Church and Mission: Theological Guidelines for mission 21

A suggestion for discussion adopted by the Board on...

The Content of Mission

According to its statement of intent, mission21 is a worldwide fellowship of churches, missionary societies and organizations active in development. It understands itself as an international learning fellowship for sharing experiences of life and faith.

Mission 21 follows the definition offered by the World Council of Churches:” Mission has wholistic meaning: preaching and sharing the good news of the Gospel by word (kerygma), deed (diakonia), prayer and worship (liturgia) and the daily witness of Christian life (martyria); teaching as the building up and strengthening of persons in their relation to God and to each other and healing as wholeness and reconciliation toward koinonia-community with God, humanity and all of creation.” (Quelle und genaues Zitat? )

By the use of the name”mission 21”, we acknowledge the ambivalent history of the various missionary organizations joined together in it. This implies the constructive examination of that history.

Mission is one of the marks of the church

The worldwide fellowship of those who believe in God through Jesus Christ makes up the church.

In mission the church addresses itself to those outside it. It relates to the world through service and proclamation. This includes the creation and all of human society. Thus mission is an indispensable mark of the church.

In connection with the radical world-political changes of the middle of the 21st Century, the church has come more and more to understand itself as a worldwide ecumenical network of relationships.

God’s liberating acts determine the church’s doing and being; it seeks to order itself accordingly. In mission 21 churches and church organizations from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America are joined together. The missionary task moves them to encourage each other as well as to call each other into question.

 The visible coherence of church and mission

Both mission as “movement” and church as “community” have constituted themselves in the course of time as missionary societies and as institutionalized churches. To some extent they have gone and continue to go their separate ways.

The historic missionary societies have contributed to the development of the worldwide ecumenical movement in its present form. This has led to various forms and models of partnership.

Mission 21 understands itself as having part in this historic development. It seeks for forms which demonstrate that mission and church belong unwaivably together. As an international fellowship it seeks to assure that all partners may share fully in decision making.

The worldwide economic imbalance shapes and influences relationships among churches.

Thus mission 21 has set as its goal the elimination of the gradient between” mission management” and “mission churches”.

Mission 21 seeks a relationship to the organized churches of Switzerland and Southwest Germany that accords with its prophetic task. It regards its institutional independence as an advantage. At the same time mission 21 enters upon binding agreements with the churches of Switzerland and, through the EMS, with those of Southwest Germany. Thus it makes visible their belonging together.

Mission as a network of communication

The work of the missions now joined together in mission 21 led to the development of reciprocal relationships between churches in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. We wish to realize these relationships in such a way that the churches may make fruitful use of their respective gifts in their tasks.

They are to be encouraged to live the hope that fills them.

Through mutual exchange we come to recognize how God is present among us and what future he opens to humanity.

We are mindful that mission 21 should make it easier for churches from the economically and militarily powerful countries to relate to those of less privileged lands-and to excluded and marginalized people. The same applies to relationships in the opposite direction. In this mission 21 assumes its prophetic task and, under the mandate of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, strives for justice. It stands for the interests of the disadvantaged, even when it becomes uncomfortable.

The Mission Synod as the fellowship of those “on the way”

In the Mission Synod partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America are represented in the decision-making structures and participate in those decisions.

The term, “synod” illumines the ecclesial and spiritual dimensions of this gathering. “Syn-hodos” means the way traveled together. Thus the Mission Synod is at once an event and also part of a process developed in common. What is done and decided is therefore always provisional and oriented to present circumstances. The Synod is the expression of our trust in God’s acting and of our hope of being moved and led by His Spirit.

It is a God-given fellowship in which people of the most varied origins find their places.

They should find their way in life and be respected for their gifts.

In periods of three years mission 21 sets its course and determines the emphases of its work.

Through the constructive examination of our own history we build upon what was good and venture into the future with confidence in God’s presence with us.