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People in God´s Mission – The Sending of Personel and Cooperation in Personel in global Missions
General Assembly of EMW 2002

1. Introduction: God's Mission and the Mission of Peoples

In 2002 we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Conference for World Mission, held 1952 in Willingen, Germany; this conference was the birth of the concept of "Missio Dei".

While we have in recent years reflected much on fundamental missiological challenges and structural issues, we would now like to focus on the role of persons in the mission of God. Do we still speak of "missionaries", are "missionaries" still needed? What is the image of missionaries, their self-understanding etc.?

2. First Observations – a contradictory picture

Talking about missions and missionaries, we find a contradictory picture today. There are four aspects:

In secular society and partly also in curch circles there is still a negative image of missions and missionaries (colonialism, arrogance, fanatism etc.); we have to refer also to critical voices towards mission and missionaries among representatives of churches in the South (Bishop Azariah's speech in Edinburgh in 1910, the discussion around the Moratorium in the 1970ties, the commitment of local churches towards inculturation and self-reliance etc.); we have today in the world more missionaries than ever before in history (statistics of Barrett: In 2001 we have globaly 425.000 missionaries working, in 1970 only 240.000); most missionaries come from North America and a new missionary force comes from Korea. Most of the missionaries have today evangelical leanings, emphasizing the urgendy of world evangelization; the number of missionaries - or people sent out for missions – in the membership of EMW (that is the mission agencies of the ecumenical orientated mainline churches) has declined in recent years (1989: 1.095 persons, spring 2002: 701 persons); the number of missionaries of evangelical agencies has increased (official number of 1989: 529, in 2000: 969, in 2001: 937; in fact, there are about 3000 missionaries in service of evangelical missions in Germany, but there the number has also come to a stillstand: evangelical mission schools in Germany experienced a drop in the last ten years of more than 30 percent in numbers of candidates offering themselves for missionary training);

These observations make the question even more urgent what the role of missionaries is today and whether we still need missionaries.

3. A look into history: From "pioneer missionary" to missionary service in partnership cooperation

The modern missionary movement, starting with William Carey developed a professional profile and a professional image of the "missionary". The theological accentuation of the missionary task could differ (winning of individual souls, building of churches, cultural mission), but there was a very clear image of what a missionary was. Usually he was an ordained theologian, distinguished from "non-theological" support staff (social, diakonical, educational, medical service etc.). Mission was distinguished from diaspora work among German migrants in other countries, missionaries were trained in special seminaries for missionaries and received not only theological education. A professional image of a female missionary occurred – at least in Germany – late on the scene of mission, but was accepted at the end of the 19th century.

A turning point in the understanding of the role of a missionary was the world mission conference of Whitby in 1947 which introduced the principal of "partnership in obedience"; missionaries were now regarded as people who were invited by local churches for cooperation in mission under the last responsibility of the local church, not of the mission agency at home. The independence of younger churches after the Second World War as well as the integration of mission societies into the structures of the church in Germany after the war contributed to a shift in the understanding of the role of missionaries. The traditional missionary changed to become an "ecumenical/fraternal co-worker".

4. Partnership in mission: the sending of personel through mission agencies and churches among the members of EMW

What is the policy of mission agencies and churches in Germany today regarding this sending out of missionaries or ecumenical co-workers?

The importance of sending of personel: common positions, different accentuations

All members of EMW regard the sending out of persons for participation in global ministries in the mission of God as a still important thing. They all would agree that missionaries are usually invited by local churches for cooperation in mission under the leadership of the local church. There is also an agreement on an holistic understanding of mission that is missionaries are not only ordained persons, but also co-workers in social, medical and other ministries related to development service. There is also agreement on the quality of men and women as partners in God's mission. Mission agencies still receive requests and calls for missionaries to participate in the mission of the local churches abroad. But one must also say that the sending out of personel now is among the mission agencies one area among a number of other activities (mission in Germany, support for partner churches abroad, facilitation of ecumenical contacts etc.). To give an different accentuations of the role of sending out personel in German mission agencies: The Northelbian Mission Centre (NMZ) holds that the support of measures of local churches to strengthen their own leadership has priority over sending out of personel from Germany. The Evangelical Lutheran Mission of Hermannsburg has a different emphasis: it holds also the principal of a partnership high, but gives a special priority to sending out of personel and entertains therefore a seminary for the education of missionaries in Germany. Evangelical missions would give high priority to sending out of missionaries and define mission from sending out of persons.

4.2 Towards a new "Leitbild" of global missionary service

What emerged among EMW-members is a model of partnership in mission and common participation of churches in the mission of God. We still have something like a "professional image" of missionaries. This refers to long time co-workers (usually from 5 – 12 years) who bring special competence into a new context. Precondition for the cooperation in mission is the invitation or call of a local church, the missionary is also regarded as sign of ecumenical fellowship among churches and within global Christianity. There is also very high emphasis on the learning experience of the missionary himself/herself and the expectation that he brings something back after return from his experience to contribute to the mission of the church at home.

However, we also observe a number of ambivalences around the service of missionaries. There is a great awareness of the "burden of the past" among missionaries who are engaged with great empathy in the servie with different peoples and communities. Missionaries are today usually professionally trained people and make contributions to churches and their missions usually in a specified field (experts). Some co-workers, however - particularly those who involved in development service - have difficulties with the term missionary, but encounter expectations towards spirituality from the side of the partner churches.

Even though the word missionary has become a problematic word for many, one should not simply give up on the word mission. The word mission is a reminder on the spiritual-theological frame work in which the mission of the church is carried out. The co-workers are therefore not simply experts in a certain field of work. Therefore we must stress the positive content of the word missionary. Today it will be very difficult to give a normative "Leitbild" for the missionary service, but we should try to give hints to special images and metaphors for describing the missionary service. A missionary is, for example, somebody who crosses borders; he/she has the role of an outsider, but this role as a stranger and a foreigner working in fellowship with others can also be regarded as a charisma. What we need today is a "missionary spirituality" characterised by the willingness to associate with other people in the name of Jesus Christ.

4.3 Consequences – perspectives

1. We may expect that the number of long term co-workers will still decline in coming years. One has to say that the number of missionaries is not in itself a blessing, but on the other hand the refusal to send out missionaries must be seen as a deficit in the spiritual life of a church. Therefore it has to be stressed that co-workers remain a sign for the fact that a sending church looks beyond its own context and borders and engages in participation in the mission of God.

2. We can observe that mission agencies have developed other programmes which involve quite a number of people. There are volunteer programmes, there is a programme for a short term engagement, a number of partnership groups etc.

3. Mission agencies and churches have inrecent years increasingly faced problems in recruiting adequate persons for a long time missionary service. In the background of this issue there is the transition in German society towards an deepening secularized and postmodern mindset, a break of tradition of culture christianity, which calls for a new mission emphasis in our own context. Nevertheless, mission agencies have to look for ways to engage young people and to interest them for the challenges of global ministries.

4. An important area is the question of education and preparation for a missionary service, not only for theologians but also for lay people. Preparation does not only entail information about the country etc, but also spiritual formation.

5. Missionary co-workers are confronted with a number of stress phenomena today; therefore the accompaniment and supervision of co-workers in mission is becoming more important than in the past.

6. One also has to develop programmes to integrate people who return after some years of service to Germany; one must help people to engage in fruitful processes of sharing their experiences with the local church in Germany.

7. We have also a number of persons from partner churches working in churches and congregations in Germany. After experience of 20 years with such kind of programmes it is time for an evaluation.

8. We also have to raise the self critical question whether we still as churches and mission agencies in Germany are open for new missionary challenges. It is the strength of evangelical mission agencies who don't feel strongly committed to the model of partnership mission to respond more flexible to new developments; other mission agencies are strongly committed to bi-lateral or multi-lateral partnership relations. One has to find a balance between irresponsible "freebooter mission" and an openness for a new call from God.

This annual report could not answer all the questions in regard to the role of missionaries, but it wanted to provide some help to engage in a meaningful discussion in the future of mission carried out by German mission agencies.

Klaus Schäfer

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