World Mission ‘retools’ to better serve grassroots Presbyterian mission efforts

Presbyterian News Service: World Mission ‘retools’ to better serve grassroots Presbyterian mission efforts

LOUISVILLE – The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s World Mission program is retooling its ministry to respond to the growing number of grassroots Presbyterians who are participating in God’s mission around the globe, World Mission director the Rev. Hunter Farrell announced Tuesday, Jan. 29.

World Mission has created three associate director positions, including one charged with leading a work area dedicated to training congregational mission committees, mission networks and other mission initiators. A search will be launched for an associate director to lead that work area, which is called Equipping the Church for Mission, and for a mission training materials specialist who also will serve in that area.

“This ‘retooling’ responds to the needs of the 230 Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission leaders and global partners I have interviewed over the past six months,” said Farrell, who began his current assignment Aug. 1. “Whereas for decades the General Assembly Council (GAC) ‘did’ international mission in behalf of the denomination, changes in international travel and communication have opened up new possibilities for Presbyterians to participate in international mission.” ...

I’m in my third year of Mission Work Plan development for the General Assembly Council of the PCUSA. This change in World Mission exemplifies the change in the ethos we are trying to foster at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville. Too often the national office has been a non-collaborative top-down operation.

The GAC board has done considerable reflection on our cultural context and how this affects the mission of the national office. We know that dollars and time given to mission within the PCUSA are as high as they have ever been but the focus has changed. People now do mission from their local context rather than contributing to large entities that will do the work for them. Rather than wringing our hands over this change we are celebrating it. We are asking what the role of the national office is in such a context. World Mission’s transition to collaboration, integration, and equipping with middle governing bodies, congregations, and individual Presbyterians, is just the kind of strategic move the GAC Board has been fostering. The staff leadership “gets it” and this is prime evidence that it is so. Kudos to the World Mission team. Stay tuned for more of the same down the road.

Comments

[Scot McKnight]

Michael,

One of my former students, Dan McInerny, is involved in this ministry. Saw him at the airport in Providence last Sunday.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Great! I'll keep an eye out for him (and send us a few more.) :)