in the very being of God that the basis for the missionary enterprise is found. God is a sending God, with a desire to see human kind and creation reconciled, redeemed, and healed.”

Mission is the church and the church is mission. As members within the church are ministered to, they become energized for mission outside the church and as they minister outside the church, they are energized for mission within the church. As long as the church does not become too inwardly focused and is open to the Spirit of God, it is able to continually give of itself and is thereby representative of the body of Christ. The example of the early church can be used to avoid the dangers of extreme self-focus and misplacement of priorities. Tom Sine says that the churches mission now seems to be the designing of programs to meet the needs of those inside the building or inside the denomination. I would have to agree with him.

I realize that much of what I have said thus far can be labeled “missional” church talk. I know at least that we Mennonites have talked the talk and write prolifically about the walk, but I’m afraid that collectively we Mennonites do not yet walk the walk.

As the individual in the church lives out the call to follow the example of Christ, to love God first and secondly to love your neighbor as yourself, a holistic embodiment of the message results. A “people-orientation” that respects, loves and approaches the “Other” in humility is central to mission. I think that number oriented mission (whether budget, souls converted, or lives physically saved) should be replaced by an emphasis on a whole-life and relationship-centred service in the message and life of Christ. This whole-life orientation that serves to help others is certainly counter-cultural in today’s individualistic society.

In his book The New Conspirators, Tom Sine asks a tough question: Have we settled for a dualistic discipleship in which our faith has very little influence on how we live our daily lives? Have we settled for a compartmentalized piety that has little impact on the direction or major decisions of our lives? Stuart Murray, in his book Post Christendom, indicts much of the Western church for largely abandoning the countercultural, prophetic role in society that often characterized premodern Christian communities. He argues that established churches out of the Christendom model have become little more than a chaplain to the modern culture. For many of us, the dominant culture is more influential in defining the focus and character of our lives than we realize….In spite of our best attempts, we wind up with a dualistic form of discipleship and rarely seem to notice.”

Walter Brugemann has explored a counter-cultural perspective of Christ-like service when he identified this counter to the dominant culture as the alternative consciousness in The Prophetic Imagination. This new perspective is very important mainly because it opens our eyes to the amazing alternatives that Jesus offers in his radical message which contrasted strongly with the cultural message of his time. It is this type of realization that will keep the Christian from becoming complacent or comfortable in a society that numbs us to injustice, inequality, violence, and materialism.

Those young adults who understand and accept the institutionalism of the church are sometimes content to engage the church’s ministry of mission and evangelism through occasional missions trips ( that I believe cater largely to our increasing consumeristic and individualistic culture), and through other approved programs. But their actions most likely will not display the denominational loyalty of times past because they are constantly bombarded by a myriad of choices from every denominational direction and culture dictates an individualistic right to filter these choices. Again from Tom Sine’s The New Conspirators, “Christian leaders need a wake-up call. While interest in traditional religion in declining, interest in spirituality is experiencing a remarkable revival. Australian commentator Philip Johnson states, “Put simply, many people are highly suspicious of institutional and organized religions…The Net generations are growing up in a flood of choices, lifestyles and information. Authority figures in religion are less likely to have “street-creed” because religious ideas can be sussed out with the click of a mouse. ..”

Others, who may be seen as “on the fringe” of the institutional church choose to make mission (as they understand it) a way of life, living in community, focusing on social justice issues and ecological concerns close to home because these are equally aspects of being missional. If loving God means obeying Jesus and this means action then action means living the Way everyday. This means pursuing kingdom here even as we wait for kingdom come. It is most likely a matter of eschatology which impacts our view of stewardship and which impacts our view of social justice.

The possibilities for the church’s approach are many. We exist in a North American culture displaying rampant individualism, consumerism, and materialism together with increased attention to the spiritual, increased desire for community, and increased desire for down to earth products and increased concern for the environment. How does this translate for the church? As a church we are a body that can offer God’s community, God’s down-to-earth integrity and honesty, and God’s love that fills that spiritual hunger as we act in accordance with God’s concern for social justice and stewardship. In addition we live in a world where the church outside North America and Europe is growing at an unprecedented rate. We have the opportunity to learn from these Christian brothers and sisters in partnership and in equality in the eyes of God.

What are the problems? Can we get past our quibbling about music styles, how much technology to incorporate, how many worship bands, what theological interpretations and so on long enough to recognize the hunger that is out there and within ourselves, realize the legitimate basis to accusations of Christian hypocrisy, tune into this, realize how short we have fallen as a church, fall in humility on our knees, and in brokenness embrace those who are crying out to God in their own brokenness? Can we get past patting ourselves on the back for a job well done when the job remains to be done? This is the engagement that the majority of young adults that I know want with the church: An engagement that is the body of Christ, not priding itself on what makes this or that denomination different than another but rather a body that together re-discovers the pain and joy that led real Believers with real life issues together in the first place. This is the real-life joy and pain that results in whole-life worship of God.

In Exiles Michael Frost says “Mission is an expression of Christian worship…the central and most powerful expression of worship” and further “Our works of generosity and hospitality are acts of worship…We are racing into an uncertain future in which our world and our churches face daunting new challenges. To respond to these challenges we must resolve, by the power of God, to become whole life disciples and whole-life communities committed to placing God’s mission purposes at the center or our lives and churches, giving compassionate, creative and celebrative expression to that world that is already here.”

Many say our numbers are declining, many churches are losing people under the age of 35 at a rapid pace. Perhaps some day soon we will no longer have the luxury of meeting to discuss what makes our various denominations distinct from one another or what Christian distinctives make us more alike than other denominations. Perhaps we will have to pull together out of sheer hunger for community in a culture where Christians are no longer the majority, where Christian morals cannot be assumed, where we are forced to explain our in-house language and our lives because they are considered oddities in a society largely defined by a new dominant culture in which our children were raised. Perhaps that day is already here. The answer is not complete separation from this dominant culture, because after all, we are already more greatly influenced by its characteristics than we will ever know. The answer might be to re-realize what makes us unique and counter to the dominant culture as a Believing community living in relationship as people with real problems and weaknesses, as well as gifts and strengths to be celebrated; To creatively re-realize the amazingly difficult simplicity of living our Christian faith every day on the street, at work, on a Sunday or a Monday or a Thursday here or in another country. That is truly how the young adult (who still has interest in the church) desires the church to engage God’s ministry of mission and evangelism.
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Note: I’d like to add a comment that someone brought up in response to this paper - There may be communities of Mennonite young adults who are striving to “live out” faith, but there seems to be a lack of people in general who can verbalize what they are living and share that with others in an understandable way (I hope I’m remembering what was said correctly).

I would add that perhaps this is where we can begin to re-define the word “evangelism”… a simple verbalization of what we are doing when we live out a whole-life faith. This verbalization should be understandable to those inside and outside the church and connect with our contemporary culture in a relevant way. This language should be simple and minimal and must always be accompanied by action since we are guilty of producing far too much language as a denomination already. Perhaps this would cure those of us Mennonites who have an aversion to the word “evangelism”, and help us to realize that the problem does not lie with the word or its real roots, but with the baggage that we understand the word carries.

Another note: what I’m saying is nothing new. Yes I realize that. So what’s wrong with being reminded again….lest we forget?

Hi All, I need your help. I will be presenting at a North American Believer’s Church Conference in about a week and will be representing young adults….ha! This is an impossible task and an enormous responsibility. The context of the overall conference is, I believe, the “tension” between the individual congregation and the denomination. The theme of this particular workshop I’m presenting at is “Missional vision and practice of denominations together with congregations in the Believers Church family: Present-day issues and opportunities.”

The specific questions are:
1. How do young adults desire to engage in the church’s ministry of mission and evangelism?
2. Where do you see possibilities and problems in the church’s approach to mission in our day? Provide illustrations.

Well I have PLENTY to say on these topics but I desperately need the counsel of others of my generation/culture or those who are “young adult” at heart. Questions like these should be answered in community and not by an individual. If you have problems with the language in these questions, by all means, provide alternative language as you answer the question as you understand it. These questions are asked in the context of a discussion about the local (congregational) and global (denominational) roles of the mission of the church and a trend toward “local-centred” mission initiative and the way that a Believer’s Church self-understanding intersects with missional ecclesiology.

I don’t think I’ve ever introduced myself on YAR properly before. I was born in Canada, grew up in E. Africa, went to the US for college (EMU), then worked in Virginia, went to seminary in Manitoba, Canada, spent some time in Mozambique, worked for Mennonite Church Canada and am now headed for Israel/Palestine soon as an international worker for Mennonite Church Canada. Faith-wise, I consider myself Christian anabaptist, from a Mennonite/Methodist family and am currently inspired by emergent/missional writings when they’re real and down to earth. I am often disillusioned with the church but hopeful at the same time.

I’ll post some of my opinions on my topic once a discussion starts :) And I really would appreciate feedback.

Young adults were given 90 minutes of discernment time with delegates at the Mennonite Church Canada Assembly in Abbotsford this year. As the session flew by, the breadth of our responses quickly narrowed, mostly in response to some very insightful questions from the delegate floor. As one of 5 young adult panelists, the challenge for me was to focus my answers to represent voices I’ve heard again and again from young adults in the Mennonite church. Given the width of the questions, focusing answers on key thoughts was not easy.

If I were to sum things up, I would say the focus became, “Why is the present heart of the Mennonite church in today’s culture being labelled an issue of young adults and the future of the church?”

The session was led by MC Canada executive staff and began with an introduction to generational characteristics, then moved on to interaction with the panel of Canadian young adults. These 5 young adults were asked to reflect on what relationships meant to them, what gives them passion, and what community means in relation to church. Clips from the newly launched BikeMovement documentary and a radio interview with Sarah Thompson of Mennonite World Conference Amigos were also included.

Congregational delegates of all ages who came forward to speak on the floor shared that the concerns of practical application, hospitality, openness, and integrity in faith are not only young adult desires for the church; they are characteristics that are part of a living, growing, and thriving church. They are characteristics that people of all ages yearn for in church.

Delegates were asked to affirm through raising of hands, that they did think young adults and their inclusion in church was a necessary and vital component to the life of the Canadian church. But conversations following the affirmation showed that delegates had more on their minds than generic affirmations….

Conversations after the session and through lunch were intriguing and it has taken me a few days to recognize a pattern. There were conversations with people who offered general affirmation of our willingness to “get involved” with the assembly sessions and with church life.

Secondly there was a theme of apology. We received multiple apologies for the generic nature of an affirmation statement that could have been affirmed by anyone anywhere in the church. Some delegates were sincerely sorry that this affirmation statement did not address what they thought was the heart of young adult concern about church community.

Thirdly we heard from those in the church who themselves feel disempowered and who saw this event as a space for marginal voices to be heard. I was surprised by the passion and the diversity of discussion as people of various ages privately shared their frustrations or feelings of alienation from the church. Together we created a space where people felt safe to share their concerns about church and topics such as Mennonite political involvement, sexual orientation, aboriginal representation, and women and power in the church.

What does all of this mean and what do I take from this assembly experience? I think we are a church wondering how to reconcile our diverse theological identity with a cultural identity that has, and continues to quickly move away from Russian/Swiss/North American Mennonitism to a global Anabaptist/Mennonite reality. Some in the church have been in a place of ambiguity for a while and others claim that the church has nothing to do with ambiguity.

As North American Mennonite young adults meeting and talking about these concerns, I think that we have created breathing room for those within and without the structure of the church to hear others’ voices and to be heard themselves. Perhaps we can hear each other with respect and find a unified way forward that continues to create a space where one cultural voice or agenda is not championed over another.

A safe space like this could free our imaginations…do we dare imagine that, beyond having a plan for the church, God has dreams for the church?

Maybe a small breathing space in the church will offer freedom for the Spirit to move, and maybe all of us will be surprised at what eventually evolves in the ambiguity. I for one need to realize that it’s OK to let go of personal agenda and admit that I don’t really know where this conversation will lead.

“Aaaiii, Hinke!” yelled Amina as she bounded out to hug my brother and me, during a recent visit to her home. Then after many greetings she danced off to the family cucumber fields to give the news of our arrival to her mother and sisters. Amina and I had last seen each other 13 years earlier but for much of our childhoods we grew up together in Tanzania. Her father, Juma, had worked for my family and had been like a second father to me.

Quickly the entire family gathered and we caught up on 13 years of family news. Several hours later we were all sitting down to a meal of ugali (a paste made of maize meal and water) and mchicha (Tanzanian greens), as well as a few celebratory sodas bought at a nearby kiosk. We sat in the dirt yard, seated on wooden stools and ate from a communal dish.

“Hinke, my sister, why aren’t you eating?” asked Juma’s son Athumani in Swahili, after I had eaten a few handfuls of food.

I grinned at him and answered, “I am eating, but I’m also listening,” It was the same response I had given to the same question when I was a child.

He shook his head and said mischievously, “You are the same as you always were. Eat.” I gave him a look of mock annoyance and we both felt a distinct sense of home.

This past Christmas I was privileged to return to Kenya and Tanzania for my vacation. Returning to familiar childhood and adolescent haunts evoked surprising emotions as well as new self-discoveries. The voice of Africa has whispered almost inaudibly throughout my years away. African perspectives influence my principles, my decision-making, and my faith. Like that of most transient, world-travelling young adults, my faith has been shaped by various voices. It is only when I consciously stop and listen that I hear each individual cultural melodic strain that together compose the symphony of my faith.

The notes of community were given to me as a gift not only by the African people but also through the stories of the Bible and the stories of Anabaptism passed down by my grandparents and parents. All of these gifts taught me that people live out God’s purpose together as a larger family and not only as individuals. With community there is a future in faith and peace. My generation of North Americans constantly searches for community meaning in a world where individualized experiences and products are packaged to match our consumeristic whims. We cannot take the gift of community for granted. It is this community that keeps us true to ourselves and to God as we interact from a variety of backgrounds, cultural environments, and even from a variety of faiths.

In a community others call us to accountability and honesty in relationship. The musical strains of honesty, humility, and integrity are amazingly simple when they are taken at face value. Hardship and daily struggle for the most basic of needs in Africa makes simplicity a reality that cannot be avoided and should not be romanticized. The Anabaptist ancestors have handed down ethics of simplicity that demand honesty and integrity in relationship. Without this integrity, all attempts at simple living are rendered utterly fruitless. This gift of simplicity is more endangered than it seems, for we humans have the innate ability to endlessly complicate our lives and to fool ourselves into thinking we are in control at the simplest of levels. In our attempts to create efficiencies and programming, we miss those rare glimpses of genuine humility in relationship. Those are the spontaneous moments that can bring us to our knees in humble realization of our own frail humanity.

Community and humility; these are only two of a much larger collection of melodies that come together to compose my faith. A Mennonite young adult is easily and understandably overwhelmed by the many voices speaking into Anabaptist faith today. With all of these melodies running chaotically around me, I might easily give into paralysis or apathy and choose to float on the waves of whatever life brings my way. Right now, I choose to consciously study each of these melodies that has informed my faith in both negative and positive ways.

The culture of my postmodern generation tells me to value community but this same generation searches for community that brings the most meaning to self. Africa tells me to value community but African community suffers at the hands of corrupt leaders who act in their own interest. Anabaptism tells me to live simply and with honesty but Mennonites today have yet to honestly face the reality of a cultural and global paradigm that is already silently informing future Mennonite generations. The church pays the price in youth and young adults who leave. My young adult generation tells me to speak plainly and not to put faith in language and words as they often contain hidden agenda and assumed meaning. Yet here I am, using language to convey ideas that will speak plainly to some and seem gibberish to others.

It is a confusing collection of stories. Because of Christ, I can see the examples of his life, the stories of the Anabaptists, and the stories of Africa come together to form a terrible and beautiful symphony of faith. The end goal must be to live out our faiths in a way that is meaningful as a community that owes its existence and purpose to God.

In this symphony the melodies work together, some louder than others, and each becomes more beautiful as they temper each other’s rough edges. Paradoxically, the simplicity of Jesus’ way empowers us to face our own complicated experience of faith and allows those experiences to rest in tension with each other forming an integrated whole.

At last years North American Young Adult Fellowship meeting I met others who find themselves in a similar position of inundation by a diverse collection of faith melodies. These young adults spoke about how their faith interacts with the church. They spoke of church as a place for gathering, but also as a people that focus on justice and peace issues. Church is also being vulnerable, accountable, and open to the moving of God’s Spirit. Church is an everyday activity and part of our lifestyle as we empower each other to creatively transform the world around us. Church is honouring our heritage and redefining Anabaptism in today’s world in a way that allows us to relevantly engage those around us. In essence then, church is living our Christian faith, a living out of all those melodies that must somehow come together to form something meaningful.

Last summer, North American young adults took part in a bike tour that visited more than 19 congregations across the northern part of the United States. It sought to transform those many voices into one unified experience of intentional community while initiating and inviting conversation about the church. Experiences like these empower us to listen intentionally to those individual melodies that inform our faith, to take ownership of them, celebrate them, and with God’s help, to weave them into something that makes sense to our whole selves, as individuals and as community.

No one can assume that everyone is informed by the same melodies. We cannot assume that all have heard the same stories of Anabaptists or the same stories of God’s people through the Bible. In today’s world we are not all raised in one geographic location or by a distinct faith community. We do not all receive the same Mennonite lessons in ethics or principles. My generation and the generations following me receive information and values from a rich variety of geographic, philosophical, and theological sources. The internet and the accessibility of global travel are some examples of how this generation is particularly enculturated to hear many voices at once.

It is a culture that makes the real sense of home or community more rare than it once was, and it is not a culture that suddenly passes like a phase. Moments like the one with Juma’s family are valuable and humbling reminders of who we are when all pretences and busyness are stripped away.

To a large extent, the stories of previous generations define our current Mennonite church and faith culture in Canada. We have new stories and new beautiful melodies that must be written into the greater story of our Anabaptist faith history. With God’s guidance, we can filter through the many voices informing us, through the beautiful and challenging stories of our lives and those around us. Slowly and carefully we form an understanding of Anabaptism and what it means to be Mennonite in our world today. We may not be of the world, but we are definitely in it. I have faith that we as a young generation of Anabaptists will, by the grace of God, create our own symphonies of faith and give these as gifts to a world that is crying out for us to play our part.

An abridged version was published in the Canadian Mennonite Vol.11, No.9 (April 30, 2007) www.canadianmennonite.org