Hope to Become More Truly Global - Rolando Santiago
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DownloadI have been giving a lot of thought to the question: “What does it mean for MCC to be more truly global?” I am sure a lot of you who are reading these lines have also thought about this question and have your own answers.
For me, MCC will be more truly global when it invites the many Mennonite and Brethren in Christ church constituents outside the U.S. and Canada to become full participants in MCC program ministries. Full participation for me means that church constituents around the world get to appoint board members, send people on program assignments, raise funds, tell stories, witness to their governments, and many more that U.S. and Canadian church constituents are currently able to do through MCC.
I would go further to say that part of becoming global is to also become global within the U.S. and Canadian boundaries. This summer with the assistance of a young Hispanic intern, in MCC U.S. we documented 245 congregations Mennonite and Brethren in Christ from Latino, African American, Native American, Asian American and recent immigrant backgrounds. One growing edge of MCCs church constituency in the U.S. and Canada are from these congregations. They need to be engaged with MCC.
I am hoping that as MCC becomes more truly global through New Wine/New Wineskins envisioning process, that we invite the global church within and without the U.S. and Canada to increase many fold their participation in our MCC efforts to build peace, bring justice, and promote healing in a world that awaits the good news of God’s reconciling love!
Rolando Santiago
Executive Director
MCC US
Comments
Truly global MCC.
having been involved in MCC for 25 years, I am amused that this question is being raised as something new. Folks, this has been around as long as my memory serves me, at least from 1978 when I joined administrative staff with MCC Can. This is not new stuff.
Placing a few token board members from other countries on the MCC bi national board will not serve any significant purpose.
What I see needed is an authentic attempt to partner with the Mennonite churches in the 67 countiries where Mennonites exist today, and assist them in organizing an MCC center for each country, thru which and in partnership with MCC North America would function...,responding to personnel needs and financial assitance at the request of that host country.
There will be a lot of education required to bring the Mennonite and BIC constituency along with such direction, especially for the senior crowd, who may still be functioning on the premise that MCC gives and controls all the aid,. distributed by OUR volunteers.
The flip side is the younger population in our constituency who all want their personalized project engaging them personally etc.
To revisit the question of strengthening church/conference support is probably an irrelevant question .That has eroded steadily over the last 20 years, and I would say it is gone. Churches and conferences are concerned about their own survival these days, punctuated by the fact that most churches have their own Mission projects, and conferences are moving into their MCC type of program, all in attempts to survive. It would take a global plague, avian flu or something, like the scenario of the 1918 Russian issue to provide the stimulus to bring the churches together in a united effort.
The task for MCC will be to communicate that they are relevant and have significant avenues thru which individuals and congregations can do mission. If not, the individual focus, I will decide and control my mission activity and giving will expand.
That is all.
Shalom.
Waldimar Neufeld
weneufeld [at] shaw [dot] ca
Mr. Neufeld,
Well, having been involved with MCC for only a short-term volunteer stint in Mexico, and watching from a distance, I am in no position to argue about the best way to make MCC more global.
However, I was suprised by your comments, and here is why. Before volunteering for MCC, I always viewed (somewhat incorrectly) MCC as a mostly ecumenical, development organization. What I witnessed in Mexico, and have heard about in other countries, is an organization closely tied to the churches. Country directors and volunteers spend a lot of their time helping to build organizational capacity in churches. To me, this seems a strength (provides volunteers with constant guidance and reminder of the Mennonite "third way" as we deal with difficult issues of poverty and inequality) and a weakness (other Mennonite missions groups are planting and building churches, too, and how the work of these and MCC overlap is a bit confusing).
I guess I wonder if a stronger managerial link with churches is going to strengthen the development work of the organization. Isn't it likely that the churches would want to focus on growing the church and not necessarily providing development/environmental/technological assistance? In Mexico, at least, most of the Mennonite churches were in the capital and in very specific regions, while most of the development work was in the poorest, least developed areas of the country. Many of the key connections where I worked were not Mennonite, but were Catholic or non-church associated organizations.
Is this different than the MCC experience in other countries?
MMC NEEDS TO FOCUS THE WORK AS A PART OF THE GOSPEL.