Walking together

Lutheran, The, Aug 2004 by Elliott, Robert H

Accompaniment model of global mission creates effective companionships for rapid growth and faithful service

David Lerseth got a phone call from an excited pastor in Minnesota shortly after he started working for the ELCA Division for Global Mission eight years ago. "He said he had just met with his council, and they wanted to support a missionary in Tanzania," recalls Lerseth, director for global mission support. "He paused and then added, 'But only a real evangelist missionary.'

"I told him I had good news, and I had bad news. The bad news was that we didn't have any evangelists in Tanzania. The good news was that the Tanzanians have thousands of them."

For anyone for whom the word "missionary" conjures up images of Stanley and Livingstone, there is, indeed, good news and bad news. The image of the intrepid missionary trekking into the jungle at great peril to "bring the gospel to the heathen" has been turned upside down. Today's missionary inhabits a brave new world.

The missionaries of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century planted churches in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the islands of the South Pacific. Now those churches have grown up, and they are taking responsibility for mission and evangelism in their areas. They are even sending missionaries to Europe and North America.

Three such missionaries now serve in the Greater Milwaukee Synod. Betty and Walter Baires work on outreach to the Latino and Native American communities for three urban congregations. She is a Mexican; he is from El Salvador. A Tanzanian, Elias Kitoi, serves half time with a suburban congregation and half time with the synod, preaching and teaching African-style evangelism (May, page 28).

This new model of Lutheran mission reshapes relationships worldwide. In Moscow, a pastor from Madagascar performs a word and sacrament ministry to French-speaking people from Africa.

For another example, The ELCA is helping an Afro-Cuban Pentecostal study at a Lutheran seminary in Brazil. He is among 70 students from companion churches that the ELCA helps each year to study outside their country and develop leadership skills.

What's going on here?

While most American and European Christians were dutifully paying their tithes and supporting mission abroad, they likely didn't notice that the missionary's role was evolving. The process has been going on for decades, resulting in a new model for global mission that the ELCA calls accompaniment.

Rafael Malpica-Padilla, executive director of the global mission unit, says: "Accompaniment describes the way we do mission and ministry here and the way we relate to our global companion churches. We are on a journey to Emmaus, walking together with our companion churches around the world."

The old model for global mission was basically one way. Northern Hemisphere churches (primarily from Europe and North America) sent missionaries and money to plant the church in the Southern Hemisphere (Latin America, Africa, Asia and the South Pacific). The church that footed the bill got to say how things were done.

The indigenous churches they created are now adults that stand ready to teach the West a thing or two about ministry. That changes the whole relationship, Malpica-Padilla says, adding: "Some people might prefer to call this new relationship a partnership, but partners can still be unequal. Companions describes it better. We are companions, working and walking together, side by side, for the sake of the gospel."

In practical terms, this means indigenous churches set priorities for ministry in their areas. The ELCA supports them with people from the ELCA and other churches and funding as needed.

South to South

Although clergy are still needed, roughly 70 percent of ELCA-supported missionaries today are lay people like Mamy Ranaivoson, a physician and ELCA consultant on HIV/AIDS. He is the archetype of the South-South missionary, going from one Christian community in the Southern Hemisphere to another. The Madagascar native, a member of the Malagasy Lutheran Church, works in Nairobi, Kenya. He formerly served a 100-bed hospital in Papua New Guinea. While there, he led the staff in daily devotions.

Other doctors from Madagascar serve in Cameroon and Bangladesh with ELCA help and support.

For historical and cultural reasons, in many places a missionary from the South might be preferable to one from the United States or Europe, Malpica-Padilla says. "We still have a lot of baggage left over from the colonial era," he says. "We have issues of cultural, ethnic and racial sensitivity. And there is the power dynamic.

"Accompaniment deals with those issues by placing the decision on what and who is needed with the companion church that has the need. The other companion churches support the decision with people and funds as they are able." (See box.)

Learning together

Learning from each other is an essential element to the accompaniment model, Malpica-Padilla says, adding: "The Lutheran church is growing in Africa, Asia and other countries of the South much faster than in Europe and North America. The latest figures show a 9.3 percent growth rate among African Lutherans. Rwanda has a huge youth and young adult ministry."